“It is too late now. We cannot stop or turn back. These sad accidents will happen at such times.”
“Leave me behind—oh, leave me in the wood! I can follow when I have found it. Leave me behind!”
“I cannot spare you, my dear. I should never see you again; and I cannot spare you. It is sad enough to have lost the child.”
“It was your child,” said she, pleadingly.
“And you are mine too, my dear. I cannot spare you both.”
Thérèse had never felt before. All that had moved her during her yet short life—all emotions in one were nothing to the passion of this moment—the conditional hatred that swelled her soul; conditional—for, from moment to moment, she believed and disbelieved that Papalier had destroyed her child. The thought sometimes occurred that he was not the only cruel one. No one seemed to pity or care for her—not even Margot or the girls came near her. She more than once was about to seek and appeal to them; but her master held her bridle, and would not permit her to stop or turn, saying occasionally that the lives of all depended on perfect quiet and order in the march. When they arrived at the cross, at the junction of the four roads, they halted, and there she told her story, and was convinced that the grieved women knew nothing of her loss till that moment. It was too late now for anything but compassion.
Jean Français soon appeared with a troop so numerous, that all necessity for caution and quiet was over. They could hardly meet an equal force during the remainder of the march, and might safely make the forests and ravines echo to their progress. Jean took off his cocked hat in saluting Toussaint, and commended his punctuality and his arrangements.
“Jean always admires what my husband does,” observed Margot to her acquaintance Jacques. “You hear how he is praising him for what he has done to-night.”
“To be sure. Everybody praises Toussaint Breda,” replied Jacques.
The wife laughed with delight.