The Ordeal by Steel

"To save Angers?"

"To save a remnant."

On a sudden the Countess raised her hand. "Do you not hear horses,
Monsieur?" she cried. She had been listening to the noises of the night,
and had paid little heed to what the two were saying.

"One of ours moved," Tignonville answered listlessly. "Why do you not
lie down, Madame?"

Instead of answering, "Whither is he going?" she asked. "Do you know?"

"I wish I did know," the young man answered peevishly. "To Niort, it may
be. Or presently he will double back and recross the Loire."

"He would have gone by Cholet to Niort," La Tribe said. "The direction
is rather that of Rochelle. God grant we be bound thither!"

"Or to Vrillac," the Countess cried, clasping her hands in the darkness.
"Can it be to Vrillac he is going?"

The minister shook his head.

"Ah, let it be to Vrillac!" she cried, a thrill in her voice. "We should
be safe there. And he would be safe."

"Safe?" echoed a fourth and deeper voice. And out of the darkness beside
them loomed a tall figure.

The minister looked and leapt to his feet. Tignonville rose more slowly.

The voice was Tavannes'. "And where am I to be safe?" he repeated
slowly, a faint ring of saturnine amusement in his tone.

"At Vrillac!" she cried. "In my house, Monsieur!"

He was silent a moment. Then, "Your house, Madame? In which direction
is it, from here?"

"Westwards," she answered impulsively, her voice quivering with eagerness
and emotion and hope. "Westwards, Monsieur--on the sea. The causeway
from the land is long, and ten can hold it against ten hundred."