"How foolish!" cried Giselle, coming to meet them. "Just see in what a
state you have brought home your poor horses."

Jacqueline, pale and trembling, made no answer. M. de Talbrun, as he
helped her to dismount, whispered, savagely: "Not a word of this!"

At dinner, his wife remarked that some branch must have struck him on the
cheek, there was a red mark right across his face like a blow.

"We were riding through the woods," he answered, shortly.

Then Giselle began to suspect something, and remarked that nobody was
talking that evening, asking, with a half-smile, whether they had been
quarrelling.

"We did have a little difference," Oscar replied, quietly.

"Oh, it did not amount to anything," he said, lighting his cigar; "let us
make friends again, won't you?" he added, holding out his hand to
Jacqueline. She was obliged to give him the tips of her fingers, as she
said in her turn, with audacity equal to his own:

"Oh, it was less than nothing. Only, Giselle, I told your husband that I
had had some bad news, and shall have to go back to Paris, and he tried
to persuade me not to go."

"I beg you not to go," said Oscar, vehemently.

"Bad news?" repeated Giselle, "you did not say a word to me about it!"