Part 23 (2/2)
”The first stall to the right I shall be there in an instant!” For I reet it
”Get that”In after hili a leap for the stairs Then there was a crash of glass
”Begad!” cah the !”
And another pistol exploded fro above ets him” I could swear I had heard the voice before ”dao! Out the door, all of you! Out the door, h the passage I had a gli past, and then I was half out the
”Stop!” solance behindrooood nature erased froash on his left cheek that still was bleeding
”Stop!” he shouted again, ”or I fire!”
Then I was out on the laith the cool air fro for the stable I wonder ould have happened if the evening had been less far advanced, or the sky less overcast, or Mademoiselle less adroit than providence hadthe saddle on him when I had reached the stable's shadow I could hear irths, but Brutus must have led his men a pretty chase
I mounted unmolested, as I someho I should, and helped her up behind me Somehoith that first crash on our front door, I knew that the ga would stop me An odd sense of exaltation cah It would be ah when I met my father, but I wondered--I wondered as I clapped my heels into my horse's flanks
What had my uncle to do in this affair?
XIV
It was just that ti out of the sky The thick, heavyin chill and heavy fro the hollow places in the land The clouds were still a claret colored purple in the west, but in another few one The shapes around us were fast losing their distinctiveness, and their outlines were beco more and more a matter for the memory, and not the eye And it seems to me that I never knew the air to seeallop down the rutted lane The house, gaunt and spectral, and bleaker andsky, was behind us, and ahead were the broad level meadows, checkered with little clumps ofand cedars, as meadows are that lie near the salt ate, but I wasdown the level road, when an exclamation from Mademoiselle made me turn in ation, for Made
”To think,” she cried, ”I should have said you rese, Monsieur?”
But I think she kneithout ain, and I did not entirely blah to leave our house behind It was pleasant to feel the bite of the salt wind, and to see the trees and the rocks by the roadside slip past us, gaunt and spectral in the evening I knew the road well enough, which was fortunate, even e turned off the beaten track over a trail which was hardly as good as a foot path I was forced to reduce our pace to a walk, but I was confident that it did not make much difference Once on the path, the fare of rocks that was studded by a stunted undergrowth of wind beaten oak I knew the place I could already picture the gaping black s, the broken, sagging ridge pole, and the cruh its deserted rooe that its owners had left it, for I can iine no more mournful or desolate spot Our own house, three enial one Around it was nothing but rain sogged meadows that scarcely rose above the salt
As I stared grimly ahead, I could picture her there behindwith her hair, her eyes bright and gay in the half-light Save for the steady plodding of the horse, it was very still I fancied that she had leaned nearer, that her shoulder was touching mine, that I could feel her breath on my cheek
Then she spoke, and her voice was alood of you to take me with you,” she said
”Surely, Mademoiselle,” I replied, ”You did not think that I would leave you?”
”I should, if I had been you,” she answered, ”I was rude to you, Monsieur, and unjust to you thisYou see I did not know”
”You did not know?”
”That the son would be as brave and as resourceful as the father You are, Monsieur, and yet you are different”