"It is nothing, monsieur--a clean cut in the arm, with some loss of blood."
"But let me see."
The young girl in whose lap rested the head of Monsieur d'Aubrac sat back and watched Duchemin with curious, grave eyes in which traces of moisture glimmered.
"Had the animal at my mercy, I thought," d'Aubrac apologised, "when suddenly he drew that knife, stuck me and broke away."
"I understand," Duchemin replied. "But don't talk. You'll want all your strength, my friend."
With his pocket-knife he laid open the sodden sleeves of coat and shirt, exposing an upper arm stained dark with blood that welled in ugly jets from a cut both wide and deep.
"Artery severed," he announced, and straightened up and looked about, at a loss. "My pack--?"
One's actions in moments of excitement are apt to be largely directed by the subconscious, he knew; still he found it hard to believe that he could unwittingly have unshipped and dropped his rucksack while making ready to pursue the American uniform. Nevertheless, it seemed, that was just what he had done.
The woman who had spoken to him found and fetched it from no great distance; and its contents enabled Duchemin to improvise a tourniquet, and when the flow of blood was checked, a bandage. During the operation d'Aubrac unostentatiously fainted.
The young girl caught her breath, a fluttering hiss.
"Don't be alarmed, mademoiselle," Duchemin soothed her. "He will come round presently, he will do splendidly now till we get him to bed; and then his convalescence will be merely the matter of a while of rest."
He slipped his arms beneath the unconscious man, gathered him up bodily and bore him to the carriage--and, thanks to man's amusing amour propre, made far less of the effort than it cost him. Then, with d'Aubrac disposed as comfortably as might be on the back seat, once again pillowed in a fashion to make any man envious, Duchemin turned to find the other women at his elbow. To the eldest he offered a bow suited to her condition and a hand to help her into the barouche.
"Madame … "
Her agitation had measurably subsided. The gentle inclination of the aged head which acknowledged his courtesy was as eloquent of her quality as he found the name which she gave him in quavering accents.
"Madame de Sévénié, monsieur."
"With madame's permission: I am André Duchemin."
"Monsieur Duchemin has placed us all deeply in his debt. Louise … " The girl in the carriage looked up and bowed, murmuring. "Mademoiselle de Montalais, monsieur: my granddaughter. And Eve … " She turned to the third, to her whose voice of delightful accent was not in Duchemin's notion wholly French: "Madame de Montalais, my daughter by adoption, widow of my grandson, who died gloriously for his country at La Fère-Champenoise."
IV
EVE
When she had graciously permitted Duchemin to assist her to a place in the carriage, Madame Sévénié turned immediately to comfort her granddaughter. It was easy to divine an attachment there, between d'Aubrac and Louise de Montalais; Duchemin fancied (and, as it turned out, rightly) the two were betrothed.
But Madame de Montalais was claiming his attention.
"Monsieur thinks--?" she enquired in a guarded tone, taking advantage of the diversion provided by the elder lady to delay a little before entering the barouche.
"Monsieur d'Aubrac is in no immediate danger. Still, the services of a good surgeon, as soon as may be … "
"Will it be dangerous to wait till we get to Nant?"
"How far is that, madame?"
"Twelve miles."
Duchemin looked aside at the decrepit conveyance with its unhappy horses, and summed up a conclusion in a shrug.
"Millau is nearer, is it not, madame?"
"But Nant is not far from the Château de Montalais; and at La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite our automobile is waiting, less than two miles below. The chauffeur advised against bringing over the road from La Roque to Montpellier; it is too rough and very steep."
"Oh!" said Duchemin, as one who catches a glimmering of light.
"Pardon, monsieur?"
"Madame's chauffeur is waiting with the automobile, no doubt?"
"But assuredly, monsieur."
He recollected himself. "We shall see what we shall see, then, at La Roque. With an automobile at your disposal, Nant is little more distant than Millau, certainly. Nevertheless, let us not delay."
"Monsieur is too good."
Momentarily a hand slender and firm and cool rested in his own. Then its owner was setting into place beside Madame de Sévénié, and Duchemin clambering up to his on the box.
The road proved quite as rough and declivitous as its reputation. One surmised that the Spring rains had found it in a bad way and done nothing to better its condition. Deep ruts and a liberal sprinkling of small boulders collaborated to keep the horses stumbling, plunging and pitching as they strained back against the singletrees. Duchemin was grateful for the moonlight which alone enabled him to keep the road and avoid the worst of the going--until he remembered that without the moon there would have been no expedition that night to view the mock ruins of Montpellier by its unearthly light, and consequently no adventure to entangle him.
Upon this reflection he swore softly but most fervently into his becoming beard. He was well fed up with adventures, thank you, and could have done very well without this latest. And especially at a time when he desired nothing so much as to be permitted to remain the footloose wanderer in a strange land, a bird of passage without ties or responsibilities.
He thought it devilish hard that one may never do a service to another without incurring a burden of irksome obligations to the served; that bonds of interest forged in moments of unpremeditated and generous impulse are never readily to be broken.
Now because Chance had seen fit to put him in the way of saving a hapless party of sightseers from robbery or worse, he found himself hopelessly committed to take a continuing interest in them. It appeared that their home was a château somewhere in the vicinity of Nant. Well, after their shocking experience, and with the wounded man on their hands--and especially if La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite told the story one confidently expected--Duchemin could hardly avoid offering to see them safely as far as Nant. And once there he would be definitely in the toils. He would have to stop in the town overnight; and in the morning he would be able neither in common decency to slip away without calling to enquire after the welfare of d'Aubrac and the tranquillity of the ladies, nor in discretion to take himself out of the way of the civil investigation which would inevitably follow the report of what had happened in Montpelier.
No: having despatched a bandit to an end well-earned, it now devolved upon André Duchemin to satisfy Society and the State that he had done so only with the most amiable motives, on due provocation, to save his own life and possibly the lives of others.
He had premonitions of endless delays while provincial authorities wondered, doubted, criticised, procrastinated, investigated, reported, and--repeated.
And then there was every chance that the story, thanks to the prominence of the persons involved, for one made no doubt that the names of Sévénié and Montalais and d'Aubrac ranked high in that part of the world--the story would get into the newspapers of the larger towns in the