"Heavens! what fancies you torment yourself with!" said the Duke.
"I don't torment myself willingly; and I let my presentiments comfort me, for I want to tell you the whole. For an hour past I have known that my son is well; but he has been in danger to-day. He has suffered,--or it may have been an accident. Remember now the day and the hour."
"There! you must go," said the Duchess to her husband. "I don't believe a word of all this, but we must reassure your mother."
"You shall go with him," said the Marchioness. "I don't want my gloomy notions, which, after all, are perhaps morbid and nothing else, to give you the first annoyance of your married life."
"They will all vanish as soon as I see you going after him."
The Marchioness insisted. The Duchess ordered a light trunk; and two hours afterward she was travelling by post with her husband through Tulle and Aurillac, on the way to Le Puy.
The Duchess knew the secret of her brother-in-law; she was ignorant of the mother's name, but aware of the existence of the child. The Marquis had authorized the Duke to have no secrets from his wife.
At six in the morning they reached Polignac. The first face which attracted Diana's notice was that of Didier. She was impressed, as Caroline had been, with a sudden impulse of tenderness toward this dear little creature, who captivated all hearts. While she was looking at him and petting him, the Duke inquired for the pretended M. Bernyer. "My dear," said he to his wife, coming back, "my mother was right; some accident has happened to my brother. He went away yesterday morning for a few hours' ramble over the mountain, but has not returned yet. The people here are uneasy about him."
"Yes, it is beyond Le Puy. The post will carry us so far, and I can leave you there. I shall take a horse and a guide, for there is no road passable for carriages."
"We will take two horses," said the Duchess. "I'm not tired a bit; let us start."
An hour after the intrepid Diana, lighter than a bird, was galloping up the slope of the Gâgne and laughing at her husband's anxiety about her. At nine o'clock in the morning they were swiftly passing through Lantriac, to the great wonderment of the townspeople, alighting soon at the Peyraque-Lanion domicile to the equally great disgust of the village innkeeper.