[CHAPTER LI.--FLIGHT.]
I was full of gloomy, perplexing, and irritating thoughts.
"If I am to drag on my life for years perhaps as a Russian prisoner, better would it have been, O Lord, that a friendly shot had finished my career for ever. What have I now to live for?" I exclaimed, in the bitterness of my heart, as I struck my hands together.
"You speak thus--you so young?" said Valerie, reproachfully yet softly, as she suddenly laid a hand on my shoulder, while her bright eyes beamed into mine--eyes that could excite emotion by emitting it.
"Life seems so worthless."
"Why?" she asked, in a low voice.
"Can you ask me after what passed between us the other evening, and more especially on yonder terrace, less than an hour ago?"
"But why is existence worthless?"
"Because I have lost you!"
(Had I not thought the same thing about Estelle, and deemed that "he who has most of heart has most of sorrow"?)