And so the lame girl hobbled on. At about one o’clock she reached a darker and more dismal part of the wood. It began to snow.
“Better this than rain,” she thought. At first merry little flakes danced before her eyes, tumbling pell-mell from above and fluttering joyously about in her path. For a while the snow did not impede her course. But when great flakes began to descend, covering her from head to foot, powdering her fluffy hair, entering her mouth and filling her eyes—it was more difficult to proceed.
A melancholy sort of darkness settled around her. She could not see a dozen steps before her. The reader must have been in the depths of a great forest, alone and unprotected, to understand the lame girl’s sensations. The steady, silent downfall of snow alarmed her. She imagined all kinds of terrible things. It seemed as though the snow were preparing a shroud for her. She was now suffering intensely with the cold. Time and again she stumbled against the trunk of a tree and for a moment or more was unable to proceed. But she bravely started on again, always with Bruno’s fate in her mind.
She stopped to remove her sabots, thinking she might go faster. But fear possessed her and she fancied some one was lying in wait to strike her. “Who then would save Bruno?” was her boding question. Terror increased her pace. She looked to the right and to the left as though expecting to see somebody dart out from the darkness and seize her. The snow, the difficulty in advancing, the cold which was intense, and the dampness which penetrated her clothing, all conduced to render her situation anything but comfortable. And then to be alone in the awful stillness! Rain falling upon dry dead leaves makes a gentle swish, alike soothing and grateful; the wind, with its soughing monotone, is companionable; but the snow, with its mysterious white stillness, suggests a phantom—silent, lone, and solitary.
Shivering and shuddering little Sidonie sped on through the forest. Ere long she became aware that she was approaching Vaumarin. What mattered it to her that her garments were drenched, her feet sore and bleeding, and her hands almost frozen? She was nearly there. It was for Bruno’s sake that she had ventured forth.
While advancing toward one of the cottages she met a peasant with a load of hay.
“Where is L’Ours?” she asked, in a voice which startled even herself.
“Ah, it is you, little one! You come from St. Benoit at this hour. Well, well!”
“Where is Jean Manant?” repeated Sidonie, in a fever of excitement.
“This way, my girl, to the left. Walk down a little way and you will hear his axe.”