Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-09-13

va ANo"t
fashionable ways of women, and
knowing that l had bore myself we'll,
marveled that she could take part in
such an incident and remain un-
changed.
Yet it had made a change in her.
Though her mask screened her well,
it could not entirely hide her emotions, !
and %by-and-bye l marked that her head
dropped, that she rode sadly and list
lessly, that the lines of her figure were
altered. / noticed that she had flung
away, or furtively dropped, her rid
ing-whip, and I understood that to the
old hatred of me were now added
shame and vexation; shame that she
had SO lowered herself, even to save
her brother, vexation that defeat had
been her only reward.
OF this 7 saw a sign at Lectoure,
where the inn had but n common
, room, and we must all dine in COM
pany. I secured for them a table by
the fire and leaving them standing by
1t, retired myself to a smaller one,
near the door. There were no other
guests and this made the separation
between us more marked. M. de Co
cheforet seemed to feel this. He
shrugged his shoulders and looked at
me with a smile half sad, half comical.
But mademoiselle was implacable.
She had taken off her mask and her
face was like stone. Once, only once,
during the meal I saw a change come
over her. She colored, I suppose at her
thoughts, until her face famed from
brow to chin. l watched the blush
spread and spread, and then she slow
ly and proudly turned her shoulder
to me and looked through the window
at the shabby street.
l suppose that she and her brother
had both built on this attempt, which
must have been arranged at Auch.
For when we went on In the after
noon I saw a more marked change.
They rode now like people resigned to
the worst. The gray realities of the
brothers position, the dreary, hopeless
future, began to hang like a mist be-
fore their eyes; began to tinge the
landscape with sadness; robbed even
the sunset of its colors. With each
hour their spirits tagged and their
speech became less frequent, until
presently, when the light was nearly
gone and the dusk was round us, the
brother and sister rode hand in hand,
silent, gloomy, one at least of them
weeping. The cold shadow of the
cardinal, of Paris, of the scaffold,
was beginning to make itself felt; was
beginning to chill them. AS the noun
tains which they had known all their
lives sank and faded behind us and we
entered on the wide, low valley of the
Garopne, their hopes sank and faded
also-sank to the dead-level of despair,
Surrounded by guards, a mark fol
curious %glances, with pride for a com
panion, M. de Cocheforet could doubt
less have borne himself bravely;
doubtless he would bear himself brave.
ly still when the end came. But almost
alone, moving forward through the
gray evening to a prison, with so many
measured days before him, and moth
ing to exhilarate or anger-in this
; condition it was little wonder If HI
felt! and betrayed that he felt, the
blood run slow in his veins; If HI
, thought more of the weeping wife ant
ruined home, which he left behind him
than of the cause in which he hat
spent himself.
, But God knows they had nc monop
| oily of gloom. l felt almost as SAL
I myself. Long before sunset the f1usl
of triumph, the heat Of the battle
which had warmed my heart at nool
l were gone; giving place to a chill dis
stisfaction, a nausea, a dependency
such as I have known follow a Ions
; night at the tables. Hitherto Their,
! had been difficulties to be overcome
risks to be run, doubts about the end
l Now the end was certain and yer.
4 near; so near that it filled all tn
! prospect. One hour of triumph I Nigh
. still have; l Rugged the thought of
as a gambler hugs his last stake.
planned the place and time and mod
and tried to occupy myself wholly wit
it. But the price? Alas, that woul
intrude too and more as the evenin
waned; so that as l passed this @
that thing on the road. which I coul
Il recall passing on my journey south
u with thoughts so different, with plan
+hot nnn caaroaI CT vopy worry nd
u asked myself grimly if this were reall
. I, if this were Gil de Berault, known a
Zaton's premier joueur; Or some Do
+ Quichotte from CASTLE, fitting at wint
$ mills and taking BARRIERS bowls fc
gold.
: We reached Agen very late in tn
y evening after cropping through a by
way near the river set with holes an
willow-stools and frog-spawns-a plae
. no better than a slough. After it tn
great fire and the lights at the Blu
Maid seemed like a glimpse of a ne
9 world and in a twinkling put SOM
thing Of life and spirits into two {
least of us. There was queer tai
: round the hearth here of doings
= Paris-of a stir against the cardina
with the q~ueen-mother at bottom an
= Of grounded expectations that SOM
Y thing might this time come Of 1t. BIZ
. the landlord p%ooh-poohed the idea an
more than agreed with him. Even \
y de Cocheforet, who was for a momel
inclined to build on it, gave up hoE
9 when he heard that 1t came only /
. way Of Montauban: whence, since II
! reduction the year before, all sorts
: canards against the cardinal were q
: ways on the wing.