one, thank
God for it. Neither am I Madame. Madame de Cocheforet has spent this
afternoon--thanks to your absence and your imbecility--with her husband.
Yes, I hope that hurts you!' she went on, savagely snapping her little
white teeth together. 'I hope that stings you; to spy and do vile work,
and do it ill, Monsieur Mouchard--Monsieur de Mouchard, I should say--I
congratulate you!'

'You are not Madame de Cocheforet?' I cried, stunned, even in the midst
of my shame and rage, by this blow.

'No, Monsieur!' she answered grimly. 'I am not! I am not. And permit me
to point out--for we do not all lie easily--that I never said I was. You
deceived yourself so skilfully that we had no need to trick you.'

'Mademoiselle, then?' I muttered.

'Is Madame!' she cried. 'Yes, and I am Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. And
in that character, and in all others, I beg from this moment to close
our acquaintance, sir. When we meet again--if we ever do meet, which God
forbid!' she went on, her eyes sparkling--'do not presume to speak to
me, or I will have you flogged by the grooms. And do not stain our roof
by sleeping under it again. You may lie to-night in the inn. It shall
not be said that Cocheforet,' she continued proudly, 'returned even
treachery with inhospitality; and I will give orders to that end. But
to-morrow begone back to your master, like the whipped cur you are! Spy
and coward!'

With those last words she moved away. I would have said something, I
could almost have found it in my heart to stop her and make her hear.
Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was the stronger, and I might have
done with her as I pleased. But she swept by me so fearlessly, as I
might pass some loathsome cripple on the road, that I stood turned to
stone. Without looking at me, without turning her head to see whether
I followed or remained, or what I did, she went steadily down the track
until the trees and the shadow and the growing darkness hid her grey
figure from me; and I found myself alone.

CHAPTER V. REVENGE

And full of black rage! Had she only reproached me, or, turning on me in
the hour of MY victory, said all that she had now said in the moment
of her own, I could have borne it. She might have shamed me then, and I
might have taken the shame to myself and forgiven her. But, as it was,
I stood there in the gathering dusk, between the darkening hedges,
baffled, tricked, defeated! And by a woman! She had pitted her wits
against mine,