They were complex thoughts which filled the mind of the traveller as the diligence swung rapidly down toward the town. To him, indeed, Vayenne was a dream city, an unknown city; yet somehow it had always seemed a part of himself. In an indefinite way he had always known that some day he would come to it, would have a part in its life, be of it; and now, as every moment brought him nearer to it, he forgot that he was a casual traveller merely, that only a few hours ago he had hesitated whether he should come at all. He was obliged to come. He was only fulfilling his destiny.
Lights began to blink in the houses as they crossed the old stone bridge and passed under a massive gateway on the city side of it. Lights swung at street corners as the lumbering vehicle passed over the cobblestones with much rattle and noise upward toward the castle. Even the driver roused a little from his lethargy, and cracked his whip. They had proceeded some distance when he suddenly drew to the side of the street, and the horses came to a standstill. They were evidently used to such pauses; for in these narrow thoroughfares traffic was difficult, and the diligence made no pretence of keeping time. There was the sound of horses' hoofs behind, and in a few moments a woman, followed by half a dozen horsemen, rode by. She checked her pace as she passed, and turned to look at the traveller, while the driver slowly raised his whip in salute. The light from a lamp swinging from a bracket on the wall fell upon her, and the traveller saw that she was young, two or three and twenty, her figure slight and supple. Her dark gray habit may have made her look smaller than she really was, and the mare, which she sat like an accomplished horsewoman, was a big and powerful animal, almost too much, it seemed, for those little gloved hands which held the reins to manage. Yet there was strength in those little hands. There was a suggestion of strength about her altogether, strength of will and purpose. It shone out of a pair of dark gray eyes set under gracefully curved brows and veiled with long lashes. The firm little mouth showed it, and there was just enough suspicion of squareness about the chin to emphasize it. She had nut-brown hair, a curl of which fell upon her forehead from underneath a gray astrakhan cap, and the little head was poised proudly on her shoulders. No ordinary woman this, not one to be easily swayed by love or any other passion, a woman to rule rather than be ruled.