For a while he shivered in the summer silence of the dying afternoon, and his blood ran passionately in his tired body.
Then he lifted his swimming head, and fumbled for the roses that had been worn by the man who was happy, and loved, and young, and famous,—the man who had everything he had hoped to have, and was everything that he had hoped to be,—and he laid the petals to his lips, and presently wept into their hearts, because he too was young, and some things that were dead could not be forgotten, and some hopes that were unfulfilled and some desires that were unsatisfied could not be for ever silenced.
CHAPTER VIII
THE END OF THE QUEST
On a pale, bitter day in the following spring, Luc de Clapiers made his way with a steady, purposeful slowness to a certain house in the Isle where there was a garden. It was the hotel of some nobleman, neglected and shut up. The garden was neglected too, but there was grass in it, green now, and two trees, just beginning to be flushed with leaves that crossed their boughs before the shuttered windows and closed doors.
In the centre of this garden was a fountain, broken and dried up. The basin was grey with dead moss, and in the centre rose a defaced figure with a pitying face and a bare bosom girdled beneath with drapery, in the folds of which the little birds nested.
Luc, when he reached this spot, leant against the high rusty iron railings, and stared at the grass and the two trees.
He was fatigued and hungry. A week ago his recent means of support had been taken from him. During the winter he had earned his living as a bookseller’s hack, by writing prefaces, by indexing, by correcting proofs, even by copying letters and delivering books. The work threatened him with utter blindness. He began to make many mistakes. At last another man was put in his place, and Luc was at a loss indeed.
He had some time since taken a cheaper room, and he had sold everything he could sell.
Yesterday, to pay the debt he owed for his poor lodging, he had parted with what he would not have sold for bread—what he had hoarded jealously so long—his sword: the sword his father had given him before he went to the war; a beautiful weapon of Toledo steel, with shell and quillons inlaid with gold.
Half the price of it lay in Luc’s pocket, and this money caused him the first sensation of shame he had known in his life. He held on to the railings to steady himself, and looked at the peaceful enclosure of the ruined garden.