Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

116 THE EVE OF THE LAST DAY. The butt-end of a musket striking the door interrupted him. ‘“They are recalling me,’’ said Déroute. ‘‘Already!’’ ‘He arose and made two turns about the room. A second blow from the butt-end of the musket warned him to make haste. ‘‘Good!’’ he exclaimed, ‘‘my three cannoneers are afraid of catching a cold! Adieu, sergeant. ”’ ‘*Do you wish to embrace me, my friend?”’ ‘“‘Do I wish it? I did not dare to ask it of you.”’ Déroute threw himself upon Belle-Rose’s neck and held him in his arms for a long time. A third knock at the door was heard. Déroute ran to it, opened it quickly, and disappeared. He was stifling. When Belle-Rose no longer heard the noise of the cadenced steps of the little escort, he drew from his pocket Monsieur d’ Assonville’s folded paper and read the contents of it. It was a sort of will by which the young captain appointed Belle-Rose his executor by revealing to him the existence of a child which he had had by Mademoiselle de La Noue before her marriage with the Duc de Chateaufort. This child had disappeared, and Monsieur d’Assonville charged Belle-Rose with getting possession of it, at the same time turning over to him the divers papers which might aid him in his researches. Belle-Rose was obliged to inter- rupt this reading at least ten times. Burning tears fur- rowed his cheeks. He felt his life escaping through the wounds in his heart. The name of Genevieve—that name filled with horror and intoxication—returned unceasingly to his lips mixed with that of Monsieur d’Assonville, and to escape the disorder of his thoughts, the recollection of Suzanne was the only exile in which his riven soul could take refuge. But was not Suzanne also lost to him! On all sides were hopes destroyed. The flowers of his youth had scarcely opened to the light before they were withered, and in his short life, which musket balls were so soon go- ing to finish, he saw nothing except mournful griefs and sterile struggles. “The will of God be done!’’ said he, and throwing him- self upon his knees, he prayed. When the first rays of dawn lit up the pale hill-sides, Belle-Rose was still writing. Before him were some letters addressed to Madame d’Albergotti, to Claudine, to his father, to Cornelius O’Brien, to Madame de Chateaufort, and to Monsieur de Naucrais. More calm, he threw him- self upon the camp-bed while waiting the hour for the GOomicboo S (E(o)