United States or Ghana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His humour was one of pitying patience for a girl that had not the wit to see that to ask him the most noble d'Ombreval to die that La Boulaye might live was very much like asking him to sacrifice his life to save a dog's. It wanted but a few minutes to noon as the condemned of the day were being brought out of the Conciergerie to take their places in the waiting tumbrils.
"I have not sold you to the Citoyenne," said La Boulaye, the words being drawn from him by the other's manner. "I am making her a present of you a sort of wedding gift." And his lips smiled, for all that his eyes remained hard. Ombreval made him no answer, but stood looking from the Deputy to Suzanne in some hesitation.
"M. d'Ombreval means to pay you a compliment," she informed La Boulaye, "but he has such an odd way of choosing his expressions that I feared you might misunderstand him." La Boulaye signified his indifference by a smile.
Even in that parlous moment she had leisure to despise herself for having once on the day on which, in answer to her intercessions, he had spared her brother's life entertained a kindly, almost wistful, thought concerning this man whom she now deemed a dastard. Presently Charlot turned to La Boulaye, and for all that he uttered no word, his glance left nothing to be said.
From Leuze to Soignies is a distance of some eight or nine leagues by a road which may roughly be said to be the basis of a triangle having its apex at Boisvert. After his men had hurriedly refreshed themselves, La Boulaye ordered them to horse again, and they now cantered out, along this road, to Soignes.
"It is the ostler's work," he announced. "There was knavery and treachery writ large upon his ugly face. I always felt it, and this business proves how correct were my instincts. The rogue was bribed when he discovered how things were with you, you greasy sots. But you, La Boulaye," he cried suddenly, "were you drunk, too?" "Not I," answered the Deputy.
And yonder by the hearth stood La Boulaye like a statue, unmoved and immovable. The Captain was speaking to her, gently and soothingly, but her thoughts became more taken with the silence of La Boulaye than with the speech of Charlot.
At the Bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal stood Deputy Caron La Boulaye upon his trial for treason to the Nation and contravention of the ends of justice. Fouquier-Tinvillle, the sleuth-hound Attorney-General, advanced his charges, and detailed the nature of the young revolutionist's crime.
"I shall be glad to avail myself of your offer," he said, in a voice that for meekness was ludicrously at variance with his late utterances. "Then pray do so at once." And La Boulaye took down an inkhorn a quill, and a sheaf of paper from the mantel-shelf behind him. These he placed on the table, and setting a chair, he signed to the aristocrat to be seated.
Pushing his horn-rimmed spectacles up on to his forehead he stretched out his hand to La Boulaye. "It is you, Caron," he murmured in that plaintive voice of his.
Word Of The Day