Presently, on the third day of our journey I think, couriers from
the Court passed us: and henceforth forestalled us. One of
these messengers--who I learned from the talk about me was bound
for Cahors with letters for the Lieutenant-Governor and the
Count-Bishop--the Vidame interviewed and stopped. How it was
managed I do not know, but I fear the Count-Bishop never got his
letters, which I fancy would have given him some joint authority.
Certainly we left the messenger--a prudent fellow with a care for
his skin--in comfortable quarters at Limoges, whence I do not
doubt he presently returned to Paris at his leisure.

The strangeness of the journey however arose from none of these
things, but from the relations of our party to one another.
After the first day we four rode together, unmolested, so long as
we kept near the centre of the straggling cavalcade. The Vidame
always rode alone, and in front, brooding with bent head and
sombre face over his revenge, as I supposed. He would ride in
this fashion, speaking to no one and giving no orders, for a day
together. At times I came near to pitying him. He had loved Kit
in his masterful way, the way of one not wont to be thwarted, and
he had lost her--lost her, whatever might happen. He would get
nothing after all by his revenge. Nothing but ashes in the
mouth. And so I saw in softer moments something inexpressibly
melancholy in that solitary giant-figure pacing always alone.

He seldom spoke to us. More rarely to Louis. When he did, the
harshness of his voice and his cruel eyes betrayed the gloomy
hatred in which he held him. At meals he ate at one end of the
table: we four at the other, as three of us had done on that
first evening in Paris. And sometimes the covert looks, the grim