One evening - I had been ten days at the chateau - we went a
half-league or so up the Garonne in a boat, she and I. As we were
returning, drifting with the stream, the oars idle in my hand, I
spoke of leaving Lavedan.

She looked up quickly; her expression was almost of alarm, and her
eyes dilated as they met mine - for, as I have said, she was all
unversed in the ways of her sex, and by nature too guileless to
attempt to disguise her feelings or dissemble them.

"But why must you go so soon?" she asked. "You are safe at Lavedan,
and abroad you may be in danger. It was but two days ago that they
took a poor young gentleman of these parts at Pau; so that you see
the persecution is not yet ended. Are you" - and her voice trembled
ever so slightly - "are you weary of us, monsieur?"

I shook my head at that, and smiled wistfully.

"Weary?" I echoed. "Surely, mademoiselle, you do not think it?
Surely your heart must tell you something very different?"

She dropped her eyes before the passion of my gaze. And when
presently she answered me, there was no guile in her words; there
were the dictates of the intuitions of her sex, and nothing more.

"But it is possible, monsieur. You are accustomed to the great
world--"

"The great world of Lesperon, in Gascony?" I interrupted.