“Very well. We are companions in misfortune and will stay together.” She crossed herself and whispered some prayer over the dead. “It is horrible to leave them,” she added, thinking of the wolves.
“He is not there,” answered the Marquis, “but ahead of us on the way already.”
He unfastened the lantern from the wagon and, taking it in his left hand, offered the right to the Countess.
An extraordinary sweetness had sprung up between them; they felt a great tenderness for each other, a great respect.
As they made the first steps on the terrible, difficult route, with the snow-filled blackness before them and their poor light showing only death and horror, the Marquis said to his companion—
“If I could have spared you, Mademoiselle, any of this——”
She broke in upon his speech—
“We shall never forget each other all our lives, Monsieur.”
Then in silence they followed in the blood-stained track of the army towards Eger.