“My God! what is it! They cannot be going to kill you!”
Weiss looked at her with stupid, unseeing eyes. She! his wife, so long the object of his desire, so fondly idolized! A great shudder passed through his frame and he awoke to consciousness of his situation. What had he done? why had he remained there, firing at the enemy, instead of returning to her side, as he had promised he would do? It all flashed upon him now, as the darkness is illuminated by the lightning’s glare: he had wrecked their happiness, they were to be parted, forever parted. Then he noticed the blood upon her forehead.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. “You were mad to come—”
She interrupted him with an impatient gesture.
“Never mind me; it is a mere scratch. But you, you! why are you here? They shall not kill you; I will not suffer it!”
The officer, who was endeavoring to clear the road in order to give the firing party the requisite room, came up on hearing the sound of voices, and beholding a woman with her arms about the neck of one of his prisoners, exclaimed loudly in French:
“Come, come, none of this nonsense here! Whence come you? What is your business here?”
“Give me my husband.”
“What, is he your husband, that man? His sentence is pronounced; the law must take its course.”
“Give me my husband.”