Part 14 (1/2)

”Who, then, has done this deed?” St. Georges asked, deeply stirred by the woman's wild sorrow, perhaps also by the gloomy surroundings. ”Who can do such things as this, even though powerful?”

”Who?” she replied. ”Who? Who but one in these parts? The hound, De Roquemaure!”

”De Roquemaure!” St. Georges exclaimed with a start that caused his trembling horse to move forward, thinking that he had pressed its flanks to urge it on, which start was perfectly perceptible to the unhappy woman. ”De Roquemaure!”

”You know him?” she asked eagerly, bending her face toward and up to him so that he could see her pale lips--lips, indeed, almost as pale as her cheeks--”you know him?”

”I know of him,” St. Georges replied.

”And hate him, perhaps, as I do. It may be, would kill him as I would.

Is it so? Answer me?”

Carried away by this strange encounter, and with so strange a third thing near them as _that_ above, which once had life as they had still; carried away, too, by the woman's vehemence--a vehemence which caused her, a peasant, to speak on equal terms with one whose dress and accoutrements showed the difference between them--he answered almost in a whisper:

”It may be,” he said, bending down still further to her, ”that I shall be doomed to kill him some day. May be that he has merited death at my hands.”

”You hate him?”

”I fear I have but too just cause to hate him.”

”As all do! As all! He lives,” she went on, ”but to slay and injure others as he slew and injured him,” and she half turned her head and cast up her eyes at the miserable relic above her. Then she continued: ”Listen. _He_ was no poacher, no thief. But I--I--his wife--was unfortunate enough to fall under the other's notice--he sought me--you understand?--and _he_”--with again the upward glance--”resisted his desires. You see the end!”

Looking into her eyes, observing her well-defined features, noticing that, except for her awful pallor, she might well be a handsome woman, especially when bright and happy instead of, as now, grief-stained, St. Georges could understand. Then, while also he meditated as to whether this De Roquemaure was a fiend that had taken human shape, the woman went on:

”Daily almost some fall under his bane. But a week ago a stranger here--one carrying a helpless babe--was set upon----”

”What!” and now he felt as though the universe was spinning round.

--”was set upon,” she continued, ”struck to death--he is dying now, or dead----”

”And the babe?” St. Georges interposed.

”Carried off by those who did his bidding.”

”O G.o.d! Lost again!” and the moan he uttered startled the woman out of her own grief.

”Who are you?” she asked, her great eyes piercing him.

”As I believe, that child's unhappy father.”

Aroused by this to forget her own sufferings, even to forget for the moment the dreadful burden borne by the gallows tree, she thrust out her hand and seized his sleeve.

”Who, then, is the dying man?” she whispered.

”I know not--but--but--for mercy's sake, in memory of the misery you have suffered, in pity for mine, lead me to this man! You know where he is; you can do so?”

”Come,” she said. ”Come. He is in my hut close by. We were very poor, we had no better. Come. Tie your horse to a tree and follow me.”

Dazed, scarce knowing whether he was awake or asleep and dreaming, he obeyed her, leading the horse away some paces so that it should be no more frightened by the horrible burden of the gibbet, and following her through a thicket. In other circ.u.mstances he might have feared an ambush; now, a thousand hidden enemies would not have held him back.