Down to the river-level again, where a squalid
anchorite, seated at the mouth of a cave dug in the bank, begged of them,
and the bell of a monastery on the farther bank tolled slumberously the
hour of Nones.
And still he said nothing, and she, cowed by his mysterious gaiety, yet
spurning herself for her cowardice, was silent also. He hoped to arrive
at Angers before nightfall. What, she wondered, shivering, would happen
there? What was he planning to do to her? How would he punish her?
Brave as she was, she was a woman, with a woman's nerves; and fear and
anticipation got upon them; and his silence--his silence which must mean
a thing worse than words!
And then on a sudden, piercing all, a new thought. Was it possible that
he had other letters? If his bearing were consistent with anything, it
was consistent with that. Had he other genuine letters, or had he
duplicate letters, so that he had lost nothing, but instead had gained
the right to rack and torture her, to taunt and despise her?
That thought stung her into sudden self-betrayal. They were riding along
a broad dusty track which bordered a stone causey raised above the level
of winter floods. Impulsively she turned to him.
"You have other letters!" she cried. "You have other letters!" And
freed for the moment from her terror, she fixed her eyes on his and
strove to read his face.
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