“What is the matter?”
“Monsieur’s young friend! Has he not heard of her?”
“Well; she is gone, I suppose?”
“Ay—mon Dieu Jésus!—to the guillotine.”
Ned fell back. There seemed to rise a roaring in his ears.
“Hush!” he said—“listen! They are shrieking for her. I must go!”
His face was ghastly. But the thundering voice sank and ceased, and he knew that he had been dreaming.
“What was that you said, my Théophile?” he asked, with a little insane chuckle over his own fancifulness.
“It was yesterday morning, monsieur. You had gone out the previous night, and had not returned. I heard her leave the house after breakfast. I looked forth. Pitiful Mother! she was clad in the rags of her arrival. Her feet were bare. They budded from the snow, the very frosted flowers of a too-trustful spring. She stood a moment, then went off. Hélas! it was not for me to speak, but——”
“Well?” said Ned, in a gripping voice of iron. He was himself again, but with death at his heart.