Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/234

 some emotion choked her. O'Rourke wondered, as, silently now, since she did not at once make good her words and inform him, he followed her across the fields.

Nor, indeed, did mam'selle of the inn speak again until she had brought the Irishman to the edge of that woodland, and for a moment or two had skirted its depths. Abruptly, she paused, turning toward him and laying a tentative hand upon his arm.

"M'sieur," she said—and again with the little catch in her tone,—"here lies the frontier of France." "And there—Lützelburg?" he inquired, unawed.

"Yes—beyond the white stone."

The white stone of the boundary was no more than a yard away. "Come!" cried O'Rourke; and in two steps was in Lützelburg.

"Did ye think me the man to hesitate?" he asked wonderingly. "Did ye think I'd draw back me hand—especially after what's passed between meself and that dog, Monsieur le Prince?"

"I did not know," she confessed, looking up into his face. "M'sieur is very bold; for M'sieur le Prince sticks at nothing."

"Faith, the time is nigh when he'll stick at the O'Rourke, I promise ye!" he boasted, with his heart hot within him as he recalled how cowardly had been the attempt upon him.

She smiled a little at his assurance. There spoke the Irishman, she may have been thinking. But her smile was one heavenly to the man.

Allowances may be made for him. He was aged neither in years nor in heart; and the society of a beautiful woman was Something for which he had starved during the winter