noon
The post-houses were red with firelight . The steed floundered through the snow-drifts driven by blow and halloo . It was a fearful ride upon the high Alps ; the sublimity of nature bowed down to the mystery of crime ! Bright noon , on the third day succeeding , saw the fugitive emerge from the railway station at Dieppe . He had escaped the Swiss frontier with his life , but had failed to make sure that escape by reaching the harbor at the appointed time . Broken in spirit , grown old already , he faltered toward the town , and , stopping on the fosse-bridge , looked sorrowfully across the shipping in the dock . Something caught his regard amid the cloud of tri-color ; he looked again , shading his eye with a tremulous palm .