Hitherto there
had been difficulties to be overcome, risks to be run, doubts
about the end. Now the end was certain and very near; so near
that it filled all the prospect. One hour of triumph I might
have, and would have, and I hugged the thought of it as a gambler
hugs his last stake, planning the place and time and mode, and
trying to occupy myself wholly with it. But the price? Alas!
that too would intrude itself, and more frequently as the evening
waned; so that as I marked this or that thing by the road, which
I could recall passing on my journey south with thoughts so
different, with plans that now seemed so very, very old, I asked
myself grimly if this were really I; if this were Gil de Berault,
known at Zaton's, PREMIER JOUEUR, or some Don Quichotte from
Castille, tilting at windmills and taking barbers' bowls for
gold.
We reached Agen very late that evening, after groping our way
through a by-road near the river, set with holes and willow-
stools and frog-spawn--a place no better than a slough; so that
after it the great fires and lights at the Blue Maid seemed like
a glimpse of a new world, and in a twinkling put something of
life and spirits into two at least of us.
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