This very delay seemed pregnant with news of disaster.

And then she shook off her fears and tried to comfort herself.

There was not yet time.

Besides, what had she to fear for Marius?
He was strong and quick, and Fortunio was by his side.

A man was surely dead by now at La Rochette; but that man could not be Marius.
At last, in the distance, she espied a moving object, and down on the silent air of eventide came the far-off rattle of a horse's hoofs.