“Westwards,” she answered impulsively, her voice quivering with eagerness and emotion and hope.  “Westwards, Monsieur—­on the sea.  The causeway from the land is long, and ten can hold it against ten hundred.”

“Westwards?  And how far westwards?”

Tignonville answered for her; in his tone throbbed the same eagerness, the same anxiety, which spoke in hers.  Nor was Count Hannibal’s ear deaf to it.

“Through Challans,” he said, “thirteen leagues.”

“From Clisson?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Comte.”

“And by Commequiers less,” the Countess cried.

“No, it is a worse road,” Tignonville answered quickly; “and longer in time.”

“But we came—­”

“At our leisure, Madame.  The road is by Challans, if we wish to be there quickly.”

“Ah!” Count Hannibal said.  In the darkness it was impossible to see his face or mark how he took it.  “But being there, I have few men.”

“I have forty will come at call,” she cried with pride.  “A word to them, and in four hours or a little more—­”

“They would outnumber mine by four to one,” Count Hannibal answered coldly, dryly, in a voice like ice-water flung in their faces.  “Thank you, Madame; I understand.  To Vrillac is no long ride; but we will not ride it at present.”  And he turned sharply on his heel and strode from them.

He had not covered thirty paces before she overtook him in the middle of a broad patch of moonlight, and touched his arm.  He wheeled swiftly, his hand halfway to his hilt.  Then he saw who it was.

“Ah,” he said, “I had forgotten, Madame.  You have come—­”

“No!” she cried passionately; and standing before him she shook back the hood of her cloak that he might look into her eyes.  “You owe me no blow to-day.  You have paid me, Monsieur.  You have struck me already, and foully, like a coward.  Do you remember,” she continued rapidly, “the hour after our marriage, and what you said to me?  Do you remember what you told me?  And whom to trust and whom to suspect, where lay our interest and where our foes’?  You trusted me then!  What have I done that you now dare—­ay, dare, Monsieur,” she repeated fearlessly, her face pale and her eyes glittering with excitement, “to insult me?  That you treat me as—­Javette?  That you deem me capable of that?  Of luring you into a trap, and in my own house, or the house that was mine, of—­”

“Treating me as I have treated others.”

“You have said it!” she cried.  She could not herself understand why his distrust had wounded her so sharply, so home, that all fear of him was gone.  “You have said it, and put that between us which will not be removed.  I could have forgiven blows,” she continued, breathless in her excitement, “so you had thought me what I am.  But now you will do well to watch me!  You will do well to leave Vrillac on one side.  For were you there, and raised your hand against me—­not that that touches me, but it will do—­and there are those, I tell you, would fling you from the tower at my word.”