"Well?"
"I say, I've just heard a heart-breaking bit of news!"
"What? Who?"
"Poor little Frémont!"
I raised myself on my elbow:
"Oh. Is he hit?"
"Badly hit, apparently!"
My heart contracted. What a nightmare! That child who had been with me on the highroad yesterday, whom I had led on...! I saw him growing pale at the sight of the stretchers ... was it a presentiment...? And I had a vision of him on the bench in the garden the other day, folding his darling in his arms.
Guillaumin's thoughts had kept pace with mine.
"His wife," he said. "How sad it is! And you know she was expecting ... that they ... had hopes...."