Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/167

Rh middle of the road, when I had gone perhaps a mile, I stopped dead. I was beaten and sick at heart, and I searched for a nook of shade by the wayside, and flung myself on the ground; and the ache of my arm was the least of my pain.

As I lay there, my eye caught sight of a cloud of dust on the road. For a moment I scanned it eagerly, and then fell back with a curse of disappointment. It was caused by a man on a horse—and the man was not the duke. But in an instant I was sitting up again—for as the rider drew nearer, trotting briskly along, his form and air was familiar to me; and when he came opposite to me, I sprang up and ran out to meet him, crying out to him:

“Gustave! Gustave!”

It was Gustave de Berensac, my friend. He reined in his horse and greeted me—and he greeted me without surprise, but not without apparent displeasure.

“I thought I should find you here still,” said he. “I rode over to seek you. Surely you are not at the duchess’?”

His tone was eloquent of remonstrance.

“I’ve been staying at the inn.”

“At the inn?” he repeated, looking at me curiously. “And is the duchess at home?”

“She’s at home now. How come you here?”

“Ah, my friend, and how comes your arm in a sling? Well, you shall have my story first. I expect it will prove shorter. I am staying at Pontorson with a friend who is quartered there.”

“But you went to Paris.”