The emotions lie very near together, so that laughter
being aroused must also touch on tears, and hatred being kindled
warms the heart to love.
And, here in this unknown woman's room, with the very pen that she
had thrown aside, Charles, who wrote and spoke his love with such
facility, wrote to Desiree a love-letter such as he had never
written before.
When it was sealed and addressed he called his orderly to take it to
the officer to whose duty it fell to make up the courier for
Germany. But he received no reply. The man had joined his comrades
in the busier quarters of the city. Charles went to the head of the
stairs and called again, with no better success. The house was
comparatively modern, built on the familiar lines of a Parisian
hotel, with a wide stair descending to an entrance archway where
carriages passed through into a courtyard.
Descending the stairs, Charles found that even the sentry had
absented himself from his duty. His musket, leant against the post
of the stone doorway, indicated that he was not far. Listening in
the silence of that great house, Charles heard some one at work with
hammer and chisel in the courtyard. He went there, and found the
sentry kneeling at a low door, endeavouring to break it open. The
man had not been idle; from a piece of rope slung across his back
half a dozen clocks were suspended. They rattled together like the
wares of a travelling tinsmith at every movement of his arms.
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