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All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans, plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were gone. Utterly unnerved, Jack sank into the arm-chair. What should he do? If he stayed at Morteyn he stood a good chance of hanging.
With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine, passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger had made him faint; his head grew dizzy. "It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed it to dull his hunger.
"You will have your hands full," said Jack, repressing an angry sneer; "if you wish, my aunt De Morteyn will charge herself with Mademoiselle de Nesville's safety." "True, Lorraine might go to Morteyn," murmured the marquis, absently, examining a smoky retort half filled with a silvery heap of dust. "Then, may I drive her over after dinner?" "Yes," replied the other, indifferently.
Madame de Morteyn smiled at her husband and lifted a pawn in her thin, blue-veined hand; but the vicomte had not finished, and she replaced the pawn and leaned back in her chair, moving the two little coffee-cups aside so that she could see what her husband was doing with the knight. From the lawn below came the chatter and laughter of girls.
There was a quiet footfall by his bed, the scrape of a spur, then silence. "Is that you, Mr. Grahame?" he asked. "Yes; I didn't mean to wake you. I'm off. I was going to leave a letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn " "Are you dressed? What time is it?" "Four o'clock twenty minutes after. It's a shame to rouse you, my dear fellow." "Oh, that's all right," said Jack.
But Georges' face grew paler every minute, and his smile was so painful that Lorraine could not bear it and turned her head away, her hand tightening on the box-rail alongside. As they were about to turn out into the Morteyn road, where the forest ended, Jack suddenly checked the horse and rose to his feet. "What is it?" asked Lorraine. "Oh, I see! Oh, look!"
The truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the Germans should pass that way; not at all likely but suppose they should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No, he could never go away and leave Lorraine that was out of the question.
Beyond this the road swung into the Morteyn road, that lay cool and moist along the willows that bordered the river Lisse. The sun glided behind the woods as he reached the bridge that crosses the Lisse, and the evening glow on feathery willow and dusty alder turned stem and leaf to shimmering rose. It was seven o'clock, and he knew that he could keep his word to Lorraine.
They also are frightened because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there.
Chained and naked, the beautiful city crouched in the tempest that was to free her forever and give her the life she scorned, the life more bitter than death. Something of this ominous prophecy came to Jack, standing below the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn, listening to the on-coming shock of German feet, as he watched the cavalry riding past in the glow of the setting sun.
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