Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/36

 put the flowers. Marthe Ludérac. It's an unhappy name, I think.'

'I think it's rather a heroic name. Rather a cruel, strange name, too. It's gentle; and sword-like. Marthe Ludérac,' Graham repeated, while, in the calm sunlight, the chestnut branches rustled softly, over them and over the grave. 'A Marthe Ludérac might have been a provincial Royalist and fought against the Republican bands. She might have been drowned in the river down there—in a noyade; she might have been guillotined. It's a name to make history out of; there's a sound in it of disaster, and beauty.'

'But things like that couldn't have happened to this Marthe Ludérac,' the literal Jill objected. 'She died only six years ago.'

'Yes. She did. And she makes me uncomfortable. As you say, she was unhappy. Come; let's go away from her.'

They turned from the grave and retraced their steps, in silence, to the grille.

Now they took the road that led up among the chestnuts, for the grande route left the forest at the cemetery wall and swept in a noble curve round the promontory, far above the river. But in this narrow, stony track the trees grew closely overhead, and deep gullies, worn by the rains, ran on either side under crumbling banks of moss. Another turn showed them the forest, still climbing, while, on their left, the steep hillside dropped away, towards the river, in ledge after ledge of scantily growing vineyard. A dilapidated