La Tribe followed hastily.  Tignonville was the last to go.  In the act of disappearing he raised his lanthorn for a last glimpse of the Countess.  To his astonishment the passage was empty; she was gone.  Hard by him a door stood an inch or two ajar, and he guessed that it was hers, and swore under his breath, hating her at that moment.  But he did not guess how nicely she had calculated her strength; how nearly exhaustion had overcome her; or that, even while he paused—­a fatal pause had he known it—­eyeing the dark opening of the door, she lay as one dead, on the bed within.  She had fallen in a swoon, from which she did not recover until the sun had risen, and marched across one quarter of the heavens.

Nor did he see another thing, or he might have hastened his steps.  Before the yellow light of his lanthorn faded from the ceiling of the passage, the door of the room farthest from the trap slid open.  A man, whose eyes, until darkness swallowed him, shone strangely in a face extraordinarily softened, came out on tip-toe.  This man stood awhile, listening.  At length, hearing those below utter a cry of dismay, he awoke to sudden activity.  He opened with a turn of the key the door which stood at his elbow, the door which led to the other part of the house.  He vanished through it.  A second later a sharp whistle pierced the darkness of the courtyard, and brought a dozen sleepers to their senses and their feet.  A moment, and the courtyard hummed with voices, above which one voice rang clear and insistent.  With a startled cry the inn awoke.

CHAPTER XXV.  THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART.

“But why,” Madame St. Lo asked, sticking her arms akimbo, “why stay in this forsaken place a day and a night, when six hours in the saddle would set us in Angers?”

“Because,” Tavannes replied coldly—­he and his cousin were walking before the gateway of the inn—­“the Countess is not well, and will be the better, I think, for staying a day.”

“She slept soundly enough!  I’ll answer for that!”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“She never raised her head this morning, though my women were shrieking ‘Murder!’ next door, and—­Name of Heaven!” Madame resumed, after breaking off abruptly, and shading her eyes with her hand, “what comes here?  Is it a funeral?  Or a pilgrimage?  If all the priests about here are as black, no wonder M. Rabelais fell out with them!”

The inn stood without the walls for the convenience of those who wished to take the road early:  a little also, perhaps, because food and forage were cheaper, and the wine paid no town-dues.  Four great roads met before the house, along the most easterly of which the sombre company which had caught Madame St. Lo’s attention could be seen approaching.  At first Count Hannibal supposed with his companion that the travellers were conveying to the grave the