Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/283

 the wild, tawny tresses of a mountain rivulet. What wild, sweet beauty everywhere; and with what a heavy heart she saw and heard it! Marthe's heart was heavy, too.

Suddenly, at a turn, the path ran out into a narrow road where a stone bridge crossed the valley, and sitting on the low parapet, her arms laid out along her knees, her eyes fixed on the ground, was Marthe.

Something unspeakably strange came to Jill from her attitude. She was exhausted. Standing within the shadow of the woods to gaze at her, Jill seemed to feel the cold sweat on her brow, the thread-like beating of her sick heart. Or was she reading her own despair into Marthe's demeanour? Was Marthe only very tired after the sleepless night? Was she only listening, as she rested there with Médor beside her, to the wood-wren?

Jill's eyes were drawn up to the little bird. It was poised, high on the branch of a tall tree above Marthe's head, and its wings drooped and shivered in an ecstasy of pleading as it sang out, passionately, the last reiterated notes of its refrain. But Marthe was not listening. In the silence that followed the bird's last cadence, she lifted her eyes and saw who it was who stood there; and Jill felt a cold, dark, heavy gaze rest upon her. 'Then it is true,' she thought. 'Madame de Lamouderie has told her that we know; and the story is true.'—'But not true as Madame de Lamouderie, as Dick, would understand,' came the answering thought, once