On the first day of August, late in the afternoon, a peasant driving an exhausted horse pulled up at the Château Morteyn, where Jack Marche stood on the terrace, smoking and cutting at leaves with his riding-crop.
"What's the matter, Passerat?" asked Jack, good-humouredly; "are the Prussians in the valley?"
"You are right, Monsieur Marche—the Prussians have crossed the Saar!" blurted out the man. His face was agitated, and he wiped the sweat from his cheeks with the sleeve of his blouse.
"Nonsense!" said Jack, sharply.
"Monsieur—I saw them! They chased me—the Uhlans with their spears and devilish yellow horses."
"Where?" demanded Jack, with an incredulous shrug.
"I had been to Forbach, where my cousin Passerat is a miner in the coal-mines. This morning I left to drive to Saint-Lys, having in my wagon these sacks of coal that my cousin Passerat procured for me, à prix réduit. It would take all day; I did not care—I had bread and red wine—you understand, my cousin Passerat and I, we had been gay in Saint-Avold, too—dame! we see each other seldom. I may have hadmore eau-de-vie than another—it is permitted on fête-days! Monsieur, I was tired—I possibly slept—the road was hot. Then something awakes me; I rub my eyes—behold me awake!—staring dumfounded at what? Parbleu!—at two ugly Uhlans sitting on their yellow horses on a hill! 'No! no!' I cry to myself; 'it is impossible!' It is a bad dream! Dieu de Dieu! It is no dream! My Uhlans come galloping down the hill; I hear them bawling 'Halt! Wer da!' It is terrible! 'Passerat!' I shriek, 'it is the hour to vanish!'"
The man paused, overcome by emotions and eau-de-vie.
"Well," said Jack, "go on!"
"And I am here, monsieur," ended the peasant, hazily.
"Passerat, you said you had taken too much eau-de-vie?" suggested Jack, with a smile of encouragement.
"Much? Monsieur, you do not believe me?"
"I believe you had a dream."
"Bon," said the peasant, "I want no more such dreams."
"Are you going to inform the mayor of Saint-Lys?" asked Jack.
"Of course," muttered Passerat, gathering up his reins; "heu! da-da! heu! cocotte! en route!" and he rattled sulkily away, perhaps a little uncertain himself as to the concreteness of his recent vision.
Jack looked after him.
"There might be something in it," he mused, "but, dear me! his nose is unpleasantly—sunburned."
That same morning, Lorraine had announced her decision. It was that Jack might accept the positionof special, or rather occasional, war correspondent for the New YorkHeraldif he would promise not to remain absent for more than a day at a time. This, Jack thought, practically nullified the consent, for what in the world could a man see of the campaign under such circumstances? Still, he did not object; he was too happy.
"However," he thought, "I might ride over to Saarbrück. Suppose I should be on hand at the first battle of the war?"
As a mere lad he had already seen service with the Austrians at Sadowa; he had risked his modest head more than once in the murderous province of Oran, where General Chanzy scoured the hot plains like a scourge of Allah.
He had lived, too, at headquarters, and shared the officers' mess where "cherba," "tadjines," "kous-kous," and "méchoin" formed the menu, and a "Kreima Kebira" served as his roof. He had done his duty as correspondent, merely because it was his duty; he would have preferred an easier assignment, for he took no pleasure in cruelty and death and the never-to-be-forgotten agony of proud, dark faces, where mud-stained turbans hung in ribbons and tinselled saddles reeked with Arab horses' blood.
War correspondent? It had happened to be his calling; but the accident of his profession had been none of his own seeking. Now that he needed nothing in the way of recompense, he hesitated to take it up again. Instinctive loyalty to his old newspaper was all that had induced him to entertain the idea. Loyalty and deference to Lorraine compelled him to modify his acceptance. Therefore it was not altogether idlecuriosity, but partly a sense of obligation, that made him think of riding to Saarbrück to see what he could see for his journal within the twenty-four-hour limit that Lorraine had set.
It was too late to ride over that evening and return in time to keep his word to Lorraine, so he decided to start at daybreak, realizing at the same time, with a pang, that it meant not seeing Lorraine all day.
He went up to his chamber and sat down to think. He would write a note to Lorraine; he had never done such a thing, and he hoped she might not find fault with him.
He tossed his riding-crop on to the desk, picked up a pen, and wrote carefully, ending the single page with, "It is reported that Uhlans have been encountered in the direction of Saarbrück, and, although I do not believe it, I shall go there to-morrow and see for myself. I will be back within the twelve hours. May I ride over to tell you about these mythical Uhlans when I return?"
He called a groom and bade him drive to the Château de Nesville with the note. Then he went down to sit with the old vicomte and Madame de Morteyn until it came dinner-time, and the oil-lamps in the gilded salon were lighted, and the candles blazed up on either side of the gilt French clock.
After dinner he played chess with his uncle until the old man fell asleep in his chair. There was an interval of silence.
"Jack," said his aunt, "you are a dear, good boy. Tell me, do you love our little Lorraine?"
The suddenness of the question struck him dumb. His aunt smiled; her faded eyes were very tenderand kindly, and she laid both frail hands on his shoulders.
"It is my wish," she said, in a low voice; "remember that, Jack. Now go and walk on the terrace, for she will surely answer your note."
"How—how did you know I wrote her?" he stammered.
"When a young man sends his aunt's servants on such very unorthodox errands, what can he expect, especially when those servants are faithful?"
"That groom told you, Aunt Helen?"
"Yes. Jack, these French servants don't understand such things. Be more careful, for Lorraine's sake."
"But—I will—but did the note reach her?"
His aunt smiled. "Yes. I took the responsibility upon myself, and there will be no gossip."
Jack leaned over and kissed the amused mouth, and the old lady gave him a little hug and told him to go and walk on the terrace.
The groom was already there, holding a note in one hand, gilt-banded cap in the other.
His first letter from Lorraine! He opened it feverishly. In the middle of a thin sheet of note-paper was written the motto of the De Nesvilles, "Tiens ta Foy."
Beneath, in a girlish hand, a single line:
"I shall wait for you at dusk. Lorraine."
All night long, as he lay half asleep on his pillow, the words repeated themselves in his drowsy brain: "Tiens ta Foy!" "Tiens ta Foy!" (Keep thy Faith!). Aye, he would keep it unto death—he knew it evenin his slumber. But he did not know how near to death that faith might lead him.
The wood-sparrows were chirping outside his window when he awoke. It was scarcely dawn, but he heard the maid knocking at his door, and the rattle of silver and china announced the morning coffee.
He stepped from his bed into the tub of cold water, yawning and shivering, but the pallor of his skin soon gave place to a healthy glow, and his clean-cut body and strong young limbs hardened and grew pink and firm again under the coarse towel.
Breakfast he ate hastily by candle-light, and presently he dressed, buckled his spurs over the insteps, caught up gloves, cap, and riding-crop, and, slinging a field-glass over his Norfolk jacket, lighted a pipe and went noiselessly down-stairs.
There was a chill in the gray dawn as he mounted and rode out through the shadowy portals of the wrought-iron grille; a vapour, floating like loose cobwebs, undulated above the placid river; the tree-tops were festooned with mist. Save for the distant chatter of wood-sparrows, stirring under the eaves of the Château, the stillness was profound.
As he left the park and cantered into the broad red highway, he turned in his saddle and looked towards the Château de Nesville. At first he could not see it, but as he rode over the bridge he caught a glimpse of the pointed roof and single turret, a dim silhouette through the mist. Then it vanished in the films of fog.
The road to Saarbrück was a military road, and easy travelling. The character of the country had changed as suddenly as a drop-scene falls in a theatre;for now all around stretched fields cut into squares by hedges—fields deep-laden with heavy-fruited strawberries, white and crimson. Currants, too, glowed like strung rubies frosted with the dew; plum-trees spread little pale shadows across the ruddy earth, and beyond them the disk of the sun appeared, pushing upward behind a half-ploughed hill. Everywhere slender fruit-trees spread their grafted branches; everywhere in the crumbling furrows of the soil, warm as ochre, the bunched strawberries hung like drops of red wine under the sun-bronzed leaves.
The sun was an hour high when he walked his horse up the last hill that hides the valley of the Saar. Already, through the constant rushing melody of bird music, his ears had distinguished another sound—a low, incessant hum, monotonous, interminable as the noise of a stream in a gorge. It was not the river Saar moving over its bed of sand and yellow pebbles; it was not the breeze in the furze. He knew what it was; he had heard it before, in Oran—in the stillness of dawn, where, below, among the shadowy plains, an army was awaking under dim tents.
And now his horse's head rose up black against the sky; now the valley broke into view below, gray, indistinct in the shadows, crossed by ghostly lines of poplars that dwindled away to the horizon.
At the same instant something moved in the fields to the left, and a shrill voice called: "Qui-vive?" Before he could draw bridle blue-jacketed cavalrymen were riding at either stirrup, carbine on thigh, peering curiously into his face, pushing their active light-bay horses close to his big black horse.
Jack laughed good-humouredly and fumbled in the breast of his Norfolk jacket for his papers.
"I'm only a special," he said; "I think you'll find the papers in order—if not, you've only to gallop back to the Château Morteyn to verify them."
An officer with a bewildering series of silver arabesques on either sleeve guided a nervous horse through the throng of troopers, returned Jack's pleasant salute, reached out a gloved hand for his papers, and read them, sitting silently in his saddle. When he finished, he removed the cigarette from his lips, looked eagerly at Jack, and said:
"You are from Morteyn?"
"Yes."
"A guest?"
"The Vicomte de Morteyn is my uncle."
The officer burst into a boyish laugh.
"Jack Marche!"
"Eh!" cried Jack, startled.
Then he looked more closely at the young officer before him, who was laughing in his face.
"Well, upon my word! No—it can't be little Georges Carrière?"
"Yes, it can!" cried the other, briskly; "none of your damned airs, Jack! Embrace me, my son!"
"My son, I won't!" said Jack, leaning forward joyously—"the idea! Little Georges calls me his son! And he's learning the paternal tricks of the old generals, and doubtless he calls his troopers 'mes enfants,' and—"
"Oh, shut up!" said Georges, giving him an impetuous hug; "what are you up to now—more war correspondence? For the same oldHerald? Nomd'une pipe! It's cooler here than in Oran. It'll be hotter, too—in another way," with a gay gesture towards the valley below. "Jack Marche, tell me all about everything!"
On either side the blue-jacketed troopers fell back, grinning with sympathy as Georges guided his horse into a field on the right, motioning Jack to follow.
"We can talk here a bit," he said; "you've lots of time to ride on. Now, fire ahead!"
Jack told him of the three years spent in idleness, of the vapid life in Paris, the long summers in Brittany, his desire to learn to paint, and his despair when he found he couldn't.
"I can sketch like the mischief, though," he said. "Now tell me about Oran, and our dear General Chanzy, and that devil's own 'Legion,' and the Hell's Selected 2d Zouaves! Do you remember that day at Damas when Chanzy visited the Emir Abd-el-Kader at Doummar, and the fifteen Spahis of the escort, and that little imp of the Legion who was caught roaming around the harem, and—"
Georges burst into a laugh.
"I can't answer all that in a second! Wait! Do you want to know about Chanzy? Well, he's still in Bel-Abbès, and he's been named commander of the Legion of Honour, and he's no end of a swell. He'll be coming back now that we've got to chase these sausage-eaters across the Rhine. Look at me! You used to say that I'd stopped growing and could never aspire to a mustache! Now look! Eh? Five feet eleven and—whatdo you think of my mustache? Oh, that African sun sets things growing! I'm lieutenant, too."
"Does the African sun also influence your growth in the line of promotion?" asked Jack, grinning.
"Same old farceur, too!" mused Georges. "Now, what the mischief are you doing here? Oh, you are staying at Morteyn?"
"Yes."
"I—er—I used to visit another house—er—near by. You know the Marquis de Nesville?" asked Georges, innocently.
"I? Oh yes."
"You have—perhaps you have met Mademoiselle de Nesville?"
"Yes," said Jack, shortly.
"Oh."
There was a silence. Jack shuffled his booted toes in his stirrups; Georges looked out across the valley.
In the valley the vapours were rising; behind the curtain of shredded mist the landscape lay hilly, nearly treeless, cut by winding roads and rank on rank of spare poplars. Farther away clumps of woods appeared, and little hillocks, and now, as the air cleared, the spire of a church glimmered. Suddenly a thin line of silver cut the landscape beyond the retreating fog. The Saar!
"Where are the Prussians?" asked Jack, breaking the silence.
Georges laid his gloved hand on his companion's arm.
"Do you see that spire? That is Saarbrück. They are there."
"This side of the Rhine, too?"
"Yes," said Georges, reddening a little; "wait, my friend."
"They must have crossed the Saar on the bridges from Saint-Johann, then. I heard that Uhlans had been signalled near the Saar, but I didn't believe it. Uhlans in France? Georges, when are you fellows going to chase them back?"
"This morning—you're just in time, as usual," said Georges, airily. "Do you want me to give you an idea of our positions? Listen, then: we're massed along the frontier from Sierk and Metz to Hagenau and Strasbourg. The Prussians lie at right angles to us, from Mainz to Lauterburg and from Trier to Saarbrück. Except near Saarbrück they are on their side of the boundary, let me tell you! Look! Now you can see Forbach through the trees. We're there and we're at Saint-Avold and Bitsch and Saargemünd, too. As for me, I'm with this damned rear-guard, and I count tents and tin pails, and I raise the devil with stragglers and generally ennui myself. I'm no gendarme! There's a regiment of gendarmes five miles north, and I don't see why they can't do depot duty and police this country."
"The same child—kicking, kicking, kicking!" observed Jack. "You ought to thank your luck that you are a spectator for once. Give me your glass."
He raised the binoculars and levelled them at the valley.
"Hello! I didn't see those troops before. Infantry, eh? And there goes a regiment—no, a brigade—no, a division, at least, of cavalry. I see cuirassiers, too. Good heavens! Their breastplates take the sun like heliographs! There are troops everywhere; there's an artillery train on that road beyond Saint-Avold. Here, take the glasses."
"Keep them—I know where they are. What time is it, Jack? My repeater is running wild—as if it were chasing Prussians."
"It's half-past nine; I had no idea that it was so late! Ha! there goes a mass of infantry along the hill. See it? They're headed for Saarbrück! Georges, what's that big marquee in the wheat-field?"
"The Emperor is there," said Georges, proudly; "those troopers are the Cuirassiers of the Hundred-Guards. See their white mantles? The Prince Imperial is there, too. Poor little man—he looks so tired and bewildered."
Jack kept his glasses fixed on the white dot that marked the imperial headquarters, but the air was hazy and the distance too great to see anything except specks and points of white and black, slowly shifting, gathering, and collecting again in the grain-field, that looked like a tiny square of pale gilt on the hill-top.
Suddenly a spot of white vapour appeared over the spire of Saarbrück, then another, then three together, little round clouds that hung motionless, wavered, split, and disappeared in the sunshine, only to be followed by more round cloud clots. A moment later the dull mutter of cannon disturbed the morning air, distant rumblings and faint shocks that seemed to come from an infinite distance.
Jack handed back the binoculars and opened his own field-glasses in silence. Neither spoke, but they instinctively leaned forward, side by side, sweeping the panorama with slow, methodical movements, glasses firmly levelled. And now, in the valley below, the long roads grew black with moving columns of cavalry and artillery; the fields on either side were alive withinfantry, dim red squares and oblongs, creeping across the landscape towards that line of silver, the Saar.
"It's a flank movement on Wissembourg," said Jack, suddenly; "or are they swinging around to take Saint-Johann from the north?"
"Watch Saarbrück," muttered Georges between his teeth.
The slow seconds crept into minutes, the minutes into hours, as they waited there, fascinated. Already the sharper rattle of musketry broke out on the hills south of the Saar, and the projectiles fell fast in the little river, beyond which the single spire of Saarbrück rose, capped with the smoke of exploding shells.
Jack sat sketching in a canvas-covered book, raising his brown eyes from time to time, or writing on a pad laid flat on his saddle-pommel.
The two young fellows conversed in low tones, laughing quietly or smoking in absorbed silence, and even their subdued voices were louder than the roll of the distant cannonade.
Suddenly the wind changed and their ears were filled with the hollow boom of cannon. And now, nearer than they could have believed, the crash of volley firing mingled with the whirring crackle of gatlings and the spattering rattle of Montigny mitrailleuses from the Guard artillery.
"Fichtre!" said Georges, with a shrug, "not only dancing, but music! What are you sketching, Jack? Let me see. Hm! Pretty good—for you. You've got Forbach too near, though. I wonder what the Emperor is doing. It seems too bad to drag that sick child of his out to see a lot of men fall over dead. Poor little Lulu!"
"Kicking, kicking ever!" murmured Jack; "the same fierce Republican, eh? I've no sympathy with you—I'm too American."
"Cheap cynicism," observed Georges. "Hello!—here's an aide-de-camp with orders. Wait a second, will you?" and the young fellow gathered bridle and galloped out into the high-road, where his troopers stood around an officer wearing the black-and-scarlet of the artillery. A moment later a bugle began to sound the assembly; blue-clad cavalrymen appeared as by magic from every thicket, every field, every hollow, while below, in the nearer valley, another bugle, shrill and fantastic, summoned the squadrons to the colours. Already the better part of a regiment had gathered, four abreast, along the red road. Jack could see their eagles now, gilt and circled with gilded wreaths.
He pocketed sketch-book and pad and turned his horse out through the fields to the road.
"We're off!" laughed Georges. "Thank God! and the devil take the rear-guard! Will you ride with us, Jack? We've driven the Prussians across the Saar."
He turned to his troopers and signalled the trumpeter. "Trot!" he cried; and the squadron of hussars moved off down the hill in a whirl of dust and flying pebbles.
Jack wheeled his horse and brought him alongside of Georges' wiry mount.
"It didn't last long—eh, old chap?" laughed the youthful hussar; "only from ten o'clock till noon—eh? It's not quite noon yet. We're to join the regiment, but where we're going after that I don't know.They say the Prussians have quit Saarbrück in a hurry. I suppose we'll be in Germany to-night, and then—vlan! vlan! eh, old fellow? We'll be out for a long campaign. I'd like to see Berlin—I wish I spoke German."
"They say," said Jack, "that most of the German officers speak French."
"Bird of ill-omen, croaker, cease! What the devil do we want to learn German for? I can say, 'Wein, Weib, und Gesang,' and that's enough for any French hussar to know."
They had come up with the whole regiment now, which was moving slowly down the valley, and Georges reported to his captain, who in turn reported to the major, who presently had a confab with the colonel. Then far away at the head of the column the mounted band began the regimental march, a gay air with plenty of trombone and kettle-drum in it, and the horses ambled and danced in sympathy, with an accompaniment of rattling carbines and clinking, clashing sabre-scabbards.
"Quelle farandole!" laughed Georges. "Are you going all the way to Berlin with us? Pst! Look! There go the Hundred-Guards! The Emperor is coming back from the front. It's all over with the sausage-eaters, et puis—bon-soir, Bismarck!"
Far away, across the hills, the white mantles of the Hundred-Guards flashed in the sunshine, rising, falling, as the horses plunged up the hills. For a moment Jack caught a glimpse of a carriage in the distance, a carriage preceded by outriders in crimson and gold, and followed by a mass of glittering cuirassiers.
"It's the Emperor. Listen, we are going to cheer," cried Georges. He rose in his saddle and drew his sabre, and at the same instant a deep roar shook the regiment to its centre—
"Vive l'Empereur!"
It was a little after noon when the regiment halted on the Saint-Avold highway, blocked in front by a train of Guard artillery, and on either flank by columns of infantry—voltigeurs, red-legged fantassins loaded with camp equipment, engineers in crimson and bluish-black, and a whole battalion of Turcos, scarlet fez rakishly hauled down over one ear, canvas zouave trousers tucked into canvas leggings that fitted their finely moulded ankles like gloves.
Jack rested patiently on his horse, waiting for the road to be cleared, and beside him sat Georges, chatting paternally with the giant standard-bearer of the Turcos. The huge fellow laughed and showed his dazzling teeth under the crisp jet beard, for Georges was talking to him in his native tongue—and it was many miles from Saint-Avold to Oran. His standard, ornamented with the "opened hand and spread fingers," fluttered and snapped, and stood out straight in the valley breeze.
"What's that advertisement—the hand of Providence?" cried an impudent line soldier, leaning on his musket.
"Is it the hand that spanked Bismarck?" yelled another. The Turcos grinned under their scarlet head-dresses.
"Ohé, Mustapha!" shouted the line soldiers, "Ohé, le Croissant!" and their band-master, laughing, raised his tasselled baton, and the band burst out in a roll of drums and cymbals, "Partons pour la Syrie."
"Petite riffa!" said the big standard-bearer, beaming—which was very good French for a Kabyle.
"See here, Georges," said Jack, suddenly, "I've promised to be back at Morteyn before dark, and if your regiment is going to stick here much longer I'm going on."
"You want to send your despatches?" asked Georges. "You could ride on to Saarbrück and telegraph from there. Will you? Then hunt up the regiment later. We are to see a little of each other, are we not, old fellow?"
"Not if you're going Prussian-hunting across the Rhine. When you come back crowned with bay and laurel and pretzels, you can stop at Morteyn."
They nodded and clasped hands.
"Au revoir!" laughed Georges. "What shall I bring you from Berlin?"
"I'm no Herod," replied Jack; "bring back your own feather-head safely—that's all I ask." And with a smile and a gay salute the young fellows parted, turning occasionally in their saddles to wave a last adieu, until Jack's big horse disappeared among the dense platoons ahead.
For a quarter of an hour he sidled and pushed and shoved, and picked a cautious path through section after section of field artillery, seeing here and there an officer whom he knew, saluting cheerily, making a thousand excuses for his haste to the good-natured artillerymen, who only grinned in reply. As he rode,he noted with misgivings that the cannon were not breech-loaders. He had recently heard a good deal about the Prussian new model for field artillery, and he had read, in the French journals, reports of their wonderful range and flat trajectory. The cannon that he passed, with the exception of the Montigny mitrailleuses and the American gatlings, were all beautiful pieces, bronzed and engraved with crown and LN and eagle, but for all their beauty they were only muzzle-loaders.
In a little while he came to the head of the column. The road in front seemed to be clear enough, and he wondered why they had halted, blocking half a division of infantry and cavalry behind them. There really was no reason at all. He did not know it, but he had seen the first case of that indescribable disease that raged in France in 1870-71—that malady that cannot be termed paralysis or apathy or inertia. It was all three, and it was malignant, for it came from a befouled and degraded court, spread to the government, infected the provinces, sparing neither prince nor peasant, until over the whole fair land of France it crept and hung, a fetid, miasmic effluvia, till the nation, hopeless, weary, despairing, bereft of nerve and sinew, sank under it into utter physical and moral prostration.
This was the terrible fever that burned the best blood out of the nation—a fever that had its inception in the corruption of the empire, its crisis at Sedan, its delirium in the Commune! The nation's convalescence is slow but sure.
Jack touched spurs to his horse and galloped out into the Saarbrück road. He passed a heavy, fat-neckedgeneral, sitting on his horse, his dull, apoplectic eyes following the gestures of a staff-officer who was tracing routes and railroads on a map nailed against a poplar-tree. He passed other generals, deep in consultation, absently rolling cigarettes between their kid-gloved fingers; and everywhere dragoon patrols, gallant troopers in blue and garance, wearing steel helmets bound with leopard-skin above the visors. He passed ambulances, too, blue vehicles covered with framed yellow canvas, flying the red cross. One of the field-surgeons gave him a brief outline of the casualties and general result of the battle, and he thanked him and hastened on towards Saarbrück, whence he expected to send his despatches to Paris. But now the road was again choked with marching infantry as far as the eye could see, dense masses, pushing along in an eddying cloud of red dust that blew to the east and hung across the fields like smoke from a locomotive. Men with stretchers were passing; he saw an officer, face white as chalk, sunburned hands clinched, lying in a canvas hand-stretcher, borne by four men of the hospital corps. Edging his way to the meadow, he put his horse to the ditch, cleared it, and galloped on towards a spire that rose close ahead, outlined dimly in the smoke and dust, and in ten minutes he was in Saarbrück.
Up a stony street, desolate, deserted, lined with rows of closed machine-shops, he passed, and out into another street where a regiment of lancers was defiling amid a confusion of shouts and shrill commands, the racket of drums echoing from wall to pavement, and the ear-splitting flourish of trumpets mingled with the heavy rumble of artillery and thecracking of leather thongs. Already the pontoons were beginning to span the river Saar, already the engineers were swarming over the three ruined bridges, jackets cast aside, picks rising and falling—clink! clank! clink! clank!—and the scrape of mortar and trowel on the granite grew into an incessant sound, harsh and discordant. The market square was impassable; infantry gorged every foot of the stony pavement, ambulances creaked through the throng, rolling like white ships in a tempest, signals set.
In the sea of faces around him he recognized the correspondent of the LondonTimes.
"Hello, Williams!" he called; "where the devil is the telegraph?"
The Englishman, red in the face and dripping with perspiration, waved his hand spasmodically.
"The military are using it; you'll have to wait until four o'clock. Are you with us in this scrimmage? The fellows are down by the Hôtel Post trying to mend the wires there. Archibald Grahame is with the Germans!"
Jack turned in his saddle with a friendly gesture of thanks and adieu. If he were going to send his despatch, he had no time to waste in Saarbrück—he understood that at a glance. For a moment he thought of going to the Hôtel Post and taking his chances with his brother correspondents; then, abruptly wheeling his horse, he trotted out into the long shed that formed one of an interminable series of coal shelters, passed through it, gained the outer street, touched up his horse, and tore away, headed straight for Forbach. For he had decided that at Forbach was his chance to beat the other correspondents, andhe took the chance, knowing that in case the telegraph there was also occupied he could still get back to Morteyn, and from there to Saint-Lys, before the others had wired to their respective journals.
It was three o'clock when he clattered into the single street of Forbach amid the blowing of bugles from a cuirassier regiment that was just leaving at a trot. The streets were thronged with gendarmes and cavalry of all arms, lancers in baggy, scarlet trousers and clumsy schapskas weighted with gold cord, chasseurs à cheval in turquoise blue and silver, dragoons, Spahis, remount-troopers, and here and there a huge rider of the Hundred-Guards, glittering like a scaled dragon in his splendid armour.
He pushed his way past the Hôtel Post and into the garden, where, at a table, an old general sat reading letters.
With a hasty glance at him, Jack bowed, and asked permission to take the unoccupied chair and use the table. The officer inclined his head with a peculiarly graceful movement, and, without more ado, Jack sat down, placed his pad flat on the table, and wrote his despatch in pencil:
"Forbach, 2d August, 1870."The first shot of the war was fired this morning at ten o'clock. At that hour the French opened on Saarbrück with twenty-three pieces of artillery. The bombardment continued until twelve. At two o'clock the Germans, having evacuated Saarbrück, retreated across the Saar to Saint-Johann. The latter village is also now being evacuated; the French are pushing across the Saar by means of pontoons; the three bridges are also being rapidly repaired."Reports vary, but it is probable that the losses on the German side will number four officers and seventy-nine menkilled—wounded unknown. The French lost six officers and eighty men killed; wounded list not completed."The Emperor was present with the Prince Imperial."
"Forbach, 2d August, 1870.
"The first shot of the war was fired this morning at ten o'clock. At that hour the French opened on Saarbrück with twenty-three pieces of artillery. The bombardment continued until twelve. At two o'clock the Germans, having evacuated Saarbrück, retreated across the Saar to Saint-Johann. The latter village is also now being evacuated; the French are pushing across the Saar by means of pontoons; the three bridges are also being rapidly repaired.
"Reports vary, but it is probable that the losses on the German side will number four officers and seventy-nine menkilled—wounded unknown. The French lost six officers and eighty men killed; wounded list not completed.
"The Emperor was present with the Prince Imperial."
Leaving his pad on the table and his riding-crop and gloves over it, he gathered up the loose leaves of his telegram and hastened across the street to the telegraph office. For the moment the instrument was idle, and the operator took his despatch, read it aloud to the censor, an officer of artillery, who viséd it and nodded.
"A longer despatch is to follow—can I have the wires again in half an hour?" asked Jack.
Both operator and censor laughed and said, "No promises, monsieur; come and see." And Jack hastened back to the garden of the hôtel and sat down once more under the trees, scarcely glancing at the old officer beside him. Again he wrote:
"The truth is that the whole affair was scarcely more than a skirmish. A handful of the 2d Battalion of Fusilliers, a squadron or two of Uhlans, and a battery of Prussian artillery have for days faced and held in check a whole French division. When they were attacked they tranquilly turned a bold front to the French, made a devil of a racket with their cannon, and slipped across the frontier with trifling loss. If the French are going to celebrate this as a victory, Europe will laugh—"
"The truth is that the whole affair was scarcely more than a skirmish. A handful of the 2d Battalion of Fusilliers, a squadron or two of Uhlans, and a battery of Prussian artillery have for days faced and held in check a whole French division. When they were attacked they tranquilly turned a bold front to the French, made a devil of a racket with their cannon, and slipped across the frontier with trifling loss. If the French are going to celebrate this as a victory, Europe will laugh—"
He paused, frowning and biting his pencil. Presently he noticed that several troopers of the Hundred-Guards were watching him from the street; sentinels of the same corps were patrolling the garden, their long, bayoneted carbines over their steel-bound shoulders. At the same moment his eyes fell upon the old officer beside him. The officer raised his head.
It was the Emperor, Napoleon III.
Jack was startled, and he instinctively stood up very straight, as he always did when surprised.
Under the Emperor's crimson képi, heavy with gold, the old, old eyes, half closed, peered at him, as a drowsy buzzard watches the sky, with filmy, changeless gaze. His face was the colour of clay, the loose folds of the cheeks hung pallid over a heavy chin; his lips were hidden beneath a mustache and imperial, unkempt but waxed at the ends. From the shadow of his crimson cap the hair straggled forward, half hiding two large, wrinkled, yellow ears.
With a smile and a slight gesture exquisitely courteous, the Emperor said: "Pray do not allow me to interrupt you, monsieur; old soldiers are of small account when a nation's newspapers wait."
"Sire!" protested Jack, flushing.
Napoleon III.'s eyes twinkled, and he picked up his letter again, still smiling.
"Such good news, monsieur, should not be kept waiting. You are English? No? Then American? Oh!"
The Emperor rolled a cigarette, gazing into vacancy with dreamy eyes, narrow as slits in a mask. Jack sat down again, pencil in hand, a little flustered and uncertain.
The Emperor struck a wax-match on a gold matchbox, leaning his elbow on the table to steady his shaking hand. Presently he slowly crossed one baggy red-trouser knee over the other and, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into the sunshine, said: "I suppose your despatch will arrive considerably in advance of the telegrams of the other correspondents, who seem to be blocked in Saarbrück?"
He glanced obliquely at Jack, grave and impassible.
"I trust so, sire," said Jack, seriously.
The Emperor laughed outright, crumpled the letter in his gloved hand, tossed the cigarette away, and rose painfully, leaning for support on the table.
Jack rose, too.
"Monsieur," said Napoleon, playfully, as though attempting to conceal intense physical suffering, "I am in search of a motto—for reasons. I shall have a regiment or two carry 'Saarbrück' on their colours. What motto should they also carry?"
Jack spoke before he intended it—he never knew why: "Sire, the only motto I know is this: 'Tiens ta Foy!'"
The Man of December turned his narrow eyes on him. Then, bowing with the dignity and grace that he, of all living monarchs, possessed, the Emperor passed slowly through the garden and entered the little hôtel, the clash of presented carbines ringing in the still air behind him.
Jack sat down, considerably exercised in his mind, thinking of what he had said. The splendid old crusader's motto, "Keep thy Faith," was scarcely the motto to suggest to the man of the Coup d'État,the man of Rome, the man of Mexico. The very bones of Victor Noir would twist in their coffin at the words; and the lungs of that other Victor, the one named Hugo, would swell and expand until the bellowing voice rang like a Jersey fog-siren over the channel, over the ocean, till the seven seas vibrated and the four winds swept it to the four ends of the earth.
Very soberly he finished his despatch, picked up his gloves and crop, and again walked over to the telegraph station.
The censor read the pencilled scrawl, smiled, drew a red pencil through some of it, smiled again, and said: "I trust it will not inconvenience monsieur too much."
"Not at all," said Jack, pleasantly.
He had not expected to get it all through, and he bowed and thanked the censor, and went out to where his horse stood, cropping the tender leaves of a spreading chestnut-tree.
It was five o'clock by his watch when he trotted out into the Morteyn road, now entirely deserted except by a peasant or two, staring, under their inverted hands, at the distant spire of Saarbrück.
Far away in the valley he caught glimpses of troops, glancing at times over his shoulder, but the distant squares and columns on hill-side and road seemed to be motionless. Already the thin, glimmering line of the Saar had faded from view; the afternoon haze hung blue on every hill-side; the woods were purple and vague as streaks of cloud at evening.
He passed Saint-Avold far to the south, too far to see anything of the division that lay encamped there;and presently he turned into the river road that follows the Saar until the great highway to Metz cuts it at an acute angle. From this cross-road he could see the railway, where a line of freight-cars, drawn by a puffing locomotive, was passing—cars of all colours, marked on one end "Elsass-Lothringen," on the other "Alsace-Lorraine."
He had brought with him a slice of bread and a flask of Moselle, and, as he had had no time to eat since daybreak, he gravely began munching away, drinking now and then from his flask and absently eying the road ahead.
He thought of Lorraine and of his promise. If only all promises were as easily kept! He had plenty of time to reach Morteyn before dark, taking it at an easy canter, so he let his horse walk up the hills while he swallowed his bread and wine and mused on war and love and emperors.
He had been riding in this abstracted study for some time, and had lighted a pipe to aid his dreams, when, from the hill-side ahead, he caught a glimpse of something that sparkled in the afternoon sunshine, and he rose in his saddle and looked to see what it might be. After a moment he made out five mounted troopers, moving about on the crest of the hill, the sun slanting on stirrup metal and lance-tip. As he was about to resume his meditations, something about these lancers caught his eye—something that did not seem quite right—he couldn't tell what. Of course they were French lancers, they could be nothing else, here in the rear of the army, but still they were rather odd-looking lancers, after all.
The eyes of a mariner and the eyes of a soldier,or of a man who foregathers with soldiers, are quick to detect strange rigging. Therefore Jack unslung his glasses and levelled them on the group of mounted men, who were now moving towards him at an easy lope, their tall lances, butts in stirrups, swinging free from the arm-loops, their horses' manes tossing in the hill breeze.
The next moment he seized his bridle, drove both spurs into his horse, and plunged ahead, dropping pipe and flask in the road unheeded. At the same time a hoarse shout came quavering across the fields, a shout as harsh and sinister as the menacing cry of a hawk; but he dashed on, raising a whirlwind of red dust. Now he could see them plainly enough, their slim boots, their yellow facings and reverses, the shiny little helmets with the square tops like inverted goblets, the steel lances from which black and white pennons streamed.
They were Uhlans!
For a minute it was a question in his mind whether or not they would be able to cut him off. A ditch in the meadow halted them for a second or two, but they took it like chamois and came cantering up towards the high-road, shouting hoarsely and brandishing their lances.
It was true that, being a non-combatant and a foreigner with a passport, and, furthermore, an accredited newspaper correspondent, he had nothing to fear except, perhaps, a tedious detention and a long-winded explanation. But it was not that. He had promised to be at Morteyn by night, and now, if these Uhlans caught him and marched him off to their main post, he would certainly spend one night at least in thewoods or fields. A sudden anger, almost a fury, seized him that these men should interfere with his promise; that they should in any way influence his own free going and coming, and he struck his horse with the riding-crop and clattered on along the highway.
"Halt!" shouted a voice, in German—"halt! or we fire!" and again in French: "Halt! We shall fire!"
They were not far from the road now, but he saw that he could pass them easily.
"Halt! halt!" they shouted, breathless.
Instinctively he ducked, and at the same moment piff! piff! their revolvers began, and two bullets sang past near enough to make his ears tingle.
Then they settled down to outride him; he heard their scurry and jingle behind, and for a minute or two they held their own, but little by little he forged ahead, and they began to shoot at him from their saddles. One of them, however, had not wasted time in shooting; Jack heard him, always behind, and now he seemed to be drawing nearer, steadily but slowly closing up the gap between them.
Jack glanced back. There he was, a big, blond, bony Uhlan, lance couched, clattering up the hill; but the others had already halted far behind, watching the race from the bottom of the incline.
"Tiens ta Foy," he muttered to himself, digging both spurs into his horse; "I'll not prove faithless to her first request—not if I know it. Good Lord! how near that Uhlan is!"
Again he glanced behind, hesitated, and finally shouted: "Go back! I am no soldier! Go back!"
"I'll show you!" bellowed the Uhlan. "Stop your horse! or when I catch you—"
"Go back!" cried Jack, angrily; "go back or I'll fire!" and he whipped out his long Colt's and shook it above his head.
With a derisive yell the Uhlan banged away—once, twice, three times—and the bullets buzzed around Jack's ears till they sang. He swung around, crimson with fury, and raised the heavy six-shooter.
"By God!" he shouted; "then take it yourself!" and he fired one shot, standing up in his stirrups to steady his aim.
He heard a cry, he saw a horse rear straight up through the dust; there was a gleam of yellow, a flash of a falling lance, a groan. Then, as he galloped on, pale and tight-lipped, a riderless horse thundered along behind him, mane tossing in the whirling dust.
With sudden instinct, Jack drew bridle and wheeled his trembling mount—the riderless horse tore past him—and he trotted soberly back to the dusty heap in the road. It may have merely been the impulse to see what he had done, it may have been a nobler impulse, for Jack dismounted and bent over the fallen man. Then he raised him in his arms by the shoulders and drew him towards the road-side. The Uhlan was heavy, his spurs dragged in the dust. Very gently Jack propped him up against a poplar-tree, looked for a moment at the wound in his head, and then ran for his horse. It was high time, too; the other Uhlans came racing and tearing uphill, hallooing like Cossacks, and he vaulted into his saddle and again set spurs to his horse.
Now it was a ride for life; he understood that thoroughly, and settled down to it, bending low inthe saddle, bridle in one hand, revolver in the other. And as he rode his sobered thoughts dwelt now on Lorraine, now on the great lank Uhlan, lying stricken in the red dust of the highway. He seemed to see him yet, blond, dusty, the sweat in beads on his blanched cheeks, the crimson furrow in his colourless scalp. He had seen, too, the padded yellow shoulder-knots bearing the regimental number "11," and he knew that he had shot a trooper of the 11th Uhlans, and that the 11th Uhlan Regiment was Rickerl's regiment. He set his teeth and stared fearfully over his shoulder. The pursuit had ceased; the Uhlans, dismounted, were gathered about the tree under which their comrade lay gasping. Jack brought his horse to a gallop, to a canter, and finally to a trot. The horse was not winded, but it trembled and reeked with sweat and lather.
Beyond him lay the forest of La Bruine, red in the slanting rays of the setting sun. Beyond this the road swung into the Morteyn road, that lay cool and moist along the willows that bordered the river Lisse.
The sun glided behind the woods as he reached the bridge that crosses the Lisse, and the evening glow on feathery willow and dusty alder turned stem and leaf to shimmering rose.
It was seven o'clock, and he knew that he could keep his word to Lorraine. And now, too, he began to feel the fatigue of the day and the strain of the last two hours. In his excitement he had not noticed that two bullets had passed through his jacket, one close to the pocket, one ripping the gun-pads at the collar. The horse, too, was bleeding from the shoulderwhere a long raw streak traced the flight of a grazing ball.
His face was pale and serious when, at evening, he rode into the porte-cochère of the Château de Nesville and dismounted, stiffly. He was sore, fatigued, and covered with dust from cap to spur; his eyes, heavily ringed but bright, roamed restlessly from window to porch.
"I've kept my faith," he muttered to himself—"I've kept my faith, anyway." But now he began to understand what might follow if he, a foreigner and a non-combatant, was ever caught by the 11th regiment of Uhlans. It sickened him when he thought of what he had done; he could find no excuse for himself—not even the shots that had come singing about his ears. Who was he, a foreigner, that he should shoot down a brave German cavalryman who was simply following instructions? His promise to Lorraine? Was that sufficient excuse for taking human life? Puzzled, weary, and profoundly sad, he stood thinking, undecided what to do. He knew that he had not killed the Uhlan outright, but, whether or not the soldier could recover, he was uncertain. He, who had seen the horrors of naked, gaping wounds at Sadowa—he who had seen the pitiable sights of Oran, where Chanzy and his troops had swept the land in a whirlwind of flame and sword—he, this same cool young fellow, could not contemplate that dusty figure in the red road without a shudder of self-accusation—yes, of self-disgust. He told himself that he had fired too quickly, that he had fired in anger, not in self-protection. He felt sure that he could have outridden the Uhlan in theend. Perhaps he was too severe on himself; he did not think of the fusillade at his back, his coat torn by two bullets, the raw furrow on his horse's shoulder. He only asked himself whether, to keep his promise, he was justified in what he had done, and he felt that he had acted hastily and in anger, and that he was a very poor specimen of young men. It was just as well, perhaps, that he thought so; the sentiment under the circumstances was not unhealthy. Moreover, he knew in his heart that, under any conditions, he would place his duty to Lorraine first of all. So he was puzzled and tired and unhappy when Lorraine, her arms full of brook-lilies, came down the gravel drive and said: "You have kept your faith, you shall wear a lily for me; will you?"
He could not meet her eyes, he could scarcely reply to her shy questions.
When she saw the wounded horse she grieved over its smarting shoulder, and insisted on stabling it herself.
"Wait for me," she said; "I insist. You must find a glass of wine for yourself and go with old Pierre and dust your clothes. Then come back; I shall be in the arbour."
He looked after her until she entered the stables, leading the exhausted horse with a tenderness that touched him deeply. He felt so mean, so contemptible, so utterly beneath the notice of this child who stood grieving over his wounded horse.
A dusty and dirty and perspiring man is at a disadvantage with himself. His misdemeanours assume exaggerated proportions, especially when he is confronted with a girl in a cool gown that is perfumedby blossoms pure and spotless and fragrant as the young breast that crushes them.
So when he had found old Pierre and had followed him to a bath-room, the water that washed the stains from brow and wrist seemed also to purify the stain that is popularly supposed to resist earthly ablutions. A clean body and a clean conscience is not a proverb, but there are, perhaps, worse maxims in the world.
When he dried his face and looked into a mirror, his sins had dwindled a bit; when Pierre dusted his clothes and polished his spurs and boots, life assumed a brighter aspect. Fatigue, too, came to dull that busybody—that tireless, gossiping gadabout—conscience. Fatigue and remorse are enemies; slumber and the white flag of sleep stand truce between them.
"Pierre," he said; "get a dog-cart; I am going to drive to Morteyn. You will find me in the arbour on the lawn. Is the marquis visible?"
"No, Monsieur Jack, he is still locked up in the turret."
"And the balloon?"
"Dame! Je n'en sais rien, monsieur."
So Jack walked down-stairs and out through the porch to the lawn, where he saw Lorraine already seated in the arbour, placing the long-stemmed lilies in gilded bowls.
"It will be dark soon," he said, stepping up beside her. "Thank you for being good to my horse. Is it more than a scratch?"
"No—it is nothing. The horse shall stand in our stable until to-morrow. Are you very tired? Sit beside me. Do you care to tell me anything of what you did?"
"Do you care to know?"
"Of course," she said.
So he told her; not all, however—not of that ride and the chase and the shots from the saddle. But he spoke of the Emperor and the distant battle that had seemed like a scene in a painted landscape. He told her, too, of Georges Carrière.
"Why, I know him," she said, brightening with pleasure; "he is charming—isn't he?"
"Why, yes," said Jack; but for all he tried his voice sounded coldly.
"Don't you think so?" asked Lorraine, opening her blue eyes.
Again he tried to speak warmly of the friend he was really fond of, and again he felt that he had failed. Why? He would not ask himself—but he knew. This shamed him, and he began an elaborate eulogy on poor Georges, conscientious, self-effacing, but very, very unsatisfactory.
The maid beside him listened demurely. She also knew things that she had not known a week ago. That possibly is why, like a little bird stretching its new wings, she also tried her own resources, innocently, timidly. And the torment of Jack began.
"Monsieur Marche, do you think that Lieutenant Carrière may come to Morteyn?"
"He said he would; I—er—I hope he will. Don't you?"
"I? Oh yes. When will he come?"
"I don't know," said Jack, sulkily.
"Oh! I thought you were very fond of him and that, of course, you would know when—"
"Nobody knows; if he's gone with the army intoGermany it is impossible to say when the war will end." Then he made a silly, boorish observation which was, "I hope for your sake he will come soon."
Oh, but he was ashamed of it now! The groom in the stable yonder would have had better tact. Truly, it takes a man of gentle breeding to demonstrate what under-breeding really can be. If Lorraine was shocked she did not show it. A maid unloved, unloving, pardons nothing; a maid with a lover invests herself with all powers and prerogatives, and the greatest of these is the power to pardon. It is not only a power, it is a need, a desire, an imperative necessity to pardon much in him who loves much. This may be only because she also understands. Pardon and doubt repel each other. So Lorraine, having grown wise in a week, pardoned Jack mentally. Outwardly it was otherwise, and Jack became aware that the atmosphere was uncomfortably charged with lightning. It gleamed a moment in her eyes ere her lips opened.
"Take your dog-cart and go back to Morteyn," said Lorraine, quietly.
"Let me stay; I am ashamed," he said, turning red.
"No; I do not wish to see you again—for a long, long time—forever."
Her head was bent and her fingers were busy among the lilies in the gilded bowl.
"Do you send me away?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you are more than rude."
"I am ashamed; forgive me."
"No."
She glanced up at him from her drooping lashes. She had pardoned him long ago.
"No," she repeated, "I cannot forgive."
"Lorraine—"
"There is the dog-cart," she whispered, almost breathlessly. So he said good-night and went away.
She stood on the dim lawn, her arms full of blossoms, listening to the sound of the wheels until they died away beyond the park gate.
She had turned whiter than the lilies at her breast. This was because she was still very young and not quite as wise as some maidens.
For the same reason she left her warm bed that night to creep through the garden and slip into the stable and lay her tear-stained cheeks on the neck of Jack's horse.
During the next three days, for the first time since he had known her, he did not go to see Lorraine. How he stood it—how he ever dragged through those miserable hours—he himself never could understand.
The wide sculptured eyes of Our Lady of Morteyn above the shrine seemed to soften when he went there to sit at her feet and stare at nothing. It was not tears, but dew, that gathered under the stone lids, for the night had grown suddenly hot, and everything lay moist in the starlight. Night changed to midnight, and midnight to dawn, and dawn to another day, cloudless, pitiless; and Jack awoke again, and his waking thought was of Lorraine.
All day long he sat with the old vicomte, reading to him when he wished, playing interminable games of chess, sick at heart with a longing that almost amounted to anger. He could not tell his aunt. As far as that went, the wise old lady had divined that their first trouble had come to them in all the appalling and exaggerated proportions that such troubles assume, but she smiled gently to herself, for she, too, had been young, and the ways of lovers had been her ways, and the paths of love she had trodden, and she had drained love's cup at bitter springs.
That night she came to his bedside and kissed him, saying: "To-morrow you shall carry my love and my thanks to Lorraine for her care of the horse."
"I can't," muttered Jack.
"Pooh!" said Madame de Morteyn, and closed the bedroom door; and Jack slept better that night.
It was ten o'clock the next morning before he appeared at breakfast, and it was plain, even to the thrush on the lawn outside, that he had bestowed an elaboration upon his toilet that suggested either a duel or a wedding.
Madame de Morteyn hid her face, for she could not repress the smile that tormented her sweet mouth. Even the vicomte said: "Oh! You're not off for Paris, Jack, are you?"
After breakfast he wandered moodily out to the terrace, where his aunt found him half an hour later, mooning and contemplating his spotless gloves.
"Then you are not going to ride over to the Château de Nesville?" she asked, trying not to laugh.
"Oh!" he said, with affected surprise, "did you wish me to go to the Château?"
"Yes, Jack dear, if you are not too much occupied." She could not repress the mischievous accent on the "too." "Are you going to drive?"
"No; I shall walk—unless you are in a hurry."
"No more than you are, dear," she said, gravely.
He looked at her with sudden suspicion, but she was not smiling.
"Very well," he said, gloomily.
About eleven o'clock he had sauntered half the distance down the forest road that leads to the Château de Nesville. His heart seemed to tug and tug andurge him forward; his legs refused obedience; he sulked. But there was the fresh smell of loam and moss and aromatic leaves, the music of the Lisse on the pebbles, the joyous chorus of feathered creatures from every thicket, and there were the antics of the giddy young rabbits that scuttled through the warrens, leaping, tumbling, sitting up, lop-eared and impudent, or diving head-first into their burrows.
Under the stems of a thorn thicket two cock-pheasants were having a difference, and were enthusiastically settling that difference in the approved method of game-cocks. He lingered to see which might win, but a misstep and a sudden crack of a dry twig startled them, and they withdrew like two stately but indignant old gentlemen who had been subjected to uncalled-for importunities.
Presently he felt cheerful enough to smoke, and he searched in every pocket for his pipe. Then he remembered that he had dropped it when he dropped his silver flask, there in the road where he had first been startled by the Uhlans.
This train of thought depressed him again, but he resolutely put it from his mind, lighted a cigarette, and moved on.
Just ahead, around the bend in the path, lay the grass-grown carrefour where he had first seen Lorraine. He thought of her as he remembered her then, flushed, indignant, blocking the path while the map-making spy sneered in her face and crowded past her, still sneering. He thought, too, of her scarlet skirt, and the little velvet bodice and the silver chains. He thought of her heavy hair, dishevelled, glimmering in her eyes. At the same moment heturned the corner; the carrefour lay before him, overgrown, silent, deserted. A sudden tenderness filled his heart—ah, how we love those whom we have protected!—and he stood for a moment in the sunshine with bowed head, living over the episode that he could never forget. Every word, every gesture, the shape of the very folds in her skirt, he remembered; yes, and the little triangular tear, the broken silver chain, the ripped bodice!
And she, in her innocence, had promised to see him there at the river-bank below. He had never gone, because that very night she had come to Morteyn, and since then he had seen her every day at her own home.
As he stood he could hear the river Lisse whispering, calling him. He would go—just to see the hidden rendezvous—for old love's sake; it was a step from the path, no more.
Then that strange instinct, that sudden certainty that comes at times to all, seized him, and he knew that Lorraine was there by the river; he knew it as surely as though he saw her before him.
And she was there, standing by the still water, silver chains drooping over the velvet bodice, scarlet skirt hanging brilliant and heavy as a drooping poppy in the sun.
"Dear me," she said, very calmly, "I thought you had quite forgotten me. Why have you not been to the Château, Monsieur Marche?"
And this, after she had told him to go away and not to return! Wise in the little busy ways of the world of men, he was uneducated in the ways of a maid.
Therefore he was speechless.
"And now," she said, with the air of an early Christian tête-à-tête with Nero—"and now you do not speak to me? Why?"
"Because," he blurted out, "I thought you did not care to have me!"
Surprise, sorrow, grief gave place to pity in her eyes.
"What a silly man!" she observed. "I am going to sit down on the moss. Are you intending to call upon my father? He is still in the turret. If you can spare a moment I will tell you what he is doing."
Yes, he had a moment to spare—not many moments—he hoped she would understand that!—but he had one or two little ones at her disposal.
She read this in his affected hesitation. She would make him pay dearly for it. Vengeance should be hers!
He stood a moment, eying the water as though it had done him personal injury. Then he sat down.
"The balloon is almost ready, steering-gear and all," she said. "I saw papa yesterday for a moment; I tried to get him to stay with me, but he could not."
She looked wistfully across the river.
Jack watched her. His heart ached for her, and he bent nearer.
"Forgive me for causing you any unhappiness," he said. "Will you?"
"Yes."
Oh! where was her vengeance now? So far beneath her!
"These four days have been the most wretched days to me, the most unhappy I have ever lived," he said.The emotion in his voice brought the soft colour to her face. She did not answer; she would have if she had wished to check him.
"I will never again, as long as I live, give you one moment's—displeasure." He was going to say "pain," but he dared not.
Still she was silent, her idle white fingers clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed on the river. Little by little the colour deepened in her cheeks. It was when she felt them burning that she spoke, nervously, scarcely comprehending her own words: "I—I also was unhappy—I was silly; we both are very silly—don't you think so? We are such good friends that it seems absurd to quarrel as we have. I have forgotten everything that was unpleasant—it was so little that I could not remember if I tried! Could you? I am very happy now; I am going to listen while you amuse me with stories." She curled up against a tree and smiled at him—at the love in his eyes which she dared not read, which she dared not acknowledge to herself. It was there, plain enough for a wilful maid to see; it burned under his sun-tanned cheeks, it softened the firm lips. A thrill of contentment passed through her. She was satisfied; the world was kind again.
He lay at her feet, pulling blades of grass from the bank and idly biting the whitened stems. The voice of the Lisse was in his ears, he breathed the sweet wood perfume and he saw the sunlight wrinkle and crinkle the surface ripples where the water washed through the sedges, and the long grasses quivered and bent with the glittering current.
"Tell you stories?" he asked again.
"Yes—stories that never have really happened—but that should have happened."
"Then listen! There was once—many, many years ago—a maid and a man—"
Good gracious—but that story is as old as life itself! He did not realize it, nor did she. It seemed new to them.
The sun of noon was moving towards the west when they remembered that they were hungry.
"You shall come home and lunch with me; will you? Perhaps papa may be there, too," she said. This hope, always renewed with every dawn, always fading with the night, lived eternal in her breast—this hope, that one day she should have her father to herself.
"Will you come?" she asked, shyly.
"Yes. Do you know it will be our first luncheon together?"
"Oh, but you brought me an ice at the dance that evening; don't you remember?"
"Yes, but that was not a supper—I mean a luncheon together—with a table between us and—you know what I mean."
"I don't," she said, smiling dreamily; so he knew that she did.
They hurried a little on the way to the Château, and he laughed at her appetite, which made her laugh, too, only she pretended not to like it.