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It gave me a sudden sense of being grown a man, and this sense my father very promptly proceeded to strengthen. "I had hoped," said he, putting down his glass and seating himself, "to delay Prosper's novitiate. I had designed, indeed, that after staying his full time at Oxford he should make the Grand Tour with me and prepare himself for his destiny by a leisured study of cities and men.
Of the brave men who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield, and the sole end achieved by that mad charge was to add another glorious page to history. And then Zephyr, struck by a musket-ball full in the chest, dropped in a heap, crushing beneath him Prosper's right thigh; and the pain was so acute that the young man fainted.
The debate lasted almost all day, during which time we drank a dozen bottles of wine. About supper-time, St. Jean was as drunk as a bunghole, and I had purchased nine hundred francs' worth of madder which your father will sell to-morrow." Prosper's astonished countenance made M. Verduret laugh heartily.
Though he would not look behind him he heard the plash of the ford, heard also Prosper's low, "Steady, mare, hold up!" Prosper was over; Galors halfway up the hill. It would be soon. The black and white gained hand over hand; the red and green felt him come. The soul of Isoult hovered between them. Black and white drew level; red and green held on.
Spring was stirring in underbrush and wildwood, in the pulse of the waters, in the sap of the great pines, in the uplifting of flowers. Small wonder if Prosper's boyish heart had stirred a little too. In fact, he had been possessed by another luminous idea a wild idea that to him seemed almost as absurd as the one which had brought him all this trouble.
This witness had left Paris the day of the robbery, and could not be found; so, for the time being, M. Patrigent was compelled to rely upon Prosper's word. "Well," he said, "I will not press this point; but tell me why, in spite of the formal order of M. Fauvel, you drew the money from the Bank of France the night before, instead of waiting till the morning of the payment?"
For herself, she hardly dared stay at all. Prosper's breast under a dagger! If she had stayed she would not have slept. The fever and the fever only kept her up; for a slim and tender girl she went through incredible fatigues. But while the fever lasted so did she, alert, wise, discreet, incessantly active.
Yet Prosper's strange calmness never left him for an instant. He quietly released himself from M. Fauvel's grasp, and very slowly said: "In other words, monsieur, I am the only person who could have taken this money." "Unhappy wretch!" Prosper drew himself to his full height, and, looking M. Fauvel full in the face, added: "Or you!"
Master Porges bowed, observing. Here was need of a high stroke of policy. With a cue from Prosper's handling of the science, Master Porges thought he could show Galors, politically, his place. The white-robed throng of singers stopped, with wondering simple faces, before the great black knight and his rose-clad lady.
She was thin and wan, unbelievably broken and tired and hurt, but she was Joan. Pierre could not but forget death at sight of her. He staggered forward, and she, putting up her arms, drew him hungrily and let fall her head upon his shoulder. "My gel! My Joan!" Pierre sobbed. Prosper's voice sawed into their tremulous silence. "So, after all, the branding iron is the proper instrument," he said.
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