But if I would do it, it is impossible." He turned in the saddle
and, shading his eyes with his hand from the level rays of the
sun, looked back intently. "It is as I thought," he continued.
"One of those men is riding grey Margot, which Bure said
yesterday was the fastest mare in the troop. And the man on her
is a light weight. The other fellow has that Norman bay horse we
were looking at this morning. It is a trap laid by Bezers, Anne.
If we turned aside a dozen yards, those two would be after us
like the wind."

"Do you mean," I cried, "that Bezers has drawn his men forward on
purpose?"

"Precisely;" was Louis's answer. "That is the fact. Nothing
would please him better than to take my honour first, and my life
afterwards. But, thank God, only the one is in his power."

And when I came to look at the horsemen, immediately before us,
they confirmed Louis's view. They were the best mounted of the
party: all men of light weight too. One or other of them was
constantly looking back. As night fell they closed in upon us
with their usual care. When Bure joined us there was a gleam of
intelligence in his bold eyes, a flash of conscious trickery. He
knew that we had found him out, and cared nothing for it.

And the others cared nothing. But the thought that if left to
myself I should have fallen into the Vidame's cunning trap filled
me with new hatred towards him; such hatred and such fear--for
there was humiliation mingled with them--as I had scarcely felt
before. I brooded over this, barely noticing what passed in our