"But why must you go so soon?" she asked. "You are safe at Lavedan,
and abroad you may be in danger. It was but two days ago that they
took a poor young gentleman of these parts at Pau; so that you see
the persecution is not yet ended. Are you" - and her voice trembled
ever so slightly - "are you weary of us, monsieur?"
I shook my head at that, and smiled wistfully.
"Weary?" I echoed. "Surely, mademoiselle, you do not think it?
Surely your heart must tell you something very different?"
She dropped her eyes before the passion of my gaze. And when
presently she answered me, there was no guile in her words; there
were the dictates of the intuitions of her sex, and nothing more.
"But it is possible, monsieur. You are accustomed to the great
world--"
"The great world of Lesperon, in Gascony?" I interrupted.
"No, no; the great world you have inhabited at Paris and elsewhere.
I can understand that at Lavedan you should find little of interest,
and - and that your inactivity should render you impatient to be
gone."
"If there were so little to interest me then it might be as you say.
But, oh, mademoiselle--" I ceased abruptly. Fool! I had almost
fallen a prey to the seductions that the time afforded me. The
balmy, languorous eventide, the broad, smooth river down which we
glided, the foliage, the shadows on the water, her presence, and our
isolation amid such surroundings, had almost blotted out the matter
of the wager and of my duplicity.
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