“Thanks, you are very kind, but I shall obstruct you.”
“Fear nothing, for I must be seeking, too. Usually the lad comes home punctually,” continued the old man, “but I had a forerunner last evening. I was sitting up for him at eleven when my wife had the rumor from the neighbors of the miseries of this rejoicing. I waited a couple of hours in hopes that he would return, but then I felt it would be cowardly to go to sleep without news.”
“So we will hunt over by the houses,” said the nobleman.
“Yes, as you say the crowd went there and would certainly have carried him along. He is from the country and knows no more the way than the streets. This may be the first time he came to this place.”
“My sister is country-bred also.”
“Shocking sight,” said the old man, before a mound of the suffocated.
“Still we must search,” said the chevalier, resolutely holding out the lantern to the corpses. “Oh, here we are by the Wardrobe Stores—ha! white rags—my sister wore a white dress. Lend me your light, I entreat you, sir.”
“It is a piece of a white dress,” he continued, “but held in a young man’s hand. It is like that she wore. Oh, Andrea!” he sobbed as if it tore up his heart.
The old man came nearer.