Josephine, the one woman who had had true and lasting love for the Emperor, was dead, her end, no doubt, accelerated by the divorce.
Louis XVIII was king of France, but, with the usual obstinacy of the Bourbons, he failed to recognize the enormous change that had taken place in the temper and sentiment of the people; and already there were signs, for those who had the wit to understand them, that, under the surface there were smoldering embers of discontent that would burn fiercely at the first fanning. But the powers in France were unaware of it, and the deluded monarch sat his throne in cheerful self-sufficiency.
But it is with England, not with France, that the reader has now to do.
The first of January in the year 1815 was remarkable for its mildness, enhanced, in the locality which was the scene of the events next to be recorded, by the blazing sun which was pouring its rays generously upon the earth from the blue expanse of cloudless sky, making the sap stir in the leafless trees, and dyeing the herbage a more vivid green.
In the Spring and Summer the scene would have been a lovely one, and even now, it was not without its charms—the charms that belong to an English landscape.
Away in the distance lay in the Sussex Downs, sheltering from the cold blasts from the North, a roomy, weather-beaten, red-brick house, at present the abode of Halima and St. Just. A short distance from this house, and looking down upon it, was Wolstonbury Hill, nestling beneath which was the little church of Hurstpierpoint; the spire only was visible from the house, by reason of the trees that intervened. Away to the right was Devil's Dyke, and still further in the same direction lay Shoreham Gap. Extending the range of his vision the gazer would discern a clump of trees, called Chantingbury Ring, a well-known landmark for miles round—the sailors say that, coming up channel, you can see it thirty miles away.
In the old-fashioned garden that surrounded the house and was bounded by the high road between London and Brighton—about ten miles distant from the house—strolled on this same first of January, a lady and a gentleman. Let it be said at once that they were Halima and St. Just. Her age at this time was about three and thirty. She was still a lovely woman, but had parted with her girlish looks. Some might even think that her increased years had added to her charms; there was no waning in them; only maturity; and from her intercourse with high-bred men and women, she had acquired an ease of manner, a dignity of presence and a wit and polish in her conversation that, with her quick intelligence, made her more fascinating even than of yore. Withal, she had lost none of her strong will power and imperiousness. She was dressed handsomely, but more quietly than heretofore.
As for St. Just, he was noticeably aged, though the change in him in the last five years was not so great as in the five that had preceded them. He walked with a slight limp, the result of a wound received in Spain.
Presently they halted in their walk, and stood silently watching the sun just beginning to slip behind the leafless trees that crowned a little knoll to the West. At the same time the chime of distant bells struck on their ears.
St. Just was the first to break the silence.