Eight Strokes of the Clock | Page 3

reached the motor. Rossigny, still stammering expressions of
delight, started the engine. Hortense stepped in and wrapped herself in
a wide cloak. The car followed the narrow, grassy path which led back
to the cross-roads and Rossigny was accelerating the speed, when he
was suddenly forced to pull up. A shot had rung out from the
neighbouring wood, on the right. The car was swerving from side to
side.
"A front tire burst," shouted Rossigny, leaping to the ground.
"Not a bit of it!" cried Hortense. "Somebody fired!"
"Impossible, my dear! Don't be so absurd!"
At that moment, two slight shocks were felt and two more reports were
heard, one after the other, some way off and still in the wood.
Rossigny snarled:
"The back tires burst now ... both of them.... But who, in the devil's
name, can the ruffian be?... Just let me get hold of him, that's all!..."

He clambered up the road-side slope. There was no one there.
Moreover, the leaves of the coppice blocked the view.
"Damn it! Damn it!" he swore. "You were right: somebody was firing
at the car! Oh, this is a bit thick! We shall be held up for hours! Three
tires to mend!... But what are you doing, dear girl?"
Hortense herself had alighted from the car. She ran to him, greatly
excited:
"I'm going."
"But why?"
"I want to know. Some one fired. I want to know who it was."
"Don't let us separate, please!"
"Do you think I'm going to wait here for you for hours?"
"What about your running away?... All our plans ...?"
"We'll discuss that to-morrow. Go back to the house. Take back my
things with you.... And good-bye for the present."
She hurried, left him, had the good luck to find her horse and set off at
a gallop in a direction leading away from La Marèze.
There was not the least doubt in her mind that the three shots had been
fired by Prince Rénine.
"It was he," she muttered, angrily, "it was he. No one else would be
capable of such behaviour."
Besides, he had warned her, in his smiling, masterful way, that he
would expect her.
She was weeping with rage and humiliation. At that moment, had she
found herself face to face with Prince Rénine, she could have struck

him with her riding-whip.
Before her was the rugged and picturesque stretch of country which lies
between the Orne and the Sarthe, above Alençon, and which is known
as Little Switzerland. Steep hills compelled her frequently to moderate
her pace, the more so as she had to cover some six miles before
reaching her destination. But, though the speed at which she rode
became less headlong, though her physical effort gradually slackened,
she nevertheless persisted in her indignation against Prince Rénine. She
bore him a grudge not only for the unspeakable action of which he had
been guilty, but also for his behaviour to her during the last three days,
his persistent attentions, his assurance, his air of excessive politeness.
She was nearly there. In the bottom of a valley, an old park-wall, full of
cracks and covered with moss and weeds, revealed the ball-turret of a
château and a few windows with closed shutters. This was the Domaine
de Halingre.
She followed the wall and turned a corner. In the middle of the
crescent-shaped space before which lay the entrance-gates, Serge
Rénine stood waiting beside his horse.
She sprang to the ground, and, as he stepped forward, hat in hand,
thanking her for coming, she cried:
"One word, monsieur, to begin with. Something quite inexplicable
happened just now. Three shots were fired at a motor-car in which I
was sitting. Did you fire those shots?"
"Yes."
She seemed dumbfounded:
"Then you confess it?"
"You have asked a question, madame, and I have answered it."
"But how dared you? What gave you the right?"

"I was not exercising a right, madame; I was performing a duty!"
"Indeed! And what duty, pray?"
"The duty of protecting you against a man who is trying to profit by
your troubles."
"I forbid you to speak like that. I am responsible for my own actions,
and I decided upon them in perfect liberty."
"Madame, I overheard your conversation with M. Rossigny this
morning and it did not appear to me that you were accompanying him
with a light heart. I admit the ruthlessness and bad taste of my
interference and I apologise for it humbly; but I risked being taken for a
ruffian in order to give you a few hours for reflection."
"I have reflected fully, monsieur. When I have once made up my mind
to a thing, I do not change it."
"Yes, madame, you do, sometimes. If not, why are you here instead of
there?"