"Alone? Whither?"
"To Clochonne, to M. de la Chatre," was the reply.
It took away from me for a moment the very power of speech. I stared at
the boy in dumb amazement.
"Clochonne! La Chatre! Mademoiselle!" I murmured, questioningly, my
faculty of comprehension being for the instant dazed. "How do you
know, boy?"
"She said so when she left this courtyard to take horse," the boy
replied. "When I asked her whither she was bound, she said to Clochonne
to see M. de la Chatre, and she spoke of some mission, but I could not
hear the words exactly, for she was in great excitement. She then made
off, declaring she would go alone, but it was my duty, nevertheless, to
follow and guard her."
"Mademoiselle gone to Clochonne, to La Chatre," I repeated, as one
in a dream.
At that instant there came again from somewhere in the chateau the voice
of the gypsy in the song.
"False flame of woman's love!"
"The devil!" muttered Blaise. "Was De Berquin right?" And he ran into
the chateau.
"The woman who told our hiding-place!" said Frojac.
Could it be? Was she another Mademoiselle d'Arency? Had she thought that,
after De Berquin's accusation, any attempt on her part to draw me from my
men would convict her in my eyes; that indeed I might come at any moment
to believe in the treachery of which he had warned me? Had this thought
driven her to Clochonne, where she might be safe from my avenging wrath,
where also she might advise the governor to attack me at once? She had
spoken to the boy of a mission.
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