第62章

"What a woman!" cried Hulot as he walked away with Corentin."A queer idea of those police fellows in Paris to send her here; but she'll never deliver him up to us," he added, shaking his head.

"Oh yes, she will," replied Corentin.

"Don't you see she loves him?" said Hulot.

"That's just why she will.Besides," looking at the amazed commandant, "I am here to see that she doesn't commit any folly.In my opinion, comrade, there is no love in the world worth the three hundred thousand francs she'll make out of this."When the police diplomatist left the soldier the latter stood looking after him, and as the sound of the man's steps died away he gave a sigh, muttering to himself, "It may be a good thing after all to be such a dullard as I am.God's thunder! if I meet the Gars I'll fight him hand to hand, or my name's not Hulot; for if that fox brings him before me in any of their new-fangled councils of war, my honor will be as soiled as the shirt of a young trooper who is under fire for the first time."The massacre at La Vivetiere, and the desire to avenge his friends had led Hulot to accept a reinstatement in his late command; in fact, the new minister, Berthier, had refused to accept his resignation under existing circumstances.To the official despatch was added a private letter, in which, without explaining the mission of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, the minister informed him that the affair was entirely outside of the war, and not to interfere with any military operations.

The duty of the commanders, he said, was limited to giving assistance to that honorable /citoyenne/, if occasion arose.Learning from his scouts that the movements of the Chouans all tended towards a concentration of their forces in the neighborhood of Fougeres, Hulot secretly and with forced marches brought two battalions of his brigade into the town.The nation's danger, his hatred of aristocracy, whose partisans threatened to convulse so large a section of country, his desire to avenge his murdered friends, revived in the old veteran the fire of his youth.

*****

"So this is the life I craved," exclaimed Mademoiselle de Verneuil, when she was left alone with Francine."No matter how fast the hours go, they are to me like centuries of thought."Suddenly she took Francine's hand, and her voice, soft as that of the first red-throat singing after a storm, slowly gave sound to the following words:--"Try as I will to forget them, I see those two delicious lips, that chin just raised, those eyes of fire; I hear the 'Hue!' of the postilion; I dream, I dream,--why then such hatred on awakening!"She drew a long sigh, rose, and then for the first time looked out upon the country delivered over to civil war by the cruel leader whom she was plotting to destroy.Attracted by the scene she wandered out to breathe at her ease beneath the sky; and though her steps conducted her at a venture, she was surely led to the Promenade of the town by one of those occult impulses of the soul which lead us to follow hope irrationally.Thoughts conceived under the dominion of that spell are often realized; but we then attribute their pre-vision to a power we call presentiment,--an inexplicable power, but a real one,--which our passions find accommodating, like a flatterer who, among his many lies, does sometimes tell the truth.