She Would, and Would Not

She pondered over it as they rode that evening, with the weltering sun in
their eyes and the lengthening shadows of the oaks falling athwart the
bracken which fringed the track. Across breezy heaths and over downs,
through green bottoms and by hamlets, from which every human creature
fled at their approach, they ambled on by twos and threes; riding in a
world of their own, so remote, so different from the real world--from
which they came and to which they must return--that she could have wept
in anguish, cursing God for the wickedness of man which lay so heavy on
creation. The gaunt troopers riding at ease with swinging legs and
swaying stirrups--and singing now a refrain from Ronsard, and now one of
those verses of Marot's psalms which all the world had sung three decades
before--wore their most lamb-like aspect. Behind them Madame St. Lo
chattered to Suzanne of a riding mask which had not been brought, or
planned expedients, if nothing sufficiently in the mode could be found at
Angers. And the other women talked and giggled, screamed when they came
to fords, and made much of steep places, where the men must help them. In
time of war death's shadow covers but a day, and sorrow out of sight is
out of mind. Of all the troop whom the sinking sun left within sight of
the lofty towers and vine-clad hills of Vendome, three only wore faces
attuned to the cruel August week just ending; three only, like dark beads
strung far apart on a gay nun's rosary, rode, brooding and silent, in
their places. The Countess was one--the others were the two men whose
thoughts she filled, and whose eyes now and again sought her, La Tribe's
with sombre fire in their depths, Count Hannibal's fraught with a gloomy
speculation, which belied his brave words to Madame St. Lo.