“I must have breakfast first,” said the Marquis, putting a great restraint on himself to speak gently and humbly; it was natural to him to be brief and cold with his inferiors.
The youth jerked his head towards the open door.
The Marquis entered the low dark passage and stepped into the common parlour in the front, which was roughly furnished but filled with beauty by the chestnut tree that pressed its load of young clear green leaves against the panes of the small low window.
The Marquis sank on to a chair by this window, with his back to the light and rested his elbows on the stained table in front of him.
The woman whom he had seen with the pail entered, wiping her hands on her rough blue apron; she did not appear to notice his desperate appearance; the light was not good and probably she was used enough to wild and haggard figures stopping here for a moment’s respite on some bitter journey.
He asked her briefly for food; she nodded and looked at him, not unkindly. Few indeed could have looked at him unmoved, so obviously had everything left him save mere fainting humanity that cried for succour.
“You are hungry?” she said.
He answered her with an effort; repeated his story of a servant out of place.
“What became of your master?” she asked.
“Dead,” he replied, hardly knowing what he said. “The guillotine—”