sticking out of it was a bit of rose-and-silver brocade—the wall-covering of his wife's bedroom.
The marquis stooped and reached down into the hole. Then he gave a cry.
He had touched bare flesh—flesh which was soft and clay-cold.
Again he groped. His fingers strayed up. They encountered a tangled mass of curly hair.
He withdrew his fingers and, without as much as a groan, the marquis recommenced his work.
She was in there—perhaps she was still alive.
"Mary, Mother of God!"—the prayer surged in his heart; and with kicks and jerks, pushing and clawing, frantically, desperately, he bent to the task, and it seemed to him that he was ripping away the very intestines of this harsh land which had imprisoned his best beloved in an avalanche of senseless, cruel ruin.
Finally he summoned all his strength, all his love, and all his despair into a gigantic effort
There was a crunching, protesting noise—a sudden recoil which sent the marquis spinning backward—broken stones fell with a whistling noise like musketry fire, and the hole gaped far apart.
The marquis stepped down into it. A haggard
