d perhaps a little
alarmed, she tried to open one of the windows to obtain some
explanation, but it was so tightly fastened that she found this
impossible. She tried the other, but that too defied all her efforts,
and whilst she was still thus engaged the coach was once more driven
on, and now at a gallop. Then, as she peered anxiously out, she
observed that the horseman who rode close to the carriage was a much
bigger man than the groom from Beaujardin who had started with them
from Valricour, and that he was muffled in a great riding-cloak.
Clotilde was one of those women whose courage rises just when that of
others usually fails: without an instant's hesitation she stooped down,
and the next moment the high wooden heel of one of her shoes sent the
window-pane flying in shivers out upon the road. A touch of the spur
at once brought her escort alongside of the broken window.

"Holloa!" he exclaimed, in a voice Clotilde had never heard before,
"what is all this about?"

"Fellow!" she replied, indignantly, "what is the meaning of this? Who
are you?--and why have we gone out of our road?"

"Ah, well," answered the man coolly, "of course it is natural enough
that you should want to know, but----"

"Impudent scoundrel!" cried Clotilde, "stop the carriage this moment
and let me alight, or----"

"Look you, mademoiselle," the horseman here broke in, bringing his face
at the same time close to the carriage window, and speaking sternly,
though in a low voice, as if to avoid being overheard, "you seem to be
a fine spirited young lady, and I should be sorry to let that bring you
into more trouble. You are not going to Beaujardin this time. I have
my orders to take you somewhere else. Now just listen, no harm will
come to you if you keep quiet and go peaceably. What is more, I give
you my word, if you choose to take it, that I am going to hand you over
to the safe keeping of a lady who, I suppose, will treat you as a
gentlewoman ought to be treated, but go you must--there's no help for
that. 'Tis of no use trying to raise an alarm; that might only cost a
couple of lives, perhaps," and here the speaker just opened his heavy
mantle sufficiently to show the butt ends of two heavy pistols at his
belt. "So, mademoiselle," he concluded, "be complaisant, and make the
best of a bad business."

For a few minutes Clotilde felt overwhelmed and almost stunned at
finding herself suddenly, and without the slightest warning, in a