And in a few moments more, the faint winter sun glinting on its majolica, came Mirabel—Mirabel with the barrier removed, and some hundreds of troops drawn up in front of it on the frostbound gravel.
The officer of hussars, raising his head, saw his companion holding out to him, with a little smile, the lettercase he had drawn from his breast.
“I am glad, after all,” said the last Duc de Trélan quietly, “that it should be here.”
CHAPTER XII
FOR SOME THE WORLD IS EMPTY
(1)
It was Hyde de Neuville, half beside himself with grief and fury, who brought the Comte de Brencourt the news, which at ten o’clock the young conspirator had only just heard, and which he could hardly believe. Yet there was no doubt about its truth. And someone must break it to the Duchesse.
But not, surely, the stunned and horrified man to whom this announcement had just been made. He stood frozen, in his room at the little hôtel garni, repeating with a stammering tongue, “Dead!—dead! shot this morning! . . . there is some mistake . . .”
“I wish there were!” cried Hyde de Neuville passionately. “I wish to God there were! I wish we had tried for last night—why were we such fools as to delay? I do not yet know whether this morning’s work was prompted by design, or just by evil chance. And the Duchesse——”
“Don’t suggest that I shall tell her!” cried the Comte wildly. “De Neuville, for pity’s sake——”