Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 186: what you’re looking at

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

172 A SOUL IN PAIN. governor of the province. Your role is finished, monsieur, mine begins. Go!”’ Monsieur de Villebrais slowly withdrew. In passing be- fore Madame de Chateaufort and Belle-Rose, he threw them a look stamped with an implacable hatred, rallied those of his men who were still unwounded, and moved away. ‘‘Monsieur,’’ said the duke to Belle-Rose, ‘‘you are free; here are horses for yourself and your friends; here is an escort for protecting you. There are no longer here either Frenchmen or Spaniards; there are only gentlemen.”’ Belle-Rose had scarcely thanked the duke, when a feeble sigh made him turn his head. His blood had congealed in his veins; he looked everywhere fearing to see. A dying man half extended upon a dead body stretched toward him his suppliant arms. ‘‘My father!’’ exclaimed Belle-Rose, and he rushed toward him. Cornelius and Pierre were kneeling beside the falconer. A deathly pallor had effaced from their countenances the animation of combat. ‘*T have lived more than seventy years,’’ Guillaume said to them; ‘‘God has done me the favor to let me die like a soldier; do not weep.”’ Belle-Rose did not weep, but his face was frightful to behold; he sustained his father’s head in his hands and kissed his white hair. “Tt is for me that you are dying,”’ he said. ‘‘And Claudine and Pierre—but you should have let me be killed. ’’ His trembling fingers parted the cloth which concealed the wound; the iron had entered the breast, from which came asmall stream of blood; the wound was deep and horrible. Belle-Rose’s features contracted; the elder smiled. ‘You speak to me of Claudine and Pierre,’’ he said to him; ‘‘I confide them to you.’’ At this moment the eyes of Belle-Rose met those of Genevieve; he recollected the letter which he had re- ceived, the cause which had brought him to Morlanwelz; his eyebrows contracted, and he threw upon the poor woman a look so full of bitterness that she concealed her head between her hands. Meanwhile Cornelius had a litter hastily constructed with branches of trees; a surgeon, who accompanied the Duke of Castel-Rodrigo, bandaged the wound of old Guillaume; two soldiers took up the Gomicbooks (elo