of darkness and desertion, without the
anxious wonder as to why I failed her, I should not have been long in
deciding upon that. For that would be her wish, and I should not survive
her. Let us both die, I should have said; for what will life be to her
after she has fallen into the hands of this villain, and what to me
after I have delivered her into them? But the peculiar misery of the
death that threatened her, kept the problem still busy in my mind.

And yet I could not bring myself to yield her to the Captain.

The day had become afternoon, and I still debated. The Countess must
have expected me to return before this time. What was her state now?
what were her conjectures? Ah, thought I, if we had not found our way to
that lonely tower, if the storm had not come up the previous night, if
we had started to leave the forest earlier!--nay, if I had had the
prevision, upon hearing of the presence of robbers, to make her turn
back to Chateaudun with me, and lodge quietly there until the Mother
Superior of the convent could be sounded, and a safe way of approach be
ascertained, all would now be well. We should have heard in the meantime
of the Count's death. Yes, everything had gone wrong since the Countess
had taken the road for the forest. The third of Blaise Tripault's maxims
which he had learned from the monk came back to me with all the force of
hapless coincidence:

"_Never leave a highway for a byway._"

The thought of Blaise Tripault made me think of my father. What a
mockery it was to know that I, chained helpless to the floor in this
remote stronghold of ruffians, was the son of him, the Sieur de la
Tournoire, the invincible warrior before whose sword no man could stay,
and who would have rushed to the world's end to save me or any one I
loved! To consider my need, and his power to help, and that only his
ignorance of my situation stood between, was so vexing that in my
bitterness of soul, regardless of the men in the passage, I cried out to
the empty air, "Oh, my father! If you but knew!"

And then, for a moment, as if the bare wall were no impediment, I saw a
vision of my father, with his dauntless brow and grizzled beard, his
great long sword at his side, riding toward me among green trees.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SWORD OF LA TOURNOIRE

The light softened and faded into that of evening. Another set of men
took the places of those outside my door. No food nor drink was brought
me, and I supposed