By the direction of
his telescope he seemed to be examining with the careful attention of
a commander the various paths across the Nancon, the Queen's
Staircase, and the road leading through the Porte Saint-Sulpice and
round the church of that name, where it meets the high-road under
range of the guns at the castle. Mademoiselle de Verneuil took one of
the little paths made by goats and their keepers leading down from the
Promenade, reached the Staircase, then the bottom of the ravine,
crossed the Nancon and the suburb, and divining like a bird in the
desert her right course among the dangerous precipices of the Mont
Saint-Sulpice, she followed a slippery track defined upon the granite,
and in spite of the prickly gorse and reeds and loose stones which
hindered her, she climbed the steep ascent with an energy greater
perhaps than that of a man,--the energy momentarily possessed by a
woman under the influence of passion.
Night overtook her as she endeavored by the failing moonlight to make
out the path the marquis must have taken; an obstinate quest without
reward, for the dead silence about her was sufficient proof of the
withdrawal of the Chouans and their leader. This effort of passion
collapsed with the hope that inspired it. Finding herself alone, after
nightfall, in a hostile country, she began to reflect; and Hulot's
advice, together with the recollection of Madame du Gua's attempt,
made her tremble with fear.
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