p by force, shrieked wild, unfitting words, as they were driven
to the horses. The Countess looked on and listened, and shuddered,
waiting for Carlat to set her on her horse. She had gone during the last
three weeks through much that was dreary, much that was hopeless; but the
chill discomfort of this forced start, with tired horses and wailing
women, would have darkened the prospect of home had there been no fear or
threat to cloud it.

He whose will compelled all stood a little apart and watched all, silent
and gloomy. When Badelon, after taking his orders and distributing some
slices of black bread to be eaten in the saddle, moved off at the head of
his troop, Count Hannibal remained behind, attended by Bigot and the
eight riders who had formed the rearguard so far. He had not approached
the Countess since rising, and she had been thankful for it. But now, as
she moved away, she looked back and saw him still standing; she marked
that he wore his corselet, and in one of those revulsions of
feeling--which outrun man's reason--she who had tossed on her couch
through half the night, in passionate revolt against the fate before her,
took fire at his neglect and his silence; she resented on a sudden the
distance he kept, and his scorn of her. Her breast heaved, her colour
came, involuntarily she checked her horse, as if she would return to him,
and speak to him. Then the Carlats and the others closed up behind her,
Badelon's monotonous "Forward, Madame, _en avant_!" proclaimed the day's
journey begun, and she saw him no more.

Nevertheless, the motionless figure, looming Homeric through the fog,
with gleams of wet light reflected from the steel about it, dwelt long in
her mind. The road which Badelon followed, slowly at first, and with
greater speed as the horses warmed to their work, and the women, sore and
battered resigned themselves to suffering, wound across a flat expanse
broken by a few hills. These were little more than mounds, and for the
most part were veiled from sight by the low-lying sea-mist, through which
gnarled and stunted oaks rose mysterious, to fade as strangely. Weird
trees they were, with branches unlike those of this world's trees, rising
in a grey land without horizon or limit, through which our travellers
moved, weary phantoms in a clinging nightmare. At a walk, at a trot,
more often at a jaded amble, they pushed on behind Badelon's humped
shoulders. Sometimes the fog hung so thick abou