It was that of the woman whom, however
madly, he loved with all the strength of a passion born out of utter
hopelessness. He turned to the outrider nearest him:
"You are of the Princesse Corona's suite? What does she do here?"
"Madame travels to see the country and the war."
"The war? This is no place for her. The land is alive with danger--rife
with death."
"Milady travels with M. le Duc, her brother. Milady does not know what
fear is."
"But----"
The remonstrance died on his lips; he stood gazing out from the gloom
of the arch at a face close to him, on which the sun shone full, a face
unseen for twelve long years, and which, a moment before laughing and
careless in the light, changed and grew set, and rigid, and pale with
the pallor of an unutterable horror. His own flushed, and moved, and
altered with a wholly different emotion--emotion that was, above all, of
an intense and yearning tenderness. For a moment both stood motionless
and speechless; then, with a marvelous self-command and self-restraint,
Cecil brought his hand to his brow in military salute, passed with the
impassiveness of a soldier who passed a gentleman, reached his charger,
and rode away upon his errand over the brown and level ground.
He had known his brother in that fleeting glance, but he hoped that
his brother would see no more in him than a French trooper who bore
resemblance by a strange hazard to one long believed to be dead and
gone.
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