“Let us go on the water!” she cried.  “Presently you will go to bathe, Monsieur, and leave us to grill!”

“Two livres to the man who will fetch the boat!” Count Hannibal cried.

In less than half a minute three men had thrown off their boots, and were swimming across, amid the laughter and shouts of their fellows.  In five minutes the boat was brought.

It was not large and would hold no more than four.  Tavannes’ eye fell on Carlat.

“You understand a boat,” he said.  “Go with Madame St. Lo.  And you, M. La Tribe.”

“But you are coming?” Madame St. Lo cried, turning to the Countess.  “Oh, Madame,” with a curtsey, “you are not?  You—­”

“Yes, I will come,” the Countess answered.

“I shall bathe a short distance up the stream,” Count Hannibal said.  He took from his belt the packet of letters, and as Carlat held the boat for Madame St. Lo to enter, he gave it to the Countess, as he had given it to her yesterday.  “Have a care of it, Madame,” he said in a low voice, “and do not let it pass out of your hands.  To lose it may be to lose my head.”

The colour ebbed from her cheeks.  In spite of herself her shaking hand put back the packet.  “Had you not better then—­give it to Bigot?” she faltered.

“He is bathing.”

“Let him bathe afterwards.”

“No,” he answered almost harshly; he found a species of pleasure in showing her that, strange as their relations were, he trusted her.  “No; take it, Madame.  Only have a care of it.”

She took it then, hid it in her dress, and he turned away; and she turned towards the boat.  La Tribe stood beside the stern, holding it for her to enter, and as her fingers rested an instant on his arm their eyes met.  His were alight, his arm even quivered; and she shuddered.

She avoided looking at him a second time, and this was easy, since he took his seat in the bows beyond Carlat, who handled the oars.  Silently the boat glided out on the surface of the stream, and floated downwards, Carlat now and again touching an oar, and Madame St. Lo chattering gaily in a voice which carried far on the water.  Now it was a flowering rush she must have, now a green bough to shield her face from the sun’s reflection; and now they must lie in some cool, shadowy pool under fern-clad banks, where the fish rose heavily, and the trickle of a rivulet fell down over stones.

It was idyllic.  But not to the Countess.  Her face burned, her temples throbbed, her fingers gripped the side of the boat in the vain attempt to steady her pulses.  The packet within her dress scorched her.  The great city and its danger, Tavannes and his faith in her, the need of action, the irrevocableness of action hurried through her brain.  The knowledge that she must act now—­or never—­pressed upon her with distracting force.  Her hand felt the packet, and fell again nerveless.

“The sun has caught you, ma mie,” Madame St. Lo said.  “You should ride in a mask as I do.”