Evening had come when Bertrand neared the quarry on the road to Loudeac, where Robin Raguenel lay hid. A path ran from the main track and wound through the woods, leaving the open moorland sweeping—a wave of gold into the west. It was one of those rare passings of the day in spring when strangeness and mystery were everywhere, brooding on the dream hills against the splendid sky, watching for the night in the windless woodways of the forest. The song of the birds went up towards the sunset, tumultuous, and borne upon the wings of joy. Yet to Bertrand the beauty of it all was but a mockery, even as the dawn mocks the eyes of a man dying in his youth.

The inn, a mere hovel with rotting thatch and sagging beams, stood at the mouth of the quarry with a dirty stable yard behind it. The greater part of the quarry was tangled with brushwood, a few patches of coarse grass closing in a strip of shallow soil where the inn folk grew their vegetables. A Breton lass, brown-legged and bare-armed, was hoeing in the garden when Bertrand rode up towards the inn. Robin, sitting on a block of stone, was talking to the girl, making love to her for lack of else to do. The girl’s black eyes and insolent mouth were charms that might make a man forget for the moment thoughts that were troubling to his conscience. She returned Robin as good as he gave, laughing, and tossing back her hair as she plied her hoe, her bare feet sinking into the soil.

Bertrand, riding into the dirty yard behind the inn, broke like an unwelcome elder brother upon Robin philandering with this Breton Hebe. A few ragged chickens scurried away from Bertrand’s horse. An ass brayed at him over the door of a byre, and a couple of pigs rooting in the offal went grunting surlily towards a dung heap.

Bertrand looked round him, saw the girl leaning on her hoe, one hand stretched out to slap the boyish face that had ventured near in quest of favors. She dropped her hoe on catching sight of the strange knight in the yard, and came forward to take his horse. An old woman appeared at the back door of the inn, and screamed peevishly at her daughter. Bertrand dismounted and let the girl tether his horse to a post in the yard.

Robin Raguenel had recognized his own shield with a start and a flush, the amorous glint gone from his eyes in a moment. His sulky face betrayed the meaner thoughts that had been working in his heart, and that he had dreaded the hour of Du Guesclin’s return. He had begun to hate Bertrand because Bertrand had been a witness of his shame. He hated him for the very sacrifice he had made, his ungenerous and thin-blooded nature revolting at the thought that Bertrand held him in his power. The debt had transformed Robin into a mean and grudging enemy. Self-pity and disgust at his own impotence had destroyed any feeling such as gratitude, and he was ready to quarrel with the man who had renounced so much to save him.

Bertrand left his horse with the girl and went towards Robin, who was digging his heels into the turf and looking as though he would have given much to escape the meeting. He made no pretence of welcome, but stood sulky and ill at ease, all the rebellious littleness of his soul puffing itself out against the man who had made him such a debtor.

Bertrand, puzzled, and suspecting nothing in the breadth and simplicity of his heart, scanned Robin’s face, finding no gladness thereon, no gratitude in the eyes.

“So you have come back?”

The antagonism was instinctive in those few curt words. Bertrand’s out-stretched hand dropped. He looked hard at Robin, as though baffled by the lad’s manner.

“We have beaten the English,” he said, quietly.

“Have you?”

“Yes; not a man discovered the trick. The honor of the De BelliÈres stands as it stood before.”

Probably it was the ring of reproach in Bertrand’s voice that stung the lad through his sullen reserve. He took five sharp paces forward, and stood grimacing, and beating one foot upon the grass.

“So, Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, you flatter yourself that you have done a brave thing!”

Bertrand stared at him.

“I have saved your honor,” he said, bluntly.

“Of course! of course!”

“And heard myself cursed for a coward and a traitor.”

Robin swung round, and began to pad to and fro, his face dead white, his teeth working against his lips. He was mad with Bertrand, mad with himself, mad with fate for having twisted him into such a corner. It never entered his head for the moment that Bertrand had suffered, and would suffer yet more.

“You expect me to grovel at your feet, messire,” he blurted.

Bertrand flushed under his bassinet.

“I have not asked for your thanks, Robin.”

“No, and I tell you that I have cursed myself because, like a fool, I let you have my arms.”

Bertrand’s face went hard as stone. He looked at Robin, and understood of a sudden that the lad loathed him now that his honor had been saved at Mivoie. He felt himself in Bertrand’s power, and had not the magnanimity to confess that the whole tangled coil was of his own weaving. Bertrand gulped down his scorn as he realized the truth.

“Your courage comes two days late,” said Bertrand, holding his anger back.

Robin whipped round on him like a wild-cat at bay.

“Curse you! Why did you meddle with me? Curse Beaumanoir, curse Bamborough and his English! I should have fought at Mivoie if my damned horse had not fallen lame.”

Bertrand’s lips curled.

“Don’t blame the poor beast, Robin,” he said.

“Ha, you call me a liar! I tell you, messire, I never lamed my horse. It was your doubting me that cut me to the quick. And then when you had wounded me in the heart you scoffed and sneered. I tell you it was your taunts that took my strength away at Loudeac.”

He jigged to and fro in his hysterical fury, spluttering, snapping his teeth, jerking his arms about. It was plain enough to Bertrand whence all this froth and ferment came. The lad was mad with him for what he had done and also for what he knew.

“Come,” he said, quietly, bolting up his scorn. “Come, Robin, I never thought to hear you speak like this.”

Robin still chattered like an angry ape.

“No, no; you thought I should grovel and fall at your knees, eh! Yes, you are a fine fellow, Bertrand du Guesclin, but, by God, I am not going to wallow at your feet! Give me back my armor; give me back my armor, and be damned to you! Go and tell all the duchy that Robin Raguenel played the coward.”

Bertrand looked at him as Christ might have looked at Judas. The lad’s squealing passion filled him with bitterness and disgust. It was difficult to believe that this was TiphaÏne’s brother.

“Fool,” he said, speaking with a self-control that was fiercer than any clamor, “it is for those who love you that I have done this thing! What shame I bear, I bear it for their sakes, not for yours. Take back your arms. I shall suffer for them long enough.”

He took Robin’s shield, scarred and dented by the English swords at Mivoie, and threw it on its face at Robin’s feet. Then, without a word, he began to unbuckle the borrowed harness, piling it on the grass beside the shield. Robin watched him, biting his nails, the futile fury dying down in him like a fire built of straw. The scorn of Bertrand’s silence sobered him as he idled to and fro not daring to offer to help Bertrand to disarm.

The girl looked out at them inquisitively from the back door of the inn. Robin shouted to her, bidding her bring the armor that lay in his room. She drew her white face in, and returned anon with Bertrand’s shield slung about her neck, her arms and bosom full of steel. Bertrand glanced up at her, and at the sight of his ugly face, made more grim and terrible by its pent-up passion, she dropped the armor with a clatter on the grass and, throwing down the shield, skipped away, after darting out her tongue at Robin. Bertrand had put off the last piece of young Raguenel’s harness. He stood up and stretched himself, and tightened the bandage about his thigh.

Robin’s face had grown weak and irresolute once more. His blood had cooled, and he remembered how much he lay at Bertrand’s mercy.

“You are wounded,” he blurted, seizing the chance of breaking the reserve of this grim and silent man.

Bertrand picked up his hauberk, but did not look at Robin.

“Take my wallet,” he said, curtly.

The lad gave him a vacant stare.

“There, on the saddle. Get the folk within to fill it.”

Robin loitered a moment, but, finding that Bertrand paid no heed to him, he slunk away across the yard towards the place where Bertrand’s horse was tethered. When he returned, after having the wallet filled at the inn, Bertrand stood again in his own armor, with the eagle of the Du Guesclins on his arm. He pointed Robin back towards the horse.

“Strap the bag on; get water, and a feed of corn.”

“Messire Bertrand, I am not your groom.”

A look persuaded him. Robin parleyed no further, but turned to feed and water Du Guesclin’s horse. Bertrand came and watched him at the work, silent and unapproachable, ignoring Robin’s restless glances and his jerky and almost cringing manner.

“What am I to say to them at La BelliÈre?”

“What you will.”

Robin lifted up the bucket for the horse to drink. His eyes were half dim with tears, his mouth weak and petulant.

“Won’t you help me, Messire Bertrand?”

“To keep up the lie, eh!”

Robin hung his head.

“You must know how we won the day at Mivoie, and how Sir Robin Raguenel saved the honor of Brittany.”

Robin winced, flushed like a girl, but stood listening while Bertrand told him all that had passed at Mivoie: who were slain, who were wounded and taken prisoners, how Tinteniac and Beaumanoir fought, and how Montauban broke the English ranks. Robin heard all without one flash of pride or gladness. Humiliation was heavy on him, and he had no joy in this Breton victory. When Bertrand had made an end, he stood with the empty bucket dangling in his hand, listless, and without will.

“Bertrand”—Du Guesclin’s foot was in the stirrup—“where—where are you going?”

The strong man drew a deep breath, but mastered himself in an instant.

“Where God wills,” he said.

He lifted himself into the saddle, setting his teeth as his wound twinged, and, turning his horse, rode out from the yard. Robin stood like one in a stupor. It was only when the eagle of the Du Guesclins flashed out to meet the sunset that he gave a shrill cry and sprang after Bertrand, holding out his hands.

“Bertrand! Bertrand!”

Du Guesclin did not turn his head. Robin ran on and caught him by the stirrup.

“Bertrand, forgive me; I will tell the truth—”

“Back, lad, back.”

“Bertrand!”

Du Guesclin clapped in the spurs, and, bending down, tore Robin’s hand from the stirrup.

“We have thrown the dice,” he said, “and the throw must count. Go back to La BelliÈre; the truth is safe with me.”

He cantered off, leaving Robin alone before the inn, mute and miserable as he thought of the lies he had made for his own mouth.