“An ugly piece of work!” grumbled the old quartermaster who had command of the hussars.
“Bast!” exclaimed the philosophic corporal, “the Rhone is no worse than the court of assizes: the result would be the same. Right about, men; march! The thing that troubles me is the idea of that poor old man waiting to hear his son’s fate. I would not be the one to tell him what has happened. March!”
XIII
Valentine knew, that fatal evening, that Gaston would have to walk to Tarascon, to cross the bridge over the Rhone which connected Tarascon with Beaucaire, and did not expect to see him until eleven o’clock, the hour which they had fixed upon the previous evening.
But, happening to look up at the windows of Clameran, she saw lights hurrying to and fro in an unusual manner, even in rooms that she knew to be unoccupied.
A presentiment of impending misfortune chilled her blood, and stopped the beatings of her heart.
A secret and imperious voice within told her that something extraordinary was going on at the chateau of Clameran.
What was it? She could not imagine; but she knew, she felt, that some dreadful misfortune had happened.
With her eyes fastened upon the dark mass of stone looming in the distance, she watched the going and coming of the lights, as if their movements would give her a clew to what was taking place within those walls.