What strange and terrible events had taken place since that August Sabbath, when, on leaving the church with her father, she heard of the arrival of the Duc de Sairmeuse.
And that was only eight months ago.
What a difference between those days when she lived happy and envied in that beautiful Chateau de Sairmeuse, of which she believed herself the mistress, and at the present time, when she found herself lying in the comfortless room of a miserable country inn, attended by an old woman whom she did not know, and with no other protection than that of an old soldier—a deserter, whose life was in constant danger—and that of her proscribed lover.
From this total wreck of her cherished ambitions, of her hopes, of her fortune, of her happiness, and of her future, she had not even saved her honor.
But was she alone responsible? Who had imposed upon her the odious role which she had played with Maurice, Martial, and Chanlouineau?
As this last name darted through her mind, the scene in the prison-cell rose suddenly and vividly before her.
Chanlouineau had given her a letter, saying as he did so:
“You will read this when I am no more.”
She might read it now that he had fallen beneath the bullets of the soldiery. But what had become of it? From the moment that he gave it to her until now she had not once thought of it.
She raised herself in bed, and in an imperious voice: