Eight Strokes of the Clock | Page 3

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 Alen?on, 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 chateau 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?"
Hortense was confused for a moment. All her anger had subsided. She looked at Rénine with the surprise which one experiences when confronted with certain persons who are unlike their fellows, more capable of performing unusual actions, more generous and disinterested. She realised perfectly that he was acting without any ulterior motive or calculation, that he was, as he had said, merely fulfilling his duty as a gentleman to a woman who has taken the wrong turning.
Speaking very gently, he said:
"I know very little about you, madame, but enough to make me wish to be of use to you. You are twenty-six years old and have lost both your parents. Seven years ago, you became the wife of the Comte d'Aigleroche's nephew by marriage, who proved to be of unsound mind, half insane