It was little over a week since he had looked at the beautiful inspired face turned upwards in the chapel of St. Wenceslas; he gazed down now at the poor head on his lap, and the tears rose under his lids.
Georges d’Espagnac was wasted till his blue uniform, tarnished and torn, hung on him loosely; his face was so thin that even the hollows in the temples showed clearly and of a bluish tinge, while the lips were strained and distorted; all powder and dressing had left his hair, which hung in a mass of damp locks of a startling brightness about his shoulders; his right cheek was bruised by the fall from the saddle when his horse died, and his gloveless right hand was cracked and bleeding.
The Marquis felt his heart, and it was beating reluctantly and wearily.
There was no hope, he knew; at any moment the snow might begin again, and this lovely life must go out as the other lives were going out, unnoticed, unsweetened by any care, regret, or tenderness.
But it never occurred to M. de Vauvenargues to leave him, though he knew that his own best, perhaps his only, chance of life lay in movement, in pressing on.
The darkness fell slowly and with a certain dreadful heaviness; the added ugliness of the distant bark of wolves completed the speechless horror of the Marquis’s mood.
Still the army was trailing past him, bent figures supporting each other, a few Generals still on horseback, a few wounded and women in sledges or carts.
From an officer of the Black Musqueteers he begged a little wine that brought a tinge of colour into d’Espagnac’s cheeks and proved how pitifully easy it would have been to save him by warmth and care.
“There is only rough nursing here, Monsieur,” said the musqueteer kindly; “leave him and save your own life, for I think the snow will begin again.”
“Monsieur,” replied the Marquis gently, “he is so very young. And maybe he will be conscious before he dies, and find himself alone and hear the wolves. And it is such a little thing I do.”