Page:Harris Dickson--She that hesitates.djvu/23



USK in Dresden. Darkness flung itself in pulsating mist and grayness on the river's bosom. The Elbe, gloomy and black, gurgled along its course while the last caress of day yet flamed and flickered on the lofty pinnacles of this ancient Saxon capital.

Leaning over the parapet of the Augustus Bridge, the Chevalier Henri d'Aubant, Frenchman, exile, soldier of fortune, a flaxen-bearded man in plain civilian garb, bent his eyes in contemplation on the restless waters. Beside him crouched two great dogs of the hairy Scottish breed. The man shivered, for dusk and dampness bring the early cold to Dresden.

"Well, it must be done some day; there's no help for it," he muttered. "Another man would not hesitate — why should I ? Poor Daria, she's nothing more than a headstrong child, and I should be charitable. If I desert her now it will make an outcast of her. Besides, my own skirts are not so immaculate that I can quibble at her view of the life I've led her into."

D'Aubant's mind ran back for half a year to a humble home in the outskirts of Moscow where he had