on which she could lay her hands. It is possible madame may have
heard or seen something of her; she was accompanied in her flight by a
base, profligate woman from Paris, whom I, unhappy man, had myself
engaged for my wife's waiting-maid, little dreaming what corruption I
was bringing into my house!'

'Is it possible?' said the good woman, throwing up her hands.

Amante went on whistling a little lower, out of respect to the
conversation.

'However, I am tracing the wicked fugitives; I am on their track' (and
the handsome, effeminate face looked as ferocious as any demon's).
'They will not escape me; but every minute is a minute of misery to me,
till I meet my wife. Madame has sympathy, has she not?'

He drew his face into a hard, unnatural smile, and then both went out
to the forge, as if once more to hasten the blacksmith over his work.

Amante stopped her whistling for one instant.

'Go on as you are, without change of an eyelid even; in a few minutes
he will be gone, and it will be over!'

It was a necessary caution, for I was on the point of giving way, and
throwing myself weakly upon her neck. We went on; she whistling and
stitching, I making semblance to sew. And it was well we did so; for
almost directly he came back for his whip, which he had laid down and
forgotten; and again I felt one of those sharp, quick-scanning glances,
sent all round the room, and taking in all.

Then we heard him ride away; and then, it had been long too dark to see
well, I dropped my work, and gave way to my trembling and shuddering.
The blacksmith's wife returned. She was a good creature. Amante told
her I was cold and weary, and she insisted on my stopping my work, and
going to sit near the stove; hastening, at the same time, her
preparations for supper, which, in honour of us, and of monsieur's
liberal payment, was to be a little less frugal than ordinary. It was
well for me that she made me taste a little of the cider-soup she was
preparing, or I could not have held up, in spite of Amante's warning
look, and the remembrance of her frequent exhortations to act
resolutely up to the characters we had assumed, whatever befell. To
cover my agitation, Amante stopped her whistling, and began to talk;
and, by the time the blacksmith came in, she and the good woman of the
house were in full flow. He began at once upon the handsome gentleman,
who had paid him so well; all his sympathy was with him, and both he
and his wife only wi