Then he thought to himself, it was best so; for perhaps he should have taken her with him.
"Sir! colonel!" uttered a solemn voice behind him.
Absorbed and strung up to desperation as he was, this voice seemed unnaturally loud, and discordant with Camille's mood; a sudden trumpet from the world of small things.
It was Picard, the notary.
"Can you tell me where Madame Raynal is ?" "No.

At the chateau, I suppose." "She is not there; I inquired of the servant.

She was out.

You have not seen her, colonel ?" "Not I; I never see her." "Then perhaps I had better go back to the chateau and wait for her: stay, are you a friend of the family?
Colonel, suppose I were to tell you, and ask you to break it to Madame Raynal, or, better still, to the baroness, or Mademoiselle Rose." "Monsieur," said Camille coldly, "charge me with no messages, for I cannot deliver them.

I AM GOING ANOTHER WAY." "In that case, I will go to the chateau once more; for what I have to say must be heard." Picard returned to the chateau wondering at the colonel's strange manner.
Camille, for his part, wondered that any one could be so mad as to talk to him about trifles; to him, a man standing on the brink of eternity.
Poor soul, it was he who was mad and unlucky.