aited until she reckoned that they were
well outside the range of earshot, then, she too in the darkness, which
suddenly seemed to have become more intense, crept noiselessly along.

CHAPTER XXVIII THE PERE BLANCHARD'S HUT

As in a dream, Marguerite followed on; the web was drawing more and more
tightly every moment round the beloved life, which had become dearer
than all. To see her husband once again, to tell him how she had
suffered, how much she had wronged, and how little understood him, had
become now her only aim. She had abandoned all hope of saving him: she
saw him gradually hemmed in on all sides, and, in despair, she gazed
round her into the darkness, and wondered whence he would presently
come, to fall into the death-trap which his relentless enemy had
prepared for him.

The distant roar of the waves now made her shudder; the occasional
dismal cry of an owl, or a sea-gull, filled her with unspeakable horror.
She thought of the ravenous beasts--in human shape--who lay in wait for
their prey, and destroyed them, as mercilessly as any hungry wolf,
for the satisfaction of their own appetite of hate. Marguerite was not
afraid of the darkness, she only feared that man, on ahead, who was
sitting at the bottom of a rough wooden cart, nursing thoughts of
vengeance, which would have made the very demons in hell chuckle with
delight.

Her feet were sore. Her knees shook under her, from sheer bodily
fatigue. For days now she had lived in a wild turmoil of excitement;
she had not had a quiet rest for three nights; now, she had walked on
a slippery road for nearly two hours, and yet her determination never
swerved for a moment. She would see her husband, tell him all, and, if
he was ready to forgive the crime, which she had committed in her blind
ignorance, she would yet have the happiness of dying by his side.

She must have walked on almost in a trance, instinct alone keeping her
up, and guiding her in the wake of the enemy, when suddenly her ears,
attuned to the slightest sound, by that same blind instinct, told her
that the cart had stopped, and that the soldiers had halted. They had
come to their destination. No doubt on the right, somewhere close ahead,
was the footpath that led to the edge of the cliff and to the hut.

Heedless of any risks, she crept up quite close up to where Chauvelin
stood, surrounded by his little troop: he had descended from the cart,
and was giving some orders to the men. The