He gathered up his reins,
cracked his whip, and the lumbering wheels began to move.
"Have a care, child!" I heard the Vicomte cry, "have a care! Adieu,
mon enfant!"
She sprang back, sobbing, and assuredly she would have fallen, thrown
out of balance by the movement of the coach, but that I put forth my
hands and caught her.
I do not think she knew whose were the arms that held her for that
brief space, so desolated was she by the grief so long repressed.
At last she realized that it was this worthless Bardelys against
whom she rested; this man who had wagered that he would win and wed
her; this impostor who had come to her under an assumed name; this
knave who had lied to her as no gentleman could have lied, swearing
to love her, whilst, in reality, he did no more than seek to win a
wager. When all this she realized, she shuddered a second, then
moved abruptly from my grasp, and, without so much as a glance at
me, she left me, and, ascending the steps of the chateau, she passed
from my sight.
I gave the order to dismount as the last of Saint-Eustache's
followers vanished under the portcullis.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FLINT AND THE STEEL
"Mademoiselle will see you, monsieur," said Anatole at last.
Twice already had he carried unavailingly my request that Roxalanne
should accord me an interview ere I departed. On this the third
occasion I had bidden him say that I would not stir from Lavedan
until she had done me the honour of hearing me.
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