CHAPTER XVIII

That night the British soldiers camped in the village. All over the
country the rebels had been scattered and beaten, and Bonaventure had
been humbled and injured. After the blind injustice of the fearful and
the beaten, Nicolas Lavilette and his family were blamed for the miseries
which had come upon the place. They had emerged from their isolation to
tempt popular favour, had contrived many designs and ambitions, and in
the midst of their largest hopes were humiliated, and were followed by
resentment. The position was intolerable. In happy circumstances,
Christine's marriage with Ferrol might have been a completion of their
glory, but in reality it was the last blow to their progress.

In the dusk, Ferrol and Christine sat in his room: she, defiant,
indignant, courageous; he hiding his real feelings, and knowing that all
she now planned and arranged would come to naught. Three times that day
he had had violent paroxysms of coughing; and at last had thrown himself
on his bed, exhausted, helplessly wishing that something would end it
all. Illusion had passed for ever. He no longer had a cold, but a
mortal trouble that was killing him inch by inch. He remembered how a
brother officer of his, dying of an incurable disease, and abhorring
suicide, had gone into a cafe and slapped an unoffending bully and
duellist in the face, inviting a combat. The end was sure, easy and
honourable. For himself--he looked at Christine. Not all her abounding
vitality, her warm, healthy body, or her overwhelming love, could give
him one extra day of life, not one day. What a fool he had been to think
that she could do so! And she must sit and watch him--she, with her