a high-blazing, fuliginous whirl of smoke was touching the skies.
He stood quite still. His eyes sought the familiar silhouette of the gaunt old castle and, with a crash in his brain, he realized that that, too, had disappeared.
The land had taken toll—it had wiped out the home which had witnessed his love and his happiness.
And Laetitia—his wife? She must be among the ruins!
With the cry of a wounded animal the marquis stumbled through the battered, crumpled streets. As he passed the mairie the whole side of it gave way and came tumbling down in a mad, twisting, smoking heap. A flaming beam grazed his face. He brushed it aside as he would an insect, and kept on.
This land, he thought incoherently as he ran, this land of Corsica—it had killed his wife; and he shook his fists at the trees and the rocks while great tears blurred his eyes.
But he kept on in the direction of the gaunt, gray blotch where the castle had stood, stepping
