They reached Mayenne; the soldiers of the
escort were changed; Merle spoke to her; she replied; they crossed the
whole town and were again in the open country; but the faces, houses,
streets, landscape, men, swept past her like the figments of a dream.
Night came, and Marie was travelling beneath a diamond sky, wrapped in
soft light, and yet she was not aware that darkness had succeeded day;
that Mayenne was passed; that Fougeres was near; she knew not even
where she was going. That she should part in a few hours from the man
she had chosen, and who, she believed, had chosen her, was not for her
a possibility. Love is the only passion which looks to neither past
nor future. Occasionally her thoughts escaped in broken words, in
phrases devoid of meaning, though to her lover's ears they sounded
like promises of love. To the two witnesses of this birth of passion
she seemed to be rushing onward with fearful rapidity. Francine knew
Marie as well as Madame du Gua knew the marquis, and their experience
of the past made them await in silence some terrible finale. It was,
indeed, not long before the end came to the drama which Mademoiselle
de Verneuil had called, without perhaps imagining the truth of her
words, a tragedy.
When the travellers were about three miles beyond Mayenne they heard a
horseman riding after them with great rapidity.
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