Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 1).djvu/40

 was too great to escape his observation, and he enquired if any thing had frightened her? No, said she, nothing. Clermont therefore imputed it to the haste she had made to meet him. As they had walked a good way, he now proposed that they should return home, to which she did not object; but never had she been so silent, so absent before, since of an age to be his companion as she was at this time with her father.

On arriving at the cottage, they found supper already prepared, to which they immediately sat down: they had scarcely finished, however, when one of the young villagers rushed into the room, and with a trembling voice and pale face, besought Clermont, for the sake of heaven and his own soul, to come out and give his assistance to a poor gentleman whom he and his brother, returning from their daily labour to their cottage, had found lying bleeding and senseless, as they supposed, in consequence of a fall, at the foot of the hill upon which the castle stood. 'Tis