“Not I; I never see her.”
“Then perhaps I had better go back to the chateau and wait for her: stay, are you a friend of the family? Colonel, suppose I were to tell you, and ask you to break it to Madame Raynal, or, better still, to the baroness, or Mademoiselle Rose.”
“Monsieur,” said Camille coldly, “charge me with no messages, for I cannot deliver them. I AM GOING ANOTHER WAY.”
“In that case, I will go to the chateau once more; for what I have to say must be heard.”
Picard returned to the chateau wondering at the colonel’s strange manner.
Camille, for his part, wondered that any one could be so mad as to talk to him about trifles; to him, a man standing on the brink of eternity. Poor soul, it was he who was mad and unlucky. He should have heard what Picard had to say. The very gentleness and solemnity of manner ought to have excited his curiosity.
He watched Picard’s retiring form. When he was out of sight, then he turned round and resumed his thoughts as if Picard had been no more than a fly that had buzzed and then gone.
“Yes, I should have taken her with me,” he said. He sat gloomy and dogged like a dangerous maniac in his cell; never moved, scarce thought for more than half an hour; but his deadly purpose grew in him. Suddenly he started. A lady was at the style, about a hundred yards distant. He trembled. It was Josephine.
She came towards him slowly, her eyes bent on the ground in a deep reverie. She stopped about a stone’s throw from him, and looked at the river long and thoughtfully; then casting her eye around, she caught sight of Camille. He watched her grimly. He saw her give a little start, and half turn round; but if this was an impulse to retreat, it was instantly suppressed; for the next moment she pursued her way.
Camille stood gloomy and bitter, awaiting her in silence. He planted himself in the middle of the path, and said not a word.