"
She stared at him, her bosom rising and falling, in an astonishment too
deep for words. But he did not heed her. He did not look at her again.
He had already turned to the door, and while she looked he passed through
it, he closed it behind him. And she was alone.
CHAPTER XIX. IN THE ORLEANNAIS.
"But you fear him?"
"Fear him?" Madame St. Lo answered; and, to the surprise of the Countess,
she made a little face of contempt. "No; why should I fear him? I fear
him no more than the puppy leaping at old Sancho's bridle fears his tall
playfellow! Or than the cloud you see above us fears the wind before
which it flies!" She pointed to a white patch, the size of a man's hand,
which hung above the hill on their left hand and formed the only speck in
the blue summer sky. "Fear him? Not I!" And, laughing gaily, she put
her horse at a narrow rivulet which crossed the grassy track on which
they rode.
"But he is hard?" the Countess murmured in a low voice, as she regained
her companion's side.
"Hard?" Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture of pride. "Ay, hard as the
stones in my jewelled ring! Hard as flint, or the nether millstone--to
his enemies! But to women? Bah! Who ever heard that he hurt a woman?"
"Why, then, is he so feared?" the Countess asked, her eyes on the subject
of their discussion--a solitary figure riding some fifty paces in front
of them.
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