The finding of Tom had filled them with anger against Gard. The finding
of Peter filled them with fear.
Gard had sufficed as explanation and scapegoat for Tom's death, and as
vent for their feelings. But what of Peter's?
It had not been Gard, then? And if not Gard, who?
For, whoever it was, he was still at large, and any of them might be the
next.
There were new terrors in the eyes that gazed so wildly on the narrow
white path and the towering pinnacles of the Coupee. They had been
familiar with it all, all their lives, but suddenly it had become
strange to them.
If grisly Death, all bones and scythe, had come stalking along it before
their eyes at that moment, they would have shrieked, no doubt, and
fallen flat, but he would have no more than answered to their feelings
and fulfilled their expectations.
As it was, when the Seigneur's big white stallion stuck his head over
the green dyke behind them, and gave a shrill neigh at the unexpected
sight of so many people in a field which was usually occupied only by
Charles Guille's two mild-eyed cows and their calves, the women screamed
and the children lied.
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