At last he cried:
“Speak to me, I implore you. I speak jokingly in order to be able to tell you things that I should not dare to tell you seriously. But, at heart, I’m afraid of you; and I do not know what I am saying. Answer me, I beg you. Say just a few words that will recall me to reality.”
“Only a few words?” she said slowly.
“Yes, just a few.”
“Well, then, here they are: Doudeville Station is quite near; and the railway is waiting for you.”
He crossed his arms with an air of indignation.
“And you?” he said.
“I?”
“Yes. What is going to become of you all by yourself?”
“Goodness!” she said quickly. “I shall try to get on as I’ve been getting on up to now.”
“That’s impossible. You cannot do without me any longer. You have entered upon a struggle in which my help is indispensable. Beaumagnan, Godfrey d’Etigues, the Prince of Arcola are so many ruffians who will crush you.”
“They believe me dead.”
“That’s all the more reason for letting me join forces with you. If you are dead how do you wish to act?”
“Don’t let that worry you. I shall act without their seeing me,” she said confidently.
“But how much more easily through me as your agent! No; I beg you—and now I am speaking very seriously—do not reject my aid. There are things which a woman cannot accomplish by herself. Owing to the mere fact that you, a woman, are seeking the same end as these men and are consequently at war with them, they have succeeded in forming the most ignoble plot against you. They brought such charges against you and supported them by proofs apparently so sound that for a moment I actually saw in you the sorceress and criminal whom Beaumagnan was overwhelming with his hatred and contempt. Do not be angry with me for that. As soon as you began to defend yourself against them, I saw my mistake. Beaumagnan and his confederates became nothing more than your hateful and cowardly executioners. You dominated them by your dignity; and today not a vestige of all their calumnies lingers in my memory. But you must accept my help. If I have ruffled your sensibilities by telling you that I love you, you will hear no more about that. All I ask for is to be allowed to devote myself to you, as one concentrates oneself to that which is most beautiful and purest.”
She yielded to his earnest pressure. They drove on through Doudeville. A little further on, on the road to Yvetot, the carriage turned into a farmyard, along the edge of which ran a row of beeches which seemed to be stunting the apple trees with which it was planted, and came to a stop.
“Here we get out,” said the Countess. “This place belongs to Mother Vasseur, an excellent woman who was once my cook. She keeps an inn a little way down the road. Sometimes when I want a rest I come and stay with her for a day or two. We will lunch here, Leonard, and be off again in an hour.”
She and Ralph turned into the high road again. She walked with the light step of a young girl. She was wearing a tightly-fitting gray frock and a mauve hat, with velvet strings, and trimmed with bunches of violets. Ralph walked a little behind her in order to feast his eyes on her.
Round the first corner they found a small white house with a thatched roof; in front of it was a small flower-garden. They stepped right into the bar which ran the length of the house.
“A man’s voice,” said Ralph doubtfully, nodding towards the door of a room on the other side of the bar.
“That’s the room in which Mother Vasseur always gives me my meals,” said the Countess. “I expect some of the villagers are in it.”
On her words the door of it opened and a woman well on in years, wearing an apron and sabots, came out of it.
At the sight of the Countess she appeared utterly flabbergasted, shut the door sharply behind her and stuttered something they could not understand.
“What’s the matter?” said Josephine Balsamo in a tone of anxiety.
Mother Vasseur dropped into a chair and murmured more clearly:
“Be off! … Bolt! … Be quick!”
“But why? Explain?” said the Countess.
The old woman got control of herself and said:
“Detectives. … They’re hunting for you. … They’ve searched your trunks. … They’re expecting the policemen from the town. … Run away, or you’re lost!”
The Countess tottered, and looking as if she were about to faint, leaned against the bar. Her eyes met Ralph’s in a supplication. It was for all the world as if she thought that she was lost and begged him to help her.
Ralph was stupefied. He stammered:
“B-b-but what d-d-do the police matter to you? It isn’t you they’re looking for! … Why on earth—”
“Yes, yes! It is her!” said Mother Vasseur. “They are looking for her! … Save her!”
Without grasping the full significance of this astonishing scene, Ralph divined that here was something in the nature of a tragedy. He caught the Countess by the arm, drew her to the door, and thrust her through it.
But crossing the threshold first, she started back in affright and cried:
“The police! They have seen me!”
The two of them hastily stepped back into the house. Mother Vasseur was trembling in every limb; she muttered stupidly:
“The police … the detectives.”
“Be quiet!” snapped Ralph in a low voice, keeping quite calm. “I’ll answer for its being all right. How many detectives are there?”
“Two.”
“And two policemen. Then it’s no use trying force; and we’re surrounded. Where are those trunks they’ve searched?”
“Upstairs.”
“Where’s the staircase to them?”
“Here,” she said, pointing to the door on the right.
“Right. You stay here; and don’t give yourself away. Once more I tell you, I’ll answer for its turning out all right.”
Again he
