Page:Hope-indiscretions of duchess.djvu/169

Rh I stopped short.

“It would take all day to tell you the story,” I said impatiently.

“Still I should like to know”

“I can’t help it. Look here, Gustave, the duchess knows. Go and see her. I must go on now.”

Across the puzzled mournful eyes of the rejected lover and bewildered friend I thought I saw a little gleam.

“The duchess?” said he.

“Yes, she’s all alone. The duke’s not there.”

“Where is the duke?” he asked; but, as it struck me, now rather in precaution than in curiosity.

“That’s what I’m going to see,” said I.

And with hope and resolution born again in my heart I broke into a fair run, and, with a wave of my hand, left Gustave in the middle of the road, staring after me and plainly convinced that I was mad. Perhaps I was not far from that state. Mad or not, in any case after three minutes I thought no more of my good friend Gustave de Berensac, nor of aught else, save the inn outside Pontorson, just where the old road used to turn toward Mont St. Michel. To that goal I pressed on, forgetting my weariness and my pain. For it might be that the carriage would still stand in the yard, and that in the house I should come upon the object of my search.

Half an hour’s walk brought me to the inn, and there, to my joy, I saw the carriage drawn up under a shed side by side with the inn-