Rene Ronsard, sitting in his cottage,
feeble and somewhat ailing, heard the beginnings of the tempest with
long-accustomed ears. He was depressed in spirit, yet not altogether
solitary, for he had with him a kindly companion in Professor von
Glauben. The Professor had been one of the many who had attended the
strange funeral-pageant of the afternoon, not only out of interest in,
and regret for, the fate of the woman whose unique character he had
admired, and whose difficult position he had pitied; but also because
he had suffered from an unpleasant presentiment to which he could give
no name. If he could have described his forebodings at all, he would
have said they were more or less connected with the King,--but how or
why, he would not have been able to explain, save that since the death
of Lotys, his Sovereign master had no longer looked the same man.
Stricken as with a blight, and grown suddenly old, his manner and
appearance were as of one devoured by a secret despair,--a corroding
disease,--of which the end could only be disastrous. Overcome by the
pain and distress of being the constant witness of a sorrow which he
felt to the heart, yet could not relieve, the Professor, on returning
from the scene of Lotys's impressive funeral, had put ashore on The
Islands, instead of going back to the mainland.
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