“Forget me, Camille,” said she despairingly, doggedly.
“Forget you? never, never! there is but one thing I can do to show you how I loved you: I will forgive you, and begone. Whither shall I go? whither shall I go now?”
“Camile, your words stab her.”
“Let none speak but I,” said Camille; “none but I have the right to speak. Poor weak angel that loved yet could not wait: I forgive you. Be happy, if you can; I bid you be hap-py.”
The quiet, despairing tones died away, and with them life seemed to end to her, and hope to go out. He turned his back quickly on her. He cried hoarsely, “To the army! Back to the army, and a soldier’s grave!” Then with a prodigious effort he drew himself haughtily up in marching attitude. He took three strides, erect and fiery and bold.
At the next something seemed to snap asunder in the great heart, and the worn body that heart had held up so long, rolled like a dead log upon the ground with a tremendous fall.
CHAPTER XI.
The baroness and Aubertin were just getting out of their carriage, when suddenly they heard shrieks of terror in the Pleasaunce. They came with quaking hearts as fast as their old limbs would carry them. They found Rose and Josephine crouched over the body of a man, an officer.
Rose was just tearing open his collar and jacket. Dard and Jacintha had run from the kitchen at the screams. Camille lay on his back, white and motionless.