CHAPTER XXXII.  THE ORDEAL BY STEEL.

The women for the most part fell like sacks and slept where they alighted, dead weary.  The men, when they had cared for the horses, followed the example; for Badelon would suffer no fire.  In less than half an hour, a sentry who stood on guard at the edge of the wood, and Tignonville and La Tribe, who talked in low voices with their backs against a tree, were the only persons who remained awake, with the exception of the Countess.  Carlat had made a couch for her, and screened it with cloaks from the wind and the eye; for the moon had risen and where the trees stood sparsest its light flooded the soil with pools of white.  But Madame had not yet retired to her bed.  The two men, whose voices reached her, saw her from time to time moving restlessly to and fro between the road and the little encampment.  Presently she came and stood over them.

“He led His people out of the wilderness,” La Tribe was saying; “out of the trouble of Paris, out of the trouble of Angers, and always, always southward.  If you do not in this, Monsieur, see His finger—­”

“And Angers?” Tignonville struck in, with a faint sneer.  “Has He led that out of trouble?  A day or two ago you would risk all to save it, my friend.  Now, with your back safely turned on it, you think all for the best.”

“We did our best,” the minister answered humbly.  “From the day we met in Paris we have been but instruments.”

“To save Angers?”

“To save a remnant.”

On a sudden the Countess raised her hand.  “Do you not hear horses, Monsieur?” she cried.  She had been listening to the noises of the night, and had paid little heed to what the two were saying.

“One of ours moved,” Tignonville answered listlessly.  “Why do you not lie down, Madame?”

Instead of answering, “Whither is he going?” she asked.  “Do you know?”

“I wish I did know,” the young man answered peevishly.  “To Niort, it may be.  Or presently he will double back and recross the Loire.”

“He would have gone by Cholet to Niort,” La Tribe said.  “The direction is rather that of Rochelle.  God grant we be bound thither!”

“Or to Vrillac,” the Countess cried, clasping her hands in the darkness.  “Can it be to Vrillac he is going?”

The minister shook his head.

“Ah, let it be to Vrillac!” she cried, a thrill in her voice.  “We should be safe there.  And he would be safe.”

“Safe?” echoed a fourth and deeper voice.  And out of the darkness beside them loomed a tall figure.

The minister looked and leapt to his feet.  Tignonville rose more slowly.

The voice was Tavannes’.  “And where am I to be safe?” he repeated slowly, a faint ring of saturnine amusement in his tone.

“At Vrillac!” she cried.  “In my house, Monsieur!”

He was silent a moment.  Then, “Your house, Madame?  In which direction is it, from here?”