profession; hurried yet careful arrangements for his comfort during her
absence; a letter to the Cure begging of him a daily visit to the Manor
House; and then, with the flurried Madame Marie, she entered the coach
with Havel on the box, and they were off.

The coach rattled through the village and stopped for a moment at the
smithy. A few words of cheerful good-bye to her father--she carried the
spring in her face and the summer of gaiety in her face however sore her
heart was--and they were once more upon the road.

Their first stage was twenty-five miles, and it led through the ravine
where Parpon and his comrades had once sought to frighten George Fournel.
As they passed the place Madelinette shuddered, and she remembered
Fournel's cynical face as he left the house three months ago. She felt
that it would not easily soften to mercy or look upon her trouble with a
human eye, if once the will were in his hands. It was a silent journey,
but Madame Marie asked no questions, and there was comfort in her
unspoken sympathy.

Five hours, and at midnight they arrived at the end of the first stage
of their journey, at the village tavern of St. Stanislaus. Here Madame
Marie urged Madelinette to stay and sleep, but this she refused to do,
if horses could be got to go forward. The sight of two gold pieces made
the thing possible in the landlord's eyes, and Madame Marie urged no
more, but found some refreshment, of which she gently insisted that
Madelinette should partake. In another hour from their arrival they were
on the road again, with the knowledge that Tardif had changed horses and
gone forward four hours before, boasting as he went that when the
bombshell he was carrying should burst, the country would stay awake
o' nights for a year.