For a time he hurried on, thinking only of escape.  But when he had covered a mile or two, and escape seemed probable, there began to mingle with his thankfulness a bitter—­a something which grew more bitter with each moment.  Why had he fled and left the work undone?  Why had he given way to unworthy fear, when the letters were within his grasp?  True, if he had lingered a few seconds longer, he would have failed to make good his escape; but what of that if in those seconds he had destroyed the letters, he had saved Angers, he had saved his brethren?  Alas! he had played the coward.  The terror of Tavannes’ voice had unmanned him.  He had saved himself and left the flock to perish; he, whom God had set apart by many and great signs for this work!

He had commonly courage enough.  He could have died at the stake for his convictions.  But he had not the presence of mind which is proof against a shock, nor the cool judgment which, in the face of death, sees to the end of two roads.  He was no coward, but now he deemed himself one, and in an agony of remorse he flung himself on his face in the long grass.  He had known trials and temptations, but hitherto he had held himself erect; now, like Peter, he had betrayed his Lord.

He lay an hour groaning in the misery of his heart, and then he fell on the text “Thou art Peter, and on this rock—­” and he sat up.  Peter had betrayed his trust through cowardice—­as he had.  But Peter had not been held unworthy.  Might it not be so with him?  He rose to his feet, a new light in his eyes.  He would return!  He would return, and at all costs, even at the cost of surrendering himself, he would obtain access to the letters.  And then—­not the fear of Count Hannibal, not the fear of instant death, should turn him from his duty.

He had cast himself down in a woodland glade which lay near the path along which he had ridden that morning.  But the mental conflict from which he rose had shaken him so violently that he could not recall the side on which he had entered the clearing, and he turned himself about, endeavouring to remember.  At that moment the light jingle of a bridle struck his ear; he caught through the green bushes the flash and sparkle of harness.  They had tracked him then, they were here!  So had he clear proof that this second chance was to be his.  In a happy fervour he stood forward where the pursuers could not fail to see him.

Or so he thought.  Yet the first horseman, riding carelessly with his face averted and his feet dangling, would have gone by and seen nothing if his horse, more watchful, had not shied.  The man turned then; and for a moment the two stared at one another between the pricked ears of the horse.  At last—­

“M. de Tignonville!” the minister ejaculated.

“La Tribe!”

“It is truly you?”

“Well—­I think so,” the young man answered.

The minister lifted up his eyes and seemed to call the trees and the clouds and the birds to witness.