It might
have done me good now.
I had wearily strapped up one bag, and nearly filled the
other, when I came upon something which did, for the
moment, rouse the devil in me. This was the tiny
orange-coloured sachet which Mademoiselle had dropped
the night I first saw her at the inn, and which, it will
be remembered, I picked up. Since that night I had not
seen it, and had as good as forgotten it. Now, as I
folded up my other doublet, the one I had then been
wearing, it dropped from my pocket.
The sight of it recalled all--that night, and
Mademoiselle's face in the lantern light, and my fine
plans, and the end of them; and, in a fit of childish
fury, the outcome of long suppressed passion, I snatched
up the sachet from the floor and tore it across and
across, and flung the pieces down. As they fell, a
cloud of fine pungent dust burst from them, and with the
dust, something more solid, which tinkled sharply on the
boards, as it fell. I looked down to see what this was
--perhaps I already repented of my act; but for a moment
I could see nothing. The floor was grimy and
uninviting, the light bad.
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