"Au secours, then! Help! To the rescue!" cried the two men. The two
dogs, with a glad, deep, generous bark, bounded away.
"Two more mad ones!" said the men, stricken motionless, and looking away
in the moonlight. "Is it possible in such weather! And one of them a
woman!"
Each of the dogs had the corner of a woman's dress in its mouth, and drew
her along. She fondled their heads as she came up, and she came up
through the snow with an accustomed tread. Not so the large man with
her, who was spent and winded.
"Dear guides, dear friends of travellers! I am of your country. We seek
two gentlemen crossing the Pass, who should have reached the Hospice this
evening."
"They have reached it, ma'amselle."
"Thank Heaven! O thank Heaven!"
"But, unhappily, they have gone on again. We are setting forth to seek
them even now. We had to wait until the _Tourmente_ passed. It has been
fearful up here."
"Dear guides, dear friends of travellers! Let me go with you. Let me go
with you for the love of GOD! One of those gentlemen is to be my
husband. I love him, O, so dearly. O so dearly! You see I am not
faint, you see I am not tired. I am born a peasant girl. I will show
you that I know well how to fasten myself to your ropes. I will do it
with my own hands. I will swear to be brave and good. But let me go
with you, let me go with you! If any mischance should have befallen him,
my love would find him, when nothing else could.
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