The Garden of Swords by Max Pemberton

It fell wet upon the morrow, a heavy soaking rain, which quenched the watchfires and wet the shivering troopers to their very skins. All day long, weary infantrymen and gunners sleeping upon their guns came listlessly down the valley road; even the woodland heights were solitudes no more. Beatrix, worn with anxiety and waiting, saw the dark faces of the Algerians as they lurked about the garden gate and bandied words with the sentry who had been posted there. She beheld the aides-de-camp dashing wildly down toward the hollow or away to Reichshofen or Bitche. The ground trembled as the rolling guns were dragged upward to the heights. The horsemen, splashed from head to foot with mud, went by doggedly to their camp in the valley. A great sound, rising and falling, as the murmur of an angry sea, was heard all day, even in the thickets of the heights. The drenching rain could not check the sound, nor any door shut it out. The very air quivered with the echoes of turmoil and of movement. Men turned from camp to camp as though no place of rest was anywhere to be found. Peasants fled to remote glades of the mountains, with children clinging to their knees; women wept for the homes which would be homes to them no more.

It was nearly dark when Edmond returned to the chalet. The rain had soaked through his cloak, and his weary horse could scarce stand upon its legs. He met his child-wife at the gate and led her quickly to the house. She saw that the day had changed him strangely. He was thinking of something else even while he greeted her.