to be unforgiving?"
"No, mademoiselle," replied the youth; "it is only with myself that I am annoyed."
"Why so?"
"I can hardly tell you. Perhaps it is that I am ashamed to be weaker than you, – I, a man; perhaps, too, I am all upset at the thought of going home. What can I say to my mother to explain this wound?"
The two girls looked at each other. Women as they were, they would have cared little for such a trifle; but they refrained from laughing, strong as the temptation was, seeing by this time the extreme nervous susceptibility of the young man.
"Well, then," said Bertha, "if you are no longer angry with us, let us shake hands and part friends."
And she held out her hand as a man might have done. The youth was about to reply with a like gesture, when Mary made a sign to call their attention, by lifting her finger in the air.
"Hush!" said Bertha, listening as her sister did, one hand half extended toward that of the young man.
In the distance, but coming rapidly nearer, they heard the sharp, eager, prolonged yelping of hounds, – of hounds that were scenting game. It was the Marquis de Souday's pack, still in pursuit of the wounded hare, which had now doubled on them. Bertha pounced on the young man's gun, the right barrel of which was still loaded. He made a gesture as if to stop a dangerous imprudence, but the young girl only smiled at him. She ran the ramrod hastily down the loaded barrel, as all prudent hunters do when about to use a gun they have not loaded themselves, and finding that the weapon was in proper condition, she advanced a few steps, handling the gun with an ease which showed she was perfectly familiar with the use of it.
Almost at the same moment the hare darted from the hedge, evidently with the intention of returning the way it came; then, perceiving the three persons who stood there, it made a rapid somersault and doubled back. Quick as the movement was Bertha had time to aim; she fired, and the animal, shot dead, rolled down the bank into the middle of the road.
Mary had, meantime, advanced like her sister to shake hands with the young man, and the two stood looking on at what was happening with their hands clasped. Bertha picked up the hare, and returning to the unknown young man who still held Mary's hand, she said, giving him the game: -
"There, monsieur, there's an excuse for you."
"How so?" he asked.
"You can tell your mother that the hare ran between your legs and your gun went off without your knowledge; and you can swear, as you did just now, that it shall never happen again. The hare will plead extenuating circumstances."
The young man shook his head in a hopeless way.
"No," he said, "I should never dare tell my mother I have disobeyed her."
"Has she positively forbidden you to hunt?"
"Oh, dear, yes!"
"Then you are poaching!" said Bertha; "you begin where others finish. Well, you must admit you have a vocation for it."
"Don't joke, mademoiselle. You have been so good to me I don't want to get angry with you; I should only be twice as unhappy then."
"You have but one alternative, monsieur," said Mary; "either tell a lie-which you will not do, neither do we advise it-or acknowledge the whole truth. Believe me, whatever your mother may think of your amusing yourself in defiance of her wishes, your frankness will disarm her. Besides, it is not such a great crime to kill a hare."
"All the same I should never dare to tell her."
"Is she so terrible as all that?" inquired Bertha.
"No, mademoiselle; she is very kind and tender. She indulges all my wishes and foresees my fancies; but on this one matter of guns she is resolute. It is natural she should be," added the young man, sighing; "my father was killed in hunting."
"Then, monsieur," said Bertha, gravely, "our levity has been all the more misplaced, and we regret it extremely. I hope you will forget it and remember only our regrets."
"I shall only remember, mademoiselle, the kind care you have bestowed upon me; and I, in turn, hope you will forget my silly fears and foolish susceptibility."
"No, no, we shall remember them," said Mary, "to prevent ourselves from ever hurting the feelings of others as we hurt yours; for see what the consequences have been!"
While Mary was speaking Bertha had mounted her horse. Again the youth held out his hand, though timidly, to Mary. She touched it with the points of her fingers and sprang into her own saddle. Then, calling in the dogs, who came at the sound of their voices, the sisters gave rein to their horses and rode rapidly away.
The youth stood looking after them, silent and motionless, until they had disappeared round a curve of the road. Then he dropped his head on his breast and continued thoughtful. We will remain a while with this new personage, for we ought to become fully acquainted with him.
VII.
MONSIEUR MICHEL
What had just happened produced such a powerful impression on the young man's mind that after the girls had disappeared he fancied it must have been a dream.
He was, in fact, at that period of life when even those who are destined to become later the most practical of men pay tribute to the romantic; and this meeting with two young girls, so different from those he was in the habit of seeing, transported him at once into the fantastic world of youth's first dreams, where the imagination wanders as it pleases among the castles built by fairy hands, which topple over beside the path of life as we advance along it.
We do not mean to say, however, that our young man had got as far as falling in love with either of the two amazons, but he felt himself spurred to the keenest curiosity; for this strange mixture of distinction, beauty, elegance of manner, and cavalier virility struck him as extraordinary. He determined to see these girls again, or, at any rate, to find out who they were.
Heaven seemed disposed to satisfy his curiosity at once. He had hardly started on his way home, and was not more than a few hundred steps from the spot where the young girls had left him, when he met an individual in leather gaiters, with a gun and a hunting-horn slung over his blouse and across his shoulders, and a whip in his hand. The man walked fast and seemed much out of temper. He was evidently the huntsman who belonged to the young women. Accordingly the youth, assuming his most gracious and smiling manner, accosted him.
"Friend," he said, "you are searching for two young ladies, I think, – one on a brown-bay horse, the other on a roan mare."
"In the first place, I am not your friend, for I don't know you," said the man, gruffly. "I am looking for my dogs, which some fool turned off the scent of a wolf they were after and put on that of a hare, which he missed killing, like the blunderer that he is."
The young man bit his lips. The man in the blouse, whom our readers no doubt recognize as Jean Oullier, went on to say: -
"Yes, I saw it all from the heights of Benaste, which I was coming down when our game doubled, and I'd willingly have given the premium which the Marquis de Souday allows me on the hunt if I could have had that lubber within reach of my whip."
The youth to whom he spoke thought it advisable to make no sign that he was concerned in the affair; he listened, therefore, to Jean Oullier's allocution as if it were absolutely of no interest to him, and said merely: -
"Oh!
