But she was told that he was unhurt, and that he was tending a cousin of his who had been severely wounded in the head.
It was an hour or so after sunrise when he sought her out, and they stood in conversation together--a very jaded pair--looking down from one of the windows upon the stalwart blue-coats that were bivouacked in the quadrangle.
Suddenly on the still morning air came the sound of hoof-beats, and as they looked they espied a man in a cocked hat and an ample black cloak riding briskly up the avenue.
"See ?" exclaimed Ombreval; "yonder at last comes the great man we are awaiting--the Commissioner of that rabble they call the National Convention.

Now we shall know what fate is reserved for us." "But what can they do ?" she asked.
"It is the fashion to send people of our station to Paris," he replied, "to make a mock of us with an affair they call a trial before they murder us." She sighed.
"Perhaps this gentleman is more merciful," was the hope she expressed.
"Merciful ?" he mocked.

"Ma foi, a ravenous tiger may be merciful before one of these.

Had your father been wise he had ordered the few of us that remained to charge those soldiers when they entered, and to have met our end upon their bayonets.

That would have been a merciful fate compared with the mercy of this so-called Commissioner is likely to extend us." It seemed to be his way to find fault, and that warp in his character rendered him now as heroic--in words--as he had been erstwhile scornful.
Suzanne shuddered, brave girl though she was.
"Unless you can conceive thoughts of a pleasanter complexion," she said, "I should prefer your silence, M.d'Ombreval." He laughed in his disdainful way--for he disdained all things, excepting his own person and safety--but before he could make any answer they were joined by the Marquis and his son.
In the courtyard the horseman was now dismounting, and a moment or two later they heard the fall of feet, upon the stairs.