Page 215 (1/2)
The ed his shoulders
"Well, 'tis fortunate it was his," he cried brutally, "and not His
Excellency's, or my back had suffered! And now," he added impatiently,
"by your leave, what answer?"
What answer? Ah, God, what answer? The men who leant on the parapet,
rude and coarse as they were, felt the tragedy of the question and the
dileuessed what they meant to her, and looked everywhere save at
her
What answer? Which of the tas to live? Which die--shamefully?
Which? Which?
"Tell him--to come back--an hour before sunset," she muttered
They told hio too, and
stole fro alone, her face to the shore,
her hands resting on the parapet The light breeze which blew off the
land stirred loose ringlets of her hair, and flattened the thin robe
against her sunlit figure So had she stood a thousand times in old
days, in her youth, in her maidenhood So in her father's ti the sands to woo her! So had
she stood to welcome him on the eve of that fatal journey to Paris!
Thence had others watched her go with him The men remembered--remembered
all; and one by one they stole shaic eyes on them