The Rising Storm

ready, and I had my pistol on my lap.'

'Then, Senorita, I count you braver still, since you returned anticipating a fight and were prepared to enter it yourself.'

'Monsieur, I am a General's daughter,' she said lightly, 'so reared to have no fear of arms. But a truce to compliments. Pleased as I am that we should meet again, I am nonetheless surprised at it; and somewhat concerned by your apparent dilatoriness in Her Majesty's service. How comes it that having been five days on the road you are got no further?'

Roger cocked an eyebrow. 'I was under the impression that Her Majesty attached more importance to the safe than the speedy delivery of her letter.'

' 'Tis true; and, in view of the injuries you have sustained, now most fortunate that should be so. I meant only that such a leisurely progress seemed most unlike the opinion I had formed of you. More­over I am still at a loss to understand how I, who have travelled but a grandmother's pace of twenty-five miles a day, should have passed you; as I must have done, seeing that you left Fontainebleau a night ahead of me.'

'That is easy to explain. Before setting out for Italy I had certain private business that required my attention in Paris; so I directed the royal carriage in which you left me, thither, and did not leave again till Tuesday morning. Therefore 'twas you who had two days plus near forty miles start of me; and although I was covering some sixty miles a day it was only last night that I caught up with you.'

She gave a not very convincing laugh and remarked: 'I might have guessed that any gentleman of so dashing an appearance as Monsieur would have had tender adieux to make before departing on so long a journey.'

The way she said it, and the way her dark eyebrows drew together afterwards in a little frown, revealed more clearly than anything had yet done her feelings towards him. For an instant he was tempted to let her think her supposition correct, but his natural kindness overcame the impulse, and he said:

'Nay, Senorita; but there were numerous invitations I had accepted, and in common politeness I could not leave without making suitable excuses to my friends; also I had to convert some of my English letters of Credit into Italian bills of Exchange, and these things are not done in a couple of hours. Yet, if you were surprised to see me again I was equally so to see you. I had thought of you as nearing Chateauroux by this time, on your way to Spain.'

'You had not forgotten me then?' She could not keep the eagerness out of her voice, and her slightly uneven teeth showed in a smile.

'Far from it, Senorita. How could I, after the interest you displayed in—in my story ? But how comes it that instead of taking the road to the Pyrenees you are on that to Marseilles? Is it that you have, after all, abandoned your plan of rejoining your family?'

'But no!' she exclaimed. 'You must have misunderstood me. 'Tis true that I am on my way to rejoin my parents, but for some time past they have been resident in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. I am proceeding to Marseilles with the object of taking a ship thence to Naples.'

''Twas stupid of me,' Roger murmured. 'I had temporarily forgotten that Naples is also a Spanish Court.'

'It is an easy mistake to make; and my father retired there only after his differences with the old King.'

'Do you think you will enjoy life at the Neapolitan Court ?'

She gave him a searching look. ' 'Tis hard to say, Monsieur. The Two Sicilies have for so long been under Spanish influence that I cannot think the life of the aristocracy there differs much from what it is in Spain. If so, despite any new distractions in my altered status, I fear I shall soon be sadly missing the witty and intelligent society which I enjoyed while with Madame Marie Antoinette.'

Roger frowned. 'Your mention of Her Majesty recalls me to my duty to her. By averaging sixty miles a day I had hoped to deliver her despatch to the Grand Duke somewhere about the middle of the month, but my prospects of being able to do so now seem far from good.'

'As you infer that you would have ridden all the way, I take it you meant to go via Lyons, Chambery and Turin?'

'Yes, since 'tis May, and the passage of the Alps now open.'

'Yet had it been earlier in the year you would have had no choice but to go down to Marseilles, and take ship from there across the gulf to Leghorn. Now that it will prove impossible to ride, are you still set upon taking the Alpine route?'

'Why, yes; for it is normally the quicker at this time of year whether one goes on horseback or in a post- chaise. What now perturbs me is that it may be some days before the chirurgeon permits me to resume my journey; and that even when he does I may find the jolting of a fast post-chaise so painful to my leg that I shall be able to bear it only for short stages.'

Isabella gave him a thoughtful look. 'It was just that of which I was thinking. If during your convalescence you are reduced to going in short stages anyway, you would travel far more comfortably in a well-sprung coach.'

Suddenly Roger saw the way her mind was working. If he went via the Alps, as he had intended, their ways would part at Moulins, only a good day's journey further south. She wanted him to change his route so that she could keep him with her all the way to Marseilles. Next moment she disclosed her thought:

'Even when the chirurgeon pronounces you fit to proceed, your wounds will require careful dressing for some days. Alone on the road to Italy you will be dependent for that on the unskilled ministrations of slatternly inn servants; whereas if you come with me in my coach we can look after you properly.'

Roger's brain was now revolving at high speed. Crippled as he was there would probably be little difference in the time it took him to reach Florence whether he went by land or sea. But the latter involved certain highly perturbing possibilities. He now had little doubt that from their first meeting in the forest of Fontainebleau Isabella d'Aranda had fallen in love with him. He was not in love with her, but he knew what propinquity could do to a man like himself who was easily attracted to pretty women. His heart was not made of the stuff to withstand for long the lure of being with her day after day for long hours in the close confinement of a coach. He knew that he would become more and more intrigued by her subtle charm until he gave way to the temptation to make love to her. And from that it might be but a short step to falling in love with her himself.

Such a development could end only in the misery of a painful parting at Marseilles, followed perhaps by months of hopeless longings. It would be far kinder to her to let her go on alone while her feeling for him had so little to feed upon that it could soon be forgotten. And the caution he had inherited from his Scottish mother warned him that to do so would also save him from putting himself in a situation that he might later bitterly regret.

'I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your thought for me, Senorita,' he said, after only a moment's hesitation. 'But I fear I must decline your offer. 'Tis true that when I set out again I may have to go carefully for the first few days, but after that I should be able to stand up to longer stages.'

Her dark brows drew together. 'Yet you said yourself that you counted the safe delivery of Her Majesty's letter of paramount impor­tance, and speed only a secondary consideration.'

'Indeed I did. But what of it?'

'You seem to have forgotten that you are no longer in a state to defend yourself, and are unlikely to be so for some time to come.'

'That is so, but now that I am well clear of Paris, why should I fear attack?'

Isabella's brown eyes widened. 'Surely, Monsieur, you realize that de Roubec, having seen you come to my rescue, may now think..'

'De Roubec I' exclaimed Roger, starting up, then falling back at the sudden twinge his foot and arm gave him. 'Do you mean that he was among the men who attacked your coach?'

'Why, yes. He was one of those who pulled the Senora Poeblar from it. I recognized him despite his mask. Moreover, he got away unharmed by you, for 'twas his horse that Pedro shot in the buttocks.'

'I thought them ordinary highwaymen intent on robbery. But why, in Heaven's name, should de Roubec set upon you ?'

She shrugged. 'The Queen's enemies knew about that letter; they knew also that I am her friend and was about to proceed to Naples, from whence it would have been easy to send it by a safe hand up to Florence. What could be more natural than that she should entrust it to me?'

'I wonder, now, that she did not adopt that course.'

‘We talked of it, but decided that it was so obvious as to invite certain danger. In fact, at my suggestion we