. I cannot tell you
how much in these doubtings and wanderings I became attached to Amante.
I have sometimes feared since, lest I cared for her only because she was
so necessary to my own safety; but, no! it was not so; or not so only,
or principally. She said once that she was flying for her own life as
well as for mine; but we dared not speak much on our danger, or on the
horrors that had gone before. We planned a little what was to be our
future course; but even for that we did not look forward long; how could
we, when every day we scarcely knew if we should see the sun go down?
For Amante knew or conjectured far more than I did of the atrocity of
the gang to which M. de la Tourelle belonged; and every now and then,
just as we seemed to be sinking into the calm of security, we fell upon
traces of a pursuit after us in all directions. Once I remember--we must
have been nearly three weeks wearily walking through unfrequented ways,
day after day, not daring to make inquiry as to our whereabouts, nor
yet to seem purposeless in our wanderings--we came to a kind of lonely
roadside farrier's and blacksmith's. I was so tired, that Amante
declared that, come what might, we would stay there all night; and
accordingly she entered the house, and boldly announced herself as a
travelling tailor, ready to do any odd jobs of work that might be
required, for a night's lodging and food for herself and wife. She had
adopted this plan once or twice before, and with good success; for her
father had been a tailor in Rouen, and as a girl she had often helped
him with his work, and knew the tailors' slang and habits, down to the
particular whistle and cry which in France tells so much to those of a
trade. At this blacksmith's, as at most other solitary houses far away
from a town, there was not only a store of men's clothes laid by as
wanting mending when the housewife could afford time, but there was a
natural craving after news from a distance, such news as a wandering
tailor is bound to furnish. The early November afternoon was closing
into evening, as we sat down, she cross-legged on the great table in the
blacksmith's kitchen, drawn close to the window, I close behind her,
sewing at another part of the same garment, and from time to time well
scolded by my seeming husband. All at once she turned round to speak to
me. It was only one word, "Courage!" I had seen nothing; I sat out of
the light; but I turned sick for an instant, and then I