"
"In the Bois!" Madame was flung into a frenzy. "The Bois is nearly
half as large as Paris." But she swept breathlessly on, "Come,
Aline: get in, get in!"
Then to her coachman. "To the Bois de Boulogne by way of the Cours
la Reine," she commanded, "as fast as you can drive. There are ten
pistoles for you if we are in time. Whip up, man!"
She thrust Aline into the carriage, and sprang after her with the
energy of a girl. The heavy vehicle - too heavy by far for this
race with time - was moving before she had taken her seat. Rocking
and lurching it went, earning the maledictions of more than one
pedestrian whom it narrowly avoided crushing against a wall or
trampling underfoot.
Madame sat back with closed eyes and trembling lips. Her face
showed very white and drawn. Aline watched her in silence. Almost
it seemed to her that Mme. de Plougastel was suffering as deeply
as herself, enduring an anguish of apprehension as great as her own.
Later Aline was to wonder at this. But at the moment all the
thought of which her half-numbed mind was capable was bestowed upon
their desperate errand.
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