Lucette's warn arms had received her; and she was guided, scarce
knowing how or where, in cautious silence to the farmyard, and into
the house, where a most welcome sight, a huge fire, blazed
cheerfully on the hearth, and Martin himself held open the door for
her. The other occupants of the kitchen were the sleeping child in
its wooden cradle, some cocks and hens upon the rafters, and a big
sheep-dog before the fire.

The warmth, and the chicken that Lucette had killed and dressed,
brought the colour back to the exhausted wanderer's cheek, and
enabled her again to hold council for her safety. It was plain, as
Martin had found in conversation with the men-at-arms, that
precautions had been taken against her escaping in any of the
directions where she might hope to have reached friends. Alone she
could not go, and any escort sufficient to protect her would
assuredly be stopped at the first town; besides which, collecting
it in secret was impossible under present circumstances, and it
would be sure to be at once overtaken and demolished by the
Chevalier Narcisse's well-armed followers. Martin, therefore, saw
no alternative but for her to lurk about in such hiding-places as
her faithful vassals could afford her, until the search should blow
over, and the vigilance of her uncle and cousin relax. Hope, the
high-spirited hope of early youth, looked beyond to indefinite but
infinite possibility. Anything was better than the shame and
horror of yielding, and Eustacie trusted herself with all her heart
for the present, fancying, she knew not what, the future.

Indeed, the Vendean fidelity has often been tested, and she made
full proof of it among the lanes, copses, and homesteads of her own
broad lands. The whole country was a network of deep lanes, sunk