"
"She is not there; I inquired of the servant. She was out. You have not
seen her, colonel?"
"Not I; I never see her."
"Then perhaps I had better go back to the chateau and wait for her:
stay, are you a friend of the family? Colonel, suppose I were to tell
you, and ask you to break it to Madame Raynal, or, better still, to the
baroness, or Mademoiselle Rose."
"Monsieur," said Camille coldly, "charge me with no messages, for I
cannot deliver them. I AM GOING ANOTHER WAY."
"In that case, I will go to the chateau once more; for what I have to
say must be heard."
Picard returned to the chateau wondering at the colonel's strange
manner.
Camille, for his part, wondered that any one could be so mad as to talk
to him about trifles; to him, a man standing on the brink of eternity.
Poor soul, it was he who was mad and unlucky. He should have heard what
Picard had to say. The very gentleness and solemnity of manner ought to
have excited his curiosity.
He watched Picard's retiring form. When he was out of sight, then he
turned round and resumed his thoughts as if Picard had been no more than
a fly that had buzzed and then gone.
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