The journey of the next day went on as that of the day just gone; and it was evening when the sight of many well known objects, the wood through which she had often ridden, the little chapel where she had frequently stopped to pray, the hamlet, the church, the fountain, the stream, all of which she recollected, showed her that they were within a few miles of the place in which her youth had been spent. How changed were now all her feelings, from those with which she had wandered through the same scenes in girlhood! Where was now the sunshine of the heart, which at once lighted up every object around? Where was the interest with which imagination had invested all that now seemed so dead and cold? Some light had gone out in life since she was last there; and the visionary splendour had departed. In about half an hour more, they came to the side of a hill, from which the Château of Marzay was visible, at the distance of about a mile. The evening sun was just setting, and casting long streams of light and shadow over the undulating country below. The snow had disappeared; the green herbage of the fields was seen; the brown branches of the wood grew warm and glowing in the evening rays; the river swollen with rain rushed on like a torrent of blood, reflecting the glowing crimson of the west, and every window of the château flashed back the bright beams of light, in lines almost too dazzling for the eye. Round the summits of the towers, however, as they rose above the eminence on which the castle was built, rolled a thin dull cloud of leaden vapour, faintly tinged with red, on the side next to the sun; and as the carriage moved slowly on, it descended lower and lower over the building, rendering the lines and angles indistinct to the eye, like the fate which awaited the poor girl who was journeying thither. She gazed out eagerly towards it with a heavy sigh, and a heart weighed down with the certainty of coming sorrow; and then turning her eyes over the open ground below, she traced the road which she had followed in her flight with De Montigni, and could have wept to think how vain had proved all the hopes that bore her up through the fatigues and discomforts of that journey. Suddenly from behind a clump of trees, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, emerged slowly a figure on horse-back, bearing in his hand what Rose at first imagined to be a lance. The next moment, however, she perceived that it was a cross; and, at the same solemn pace, following the first on foot, came six other men carrying something like a litter on their shoulders. The light caught upon it, however, as they began to ascend the slope towards the château, and Rose saw the fluttering of a pall; several other persons followed, likewise, on foot, and then a party of some fifteen or sixteen horsemen, with lances lowered, and a pennon flickering in the wind.