CHAPTER XXIIITHE NIGHT OF TRUCEHélèneof Strasburg was dead, the Mother of the City, the queenly woman who had helped the city so often to courage and self-sacrifice. Though Strasburg suffered then, though her people lived no longer in the light of day but burrowed to the cellars and the vaults where no Prussian shells could harm them, they came forth as a great army of the children of night into the sunshine which hovered about the open grave. For they had loved the mistress of the house of Görsdorf, and to many of them she was as one of their own, ever to be held in the high place of memory where all that has made for the sweetness and the truth of life should be stored up.Hélène was dead. The news went quickly as tidings of the ultimate misfortune. The soldiers on the ramparts heard it, and told each other that the day of the cataclysm was at hand. The brave men of the city took a new resolution of endurance. “We shall avenge the shell that struck down her house,” they said. In the churches the priests spoke of Christian love and ofthe divine truth that in motherhood all love is born. When the body was at length carried forth and the drums rolled and the bells tolled, it was as though the whole city came out for thatcortége. Even the children cast flowers upon the path. The Governor himself, the dauntless Uhrich whose name was honoured then almost above any name in France, was first at the graveside and last to leave the stricken house when the people had gone to the darkness again.“You must not stay here an hour, my child,” he said to Beatrix; “my house is open to you; you must be my guest. I am afraid that it is only the beginning. Their guns are reaching this quarter every day, and it is not safe even in your cellars. Besides, you are alone—”She thanked him, but would not go.“Hélène would have wished it,” she said. “I cannot leave her work to others. If she had lived, we should have stayed here until the end. And Edmond will expect to find me here when he returns. I could not play a coward’s part, General.”Her resolution pleased him. Day by day it was his duty to teach the men of Strasburg the meaning of their debt to France. Here was a little English girl who needed no lesson.“Ah,” he said,“if the others would talk like that! I shall tell your story at the Council to-day. Madame Lefort remains in the Place Kleber! They will be ashamed, my child, and you—you will not do anything foolish. I will send some men up to make your house safe. After all, we are becoming night birds now. And there is no Madame Hélène to tell us our duty. I am grateful to you for doing wrong, Madame, but if you wish it—”“Hélène would have wished it,” she repeated; “how could I meet my husband when he comes back if I were faithless to her memory? And I shall be less alone here, General, than in another house. If it is possible for the dead to counsel us, Hélène will help me still. I seem to hear her voice always in my sleep. I know that she hears me when I speak to her!”He shook his head. The philosophy of life was of less concern to him than the facts of life.“I will not gainsay Hélène’s wish,” he exclaimed, “but it will be a life in the cellars, my child. Don’t forget that. If we are to save Strasburg, all must suffer, even the women.”“Do the women complain, then, General?”“Complain—God send that the men show half their courage!”“Then do not let me be the exception to your rule. If Edmond should come back—”He laughed doubtingly.“He will never give his parole, Madame, even for the sake of the bravest heart in Strasburg. And you would not wish it. It is a dishonour. There have been too many victims of that shame already. I would cut off my right hand before setting my name to such a promise as that. When your husband comes back, the war will be over and the Prussians across the Rhine. You help me to that day by remaining at the Place Kleber.”He left her with the promise, alone in the great house with the shattered rooms and the bulging walls and the roof of tarpaulin which builders had dared to carry for old Hélène’s sake. In the streets about her the crash of bursting shell and falling building ceased not by night or day. Even from the great deserted rooms through which she passed as a figure of solitude, she could see thedébrisof ruined houses and forgotten homes. But the city’s distress was not her distress. For her own life she had ceased to care. The lonely man in the tavern of the troopers was always in her thoughts. Her secret had become a burden intolerable. When, on that night of terror, she ran from them into the burning house and knelt at the side of her whose voice she nevermore would hear, the prayer on her lips was a prayer of that confession she had wished so ardently tomake. There was no other in all the city to whom she could go and say—Help me to save my friend. It was left to her to give Brandon life or death. Her own folly and thoughtlessness had brought this as her recompense.She was alone in the great house, alone with her secret. Few came to her, for there was peril to life in the streets, and ever arose that deafening music of the guns, that thunder of tumultuous sounds which spoke of a city crumbling to the dust, of a people living below the ground, of flames leaping to the crimson heavens, of passion and death and a nation’s despair. There was scarce another voice that she heard save the voice of Guillaumette, who trembled in the cellars and shrieked aloud as the shells fell with a great flame of light and the homes of the children for their victory. Her friends—they had all found shelter of the darkness and the earth, or had fled Strasburg to give the story to the valleys and the lakes of Switzerland. None whose business was not of the city’s safety ventured then to look upon the sun or even to tell the stars in the quivering sky. Troopers alone passed her when she ventured from the lonely house. Yet venture she must, for the dead seemed to walk the empty rooms; and often in the silence she heard her friend’s voice reproaching her.Seven days had passed now since she had seen Brandon, or heard the news of him. The death of Hélène (of heart disease, the doctors said, and charged it to the devastation of the house) had forbidden all thought of her errand of mercy and of friendship. She had desired so greatly to confess her friend’s peril, and to send a message of hope to the house; but this new blow stunned her mentally and physically. She knew not even whether Brandon were in the city or no. She thought sometimes that his presence must have been discovered; and she would see him, in her troubled sleep, as she had seen that other in the café by the Minster. The suspense was an agony almost insupportable. She prayed every day that Edmond would come back; and yet she judged instinctively that he would never come until the end. When the General confirmed her view she was glad to hear him. Edmond might judge her afterwards for that which she had done of her own free will. She remembered that she had not asked him to give his parole, and therein found content.There was a great sortie from the city on the morning of the 1st of September, and all day she heard the booming artillery, and the moan of the shells as they hurtled above the now doomed northern quarter. Towards noon the stragglerscame in, and told of many dead at Kronburg and Königshofen. She saw the waggons of the ambulance passing through the square to the military hospital, and anon the Abbé Colot came to tell her that there was to be a short truce while the burial parties went out. Soon the news of the truce went abroad as tidings of day, and men and women crept from the cellars and came gladly into the sunlight; and even the cafés were filled, and the accustomed movement of a city was to be observed again. She watched the people for a little while, and then put on her hat and cloak and went some way towards the Rue de l’Arc-en-Ciel. She must know the truth, she thought; must know if Brandon were still in Strasburg.Dusk had come down when she entered the street. Hordes of ragged soldiers told the story of the unsuccessful sortie of the morning. Every alley had its philosopher. Some cursed the General for the city’s tribulations. Others said that France was justified of her army; that further resistance was a crime against the army. All were too excited by their own needs and creeds to observe her as she stood at the corner and looked up at the window behind which she hoped to see her friend’s face. But there was no light or sign there; the house had no message for her.An hour passed all too slowly. She returned to her watching place to find theaubergeagain in darkness. Anticipations of the worst troubled her. She remembered how curtly she had left the man Gatelet, when last he met her by the New Church. If he had told them! But, after all, Brandon might have escaped. His German friends might have helped him to cross the river and regain his own lines. She was just telling herself that this was possible when the girl Jeannette came out of the house, and, observing her, crossed the road with furtive steps.“Ah, Madame, it is you, then. And he has waited so. Every day, every hour, he has asked for you! You cannot be his friend, Madame, to leave him there—”“He is still in your house, then, Jeannette?”“If he is in the house, Madame! Listen: there have been many to ask for him, but I have told none. He has enemies in Strasburg. They watch us often from the windowslà-haut. He does not light his lamp, because they can see him at the blind. It is darkness, always, always. And I have spent the money. Every franc, and for myself not a sou, Madame. He will tell you so when you go up. Ah, if he were my friend, the steps would not be many. You are going up, Madame?”For an instant she hesitated; but the thought of the lonely man up there in the darkness prevailed above the last argument of prudence.“I am going up, Jeannette,” she said.The girl took her hand, as though to lead her to the house. She pressed it in her own fingers, so thin and cold.“Ah, Madame, you have a brave heart. Wait until I light the candle. And we will not mind those others to-night. Oh, how glad he will be, Madame!”Together they climbed the tortuous dirty staircase and stood at the broken door. Some instants passed before their knock was answered, and when they entered, the prisoner started up as though from a fitful sleep. There was the pallor of death upon his face, but he smiled as he held out his hand to her.“Well,” he said; “I thought that I told you not to come.”“You knew that I must come,” she said quietly. “Hélène is dead, or I should have been here before. A shell struck our house; she died of fright and grief.”He took her hand and pressed it.“My poor child!” he said.They sat in silence for a little while, until Jeannette had covered the windows with a heavycloth, which shut out the memory of those who watched the house. Beatrix was the first to speak, and her words came quickly, as the words of one who had no time to lose.“You know that they are watching you here, Brandon?”“I have known it from the first.”“And you must find some other house.”He answered with an assumed indifference. “My foot says no, and my landlady agrees. Why do you think of me when you have troubles of your own, Beatrix?”“Because I must. You cannot stay here, Brandon. I had hoped that Edmond would come back, but I know that he will not come. What he would have done for you I must do. If there is any friend of yours in Strasburg, he must help you. There can be no secrets now. Your life may depend upon to-morrow.”He listened to her eagerly.“Antoine, my clerk,” he explained, “has become afranc-tireur. If I sent to him for money, he would shoot me. Mardon, the banker, would go straight to the citadel with my story if I told him. You know what the others are, men in blue coats mostly, who prate about the honour of the army, and have no honour to spare for their friends. If money were to be had, that would make one difficultythe less. It’s no good mincing matters, Beatrix. I haven’t a shilling to my name. The old woman here will turn me out into the street, bag and baggage, to-morrow, if I don’t pay. Of course, Gatelet knows that. He whines about friendship, and will come and remind you of that friendship when his fellows below have cut my throat. He knows that I have no money, and that is his trump card. If only old Watts could be found, the game would go well enough. But I don’t think you’ll find him now. If your friendship for me prompts you to settle with that hag downstairs, that will be a real service, and I can settle with Edmond when he comes in. Meanwhile, there is no time to lose.”He sank back on his couch exhausted. She saw that there was not even water upon the table, and she sent Jeannette hurrying for wine and brandy. His words had been an inspiration to her. If money could save him, her task was indeed a light one.“Why did you not ask me before?” she said.“You know that I have never wanted money. Of course, we will pay the woman at once. It has been such a dreadful week, Brandon; even death does not seem the sorrow it should be when there are so many terrible things happening every day. While you are here I shall know no rest. If you could find one friend—”“There are many, Beatrix, but they don’t come to Strasburg to see me. Their business is of another kind. I would not let you enter this room if I were on that errand. You know why I ventured in, and you may tell Edmond when he returns.”“I pray God that he will understand,” she said gently.He turned his face away. When she left him, ten minutes later, she said that she would not rest night or day until she found someone to befriend him. But he buried his face in the pillow of rags, and alone and in the darkness he thought that none had come between them; and he seemed to hold her in his strong arms and to tell her that his life was nothing to him, because he might not speak of his surpassing love for her.
CHAPTER XXIIITHE NIGHT OF TRUCEHélèneof Strasburg was dead, the Mother of the City, the queenly woman who had helped the city so often to courage and self-sacrifice. Though Strasburg suffered then, though her people lived no longer in the light of day but burrowed to the cellars and the vaults where no Prussian shells could harm them, they came forth as a great army of the children of night into the sunshine which hovered about the open grave. For they had loved the mistress of the house of Görsdorf, and to many of them she was as one of their own, ever to be held in the high place of memory where all that has made for the sweetness and the truth of life should be stored up.Hélène was dead. The news went quickly as tidings of the ultimate misfortune. The soldiers on the ramparts heard it, and told each other that the day of the cataclysm was at hand. The brave men of the city took a new resolution of endurance. “We shall avenge the shell that struck down her house,” they said. In the churches the priests spoke of Christian love and ofthe divine truth that in motherhood all love is born. When the body was at length carried forth and the drums rolled and the bells tolled, it was as though the whole city came out for thatcortége. Even the children cast flowers upon the path. The Governor himself, the dauntless Uhrich whose name was honoured then almost above any name in France, was first at the graveside and last to leave the stricken house when the people had gone to the darkness again.“You must not stay here an hour, my child,” he said to Beatrix; “my house is open to you; you must be my guest. I am afraid that it is only the beginning. Their guns are reaching this quarter every day, and it is not safe even in your cellars. Besides, you are alone—”She thanked him, but would not go.“Hélène would have wished it,” she said. “I cannot leave her work to others. If she had lived, we should have stayed here until the end. And Edmond will expect to find me here when he returns. I could not play a coward’s part, General.”Her resolution pleased him. Day by day it was his duty to teach the men of Strasburg the meaning of their debt to France. Here was a little English girl who needed no lesson.“Ah,” he said,“if the others would talk like that! I shall tell your story at the Council to-day. Madame Lefort remains in the Place Kleber! They will be ashamed, my child, and you—you will not do anything foolish. I will send some men up to make your house safe. After all, we are becoming night birds now. And there is no Madame Hélène to tell us our duty. I am grateful to you for doing wrong, Madame, but if you wish it—”“Hélène would have wished it,” she repeated; “how could I meet my husband when he comes back if I were faithless to her memory? And I shall be less alone here, General, than in another house. If it is possible for the dead to counsel us, Hélène will help me still. I seem to hear her voice always in my sleep. I know that she hears me when I speak to her!”He shook his head. The philosophy of life was of less concern to him than the facts of life.“I will not gainsay Hélène’s wish,” he exclaimed, “but it will be a life in the cellars, my child. Don’t forget that. If we are to save Strasburg, all must suffer, even the women.”“Do the women complain, then, General?”“Complain—God send that the men show half their courage!”“Then do not let me be the exception to your rule. If Edmond should come back—”He laughed doubtingly.“He will never give his parole, Madame, even for the sake of the bravest heart in Strasburg. And you would not wish it. It is a dishonour. There have been too many victims of that shame already. I would cut off my right hand before setting my name to such a promise as that. When your husband comes back, the war will be over and the Prussians across the Rhine. You help me to that day by remaining at the Place Kleber.”He left her with the promise, alone in the great house with the shattered rooms and the bulging walls and the roof of tarpaulin which builders had dared to carry for old Hélène’s sake. In the streets about her the crash of bursting shell and falling building ceased not by night or day. Even from the great deserted rooms through which she passed as a figure of solitude, she could see thedébrisof ruined houses and forgotten homes. But the city’s distress was not her distress. For her own life she had ceased to care. The lonely man in the tavern of the troopers was always in her thoughts. Her secret had become a burden intolerable. When, on that night of terror, she ran from them into the burning house and knelt at the side of her whose voice she nevermore would hear, the prayer on her lips was a prayer of that confession she had wished so ardently tomake. There was no other in all the city to whom she could go and say—Help me to save my friend. It was left to her to give Brandon life or death. Her own folly and thoughtlessness had brought this as her recompense.She was alone in the great house, alone with her secret. Few came to her, for there was peril to life in the streets, and ever arose that deafening music of the guns, that thunder of tumultuous sounds which spoke of a city crumbling to the dust, of a people living below the ground, of flames leaping to the crimson heavens, of passion and death and a nation’s despair. There was scarce another voice that she heard save the voice of Guillaumette, who trembled in the cellars and shrieked aloud as the shells fell with a great flame of light and the homes of the children for their victory. Her friends—they had all found shelter of the darkness and the earth, or had fled Strasburg to give the story to the valleys and the lakes of Switzerland. None whose business was not of the city’s safety ventured then to look upon the sun or even to tell the stars in the quivering sky. Troopers alone passed her when she ventured from the lonely house. Yet venture she must, for the dead seemed to walk the empty rooms; and often in the silence she heard her friend’s voice reproaching her.Seven days had passed now since she had seen Brandon, or heard the news of him. The death of Hélène (of heart disease, the doctors said, and charged it to the devastation of the house) had forbidden all thought of her errand of mercy and of friendship. She had desired so greatly to confess her friend’s peril, and to send a message of hope to the house; but this new blow stunned her mentally and physically. She knew not even whether Brandon were in the city or no. She thought sometimes that his presence must have been discovered; and she would see him, in her troubled sleep, as she had seen that other in the café by the Minster. The suspense was an agony almost insupportable. She prayed every day that Edmond would come back; and yet she judged instinctively that he would never come until the end. When the General confirmed her view she was glad to hear him. Edmond might judge her afterwards for that which she had done of her own free will. She remembered that she had not asked him to give his parole, and therein found content.There was a great sortie from the city on the morning of the 1st of September, and all day she heard the booming artillery, and the moan of the shells as they hurtled above the now doomed northern quarter. Towards noon the stragglerscame in, and told of many dead at Kronburg and Königshofen. She saw the waggons of the ambulance passing through the square to the military hospital, and anon the Abbé Colot came to tell her that there was to be a short truce while the burial parties went out. Soon the news of the truce went abroad as tidings of day, and men and women crept from the cellars and came gladly into the sunlight; and even the cafés were filled, and the accustomed movement of a city was to be observed again. She watched the people for a little while, and then put on her hat and cloak and went some way towards the Rue de l’Arc-en-Ciel. She must know the truth, she thought; must know if Brandon were still in Strasburg.Dusk had come down when she entered the street. Hordes of ragged soldiers told the story of the unsuccessful sortie of the morning. Every alley had its philosopher. Some cursed the General for the city’s tribulations. Others said that France was justified of her army; that further resistance was a crime against the army. All were too excited by their own needs and creeds to observe her as she stood at the corner and looked up at the window behind which she hoped to see her friend’s face. But there was no light or sign there; the house had no message for her.An hour passed all too slowly. She returned to her watching place to find theaubergeagain in darkness. Anticipations of the worst troubled her. She remembered how curtly she had left the man Gatelet, when last he met her by the New Church. If he had told them! But, after all, Brandon might have escaped. His German friends might have helped him to cross the river and regain his own lines. She was just telling herself that this was possible when the girl Jeannette came out of the house, and, observing her, crossed the road with furtive steps.“Ah, Madame, it is you, then. And he has waited so. Every day, every hour, he has asked for you! You cannot be his friend, Madame, to leave him there—”“He is still in your house, then, Jeannette?”“If he is in the house, Madame! Listen: there have been many to ask for him, but I have told none. He has enemies in Strasburg. They watch us often from the windowslà-haut. He does not light his lamp, because they can see him at the blind. It is darkness, always, always. And I have spent the money. Every franc, and for myself not a sou, Madame. He will tell you so when you go up. Ah, if he were my friend, the steps would not be many. You are going up, Madame?”For an instant she hesitated; but the thought of the lonely man up there in the darkness prevailed above the last argument of prudence.“I am going up, Jeannette,” she said.The girl took her hand, as though to lead her to the house. She pressed it in her own fingers, so thin and cold.“Ah, Madame, you have a brave heart. Wait until I light the candle. And we will not mind those others to-night. Oh, how glad he will be, Madame!”Together they climbed the tortuous dirty staircase and stood at the broken door. Some instants passed before their knock was answered, and when they entered, the prisoner started up as though from a fitful sleep. There was the pallor of death upon his face, but he smiled as he held out his hand to her.“Well,” he said; “I thought that I told you not to come.”“You knew that I must come,” she said quietly. “Hélène is dead, or I should have been here before. A shell struck our house; she died of fright and grief.”He took her hand and pressed it.“My poor child!” he said.They sat in silence for a little while, until Jeannette had covered the windows with a heavycloth, which shut out the memory of those who watched the house. Beatrix was the first to speak, and her words came quickly, as the words of one who had no time to lose.“You know that they are watching you here, Brandon?”“I have known it from the first.”“And you must find some other house.”He answered with an assumed indifference. “My foot says no, and my landlady agrees. Why do you think of me when you have troubles of your own, Beatrix?”“Because I must. You cannot stay here, Brandon. I had hoped that Edmond would come back, but I know that he will not come. What he would have done for you I must do. If there is any friend of yours in Strasburg, he must help you. There can be no secrets now. Your life may depend upon to-morrow.”He listened to her eagerly.“Antoine, my clerk,” he explained, “has become afranc-tireur. If I sent to him for money, he would shoot me. Mardon, the banker, would go straight to the citadel with my story if I told him. You know what the others are, men in blue coats mostly, who prate about the honour of the army, and have no honour to spare for their friends. If money were to be had, that would make one difficultythe less. It’s no good mincing matters, Beatrix. I haven’t a shilling to my name. The old woman here will turn me out into the street, bag and baggage, to-morrow, if I don’t pay. Of course, Gatelet knows that. He whines about friendship, and will come and remind you of that friendship when his fellows below have cut my throat. He knows that I have no money, and that is his trump card. If only old Watts could be found, the game would go well enough. But I don’t think you’ll find him now. If your friendship for me prompts you to settle with that hag downstairs, that will be a real service, and I can settle with Edmond when he comes in. Meanwhile, there is no time to lose.”He sank back on his couch exhausted. She saw that there was not even water upon the table, and she sent Jeannette hurrying for wine and brandy. His words had been an inspiration to her. If money could save him, her task was indeed a light one.“Why did you not ask me before?” she said.“You know that I have never wanted money. Of course, we will pay the woman at once. It has been such a dreadful week, Brandon; even death does not seem the sorrow it should be when there are so many terrible things happening every day. While you are here I shall know no rest. If you could find one friend—”“There are many, Beatrix, but they don’t come to Strasburg to see me. Their business is of another kind. I would not let you enter this room if I were on that errand. You know why I ventured in, and you may tell Edmond when he returns.”“I pray God that he will understand,” she said gently.He turned his face away. When she left him, ten minutes later, she said that she would not rest night or day until she found someone to befriend him. But he buried his face in the pillow of rags, and alone and in the darkness he thought that none had come between them; and he seemed to hold her in his strong arms and to tell her that his life was nothing to him, because he might not speak of his surpassing love for her.
Hélèneof Strasburg was dead, the Mother of the City, the queenly woman who had helped the city so often to courage and self-sacrifice. Though Strasburg suffered then, though her people lived no longer in the light of day but burrowed to the cellars and the vaults where no Prussian shells could harm them, they came forth as a great army of the children of night into the sunshine which hovered about the open grave. For they had loved the mistress of the house of Görsdorf, and to many of them she was as one of their own, ever to be held in the high place of memory where all that has made for the sweetness and the truth of life should be stored up.
Hélène was dead. The news went quickly as tidings of the ultimate misfortune. The soldiers on the ramparts heard it, and told each other that the day of the cataclysm was at hand. The brave men of the city took a new resolution of endurance. “We shall avenge the shell that struck down her house,” they said. In the churches the priests spoke of Christian love and ofthe divine truth that in motherhood all love is born. When the body was at length carried forth and the drums rolled and the bells tolled, it was as though the whole city came out for thatcortége. Even the children cast flowers upon the path. The Governor himself, the dauntless Uhrich whose name was honoured then almost above any name in France, was first at the graveside and last to leave the stricken house when the people had gone to the darkness again.
“You must not stay here an hour, my child,” he said to Beatrix; “my house is open to you; you must be my guest. I am afraid that it is only the beginning. Their guns are reaching this quarter every day, and it is not safe even in your cellars. Besides, you are alone—”
She thanked him, but would not go.
“Hélène would have wished it,” she said. “I cannot leave her work to others. If she had lived, we should have stayed here until the end. And Edmond will expect to find me here when he returns. I could not play a coward’s part, General.”
Her resolution pleased him. Day by day it was his duty to teach the men of Strasburg the meaning of their debt to France. Here was a little English girl who needed no lesson.
“Ah,” he said,“if the others would talk like that! I shall tell your story at the Council to-day. Madame Lefort remains in the Place Kleber! They will be ashamed, my child, and you—you will not do anything foolish. I will send some men up to make your house safe. After all, we are becoming night birds now. And there is no Madame Hélène to tell us our duty. I am grateful to you for doing wrong, Madame, but if you wish it—”
“Hélène would have wished it,” she repeated; “how could I meet my husband when he comes back if I were faithless to her memory? And I shall be less alone here, General, than in another house. If it is possible for the dead to counsel us, Hélène will help me still. I seem to hear her voice always in my sleep. I know that she hears me when I speak to her!”
He shook his head. The philosophy of life was of less concern to him than the facts of life.
“I will not gainsay Hélène’s wish,” he exclaimed, “but it will be a life in the cellars, my child. Don’t forget that. If we are to save Strasburg, all must suffer, even the women.”
“Do the women complain, then, General?”
“Complain—God send that the men show half their courage!”
“Then do not let me be the exception to your rule. If Edmond should come back—”
He laughed doubtingly.
“He will never give his parole, Madame, even for the sake of the bravest heart in Strasburg. And you would not wish it. It is a dishonour. There have been too many victims of that shame already. I would cut off my right hand before setting my name to such a promise as that. When your husband comes back, the war will be over and the Prussians across the Rhine. You help me to that day by remaining at the Place Kleber.”
He left her with the promise, alone in the great house with the shattered rooms and the bulging walls and the roof of tarpaulin which builders had dared to carry for old Hélène’s sake. In the streets about her the crash of bursting shell and falling building ceased not by night or day. Even from the great deserted rooms through which she passed as a figure of solitude, she could see thedébrisof ruined houses and forgotten homes. But the city’s distress was not her distress. For her own life she had ceased to care. The lonely man in the tavern of the troopers was always in her thoughts. Her secret had become a burden intolerable. When, on that night of terror, she ran from them into the burning house and knelt at the side of her whose voice she nevermore would hear, the prayer on her lips was a prayer of that confession she had wished so ardently tomake. There was no other in all the city to whom she could go and say—Help me to save my friend. It was left to her to give Brandon life or death. Her own folly and thoughtlessness had brought this as her recompense.
She was alone in the great house, alone with her secret. Few came to her, for there was peril to life in the streets, and ever arose that deafening music of the guns, that thunder of tumultuous sounds which spoke of a city crumbling to the dust, of a people living below the ground, of flames leaping to the crimson heavens, of passion and death and a nation’s despair. There was scarce another voice that she heard save the voice of Guillaumette, who trembled in the cellars and shrieked aloud as the shells fell with a great flame of light and the homes of the children for their victory. Her friends—they had all found shelter of the darkness and the earth, or had fled Strasburg to give the story to the valleys and the lakes of Switzerland. None whose business was not of the city’s safety ventured then to look upon the sun or even to tell the stars in the quivering sky. Troopers alone passed her when she ventured from the lonely house. Yet venture she must, for the dead seemed to walk the empty rooms; and often in the silence she heard her friend’s voice reproaching her.
Seven days had passed now since she had seen Brandon, or heard the news of him. The death of Hélène (of heart disease, the doctors said, and charged it to the devastation of the house) had forbidden all thought of her errand of mercy and of friendship. She had desired so greatly to confess her friend’s peril, and to send a message of hope to the house; but this new blow stunned her mentally and physically. She knew not even whether Brandon were in the city or no. She thought sometimes that his presence must have been discovered; and she would see him, in her troubled sleep, as she had seen that other in the café by the Minster. The suspense was an agony almost insupportable. She prayed every day that Edmond would come back; and yet she judged instinctively that he would never come until the end. When the General confirmed her view she was glad to hear him. Edmond might judge her afterwards for that which she had done of her own free will. She remembered that she had not asked him to give his parole, and therein found content.
There was a great sortie from the city on the morning of the 1st of September, and all day she heard the booming artillery, and the moan of the shells as they hurtled above the now doomed northern quarter. Towards noon the stragglerscame in, and told of many dead at Kronburg and Königshofen. She saw the waggons of the ambulance passing through the square to the military hospital, and anon the Abbé Colot came to tell her that there was to be a short truce while the burial parties went out. Soon the news of the truce went abroad as tidings of day, and men and women crept from the cellars and came gladly into the sunlight; and even the cafés were filled, and the accustomed movement of a city was to be observed again. She watched the people for a little while, and then put on her hat and cloak and went some way towards the Rue de l’Arc-en-Ciel. She must know the truth, she thought; must know if Brandon were still in Strasburg.
Dusk had come down when she entered the street. Hordes of ragged soldiers told the story of the unsuccessful sortie of the morning. Every alley had its philosopher. Some cursed the General for the city’s tribulations. Others said that France was justified of her army; that further resistance was a crime against the army. All were too excited by their own needs and creeds to observe her as she stood at the corner and looked up at the window behind which she hoped to see her friend’s face. But there was no light or sign there; the house had no message for her.
An hour passed all too slowly. She returned to her watching place to find theaubergeagain in darkness. Anticipations of the worst troubled her. She remembered how curtly she had left the man Gatelet, when last he met her by the New Church. If he had told them! But, after all, Brandon might have escaped. His German friends might have helped him to cross the river and regain his own lines. She was just telling herself that this was possible when the girl Jeannette came out of the house, and, observing her, crossed the road with furtive steps.
“Ah, Madame, it is you, then. And he has waited so. Every day, every hour, he has asked for you! You cannot be his friend, Madame, to leave him there—”
“He is still in your house, then, Jeannette?”
“If he is in the house, Madame! Listen: there have been many to ask for him, but I have told none. He has enemies in Strasburg. They watch us often from the windowslà-haut. He does not light his lamp, because they can see him at the blind. It is darkness, always, always. And I have spent the money. Every franc, and for myself not a sou, Madame. He will tell you so when you go up. Ah, if he were my friend, the steps would not be many. You are going up, Madame?”
For an instant she hesitated; but the thought of the lonely man up there in the darkness prevailed above the last argument of prudence.
“I am going up, Jeannette,” she said.
The girl took her hand, as though to lead her to the house. She pressed it in her own fingers, so thin and cold.
“Ah, Madame, you have a brave heart. Wait until I light the candle. And we will not mind those others to-night. Oh, how glad he will be, Madame!”
Together they climbed the tortuous dirty staircase and stood at the broken door. Some instants passed before their knock was answered, and when they entered, the prisoner started up as though from a fitful sleep. There was the pallor of death upon his face, but he smiled as he held out his hand to her.
“Well,” he said; “I thought that I told you not to come.”
“You knew that I must come,” she said quietly. “Hélène is dead, or I should have been here before. A shell struck our house; she died of fright and grief.”
He took her hand and pressed it.
“My poor child!” he said.
They sat in silence for a little while, until Jeannette had covered the windows with a heavycloth, which shut out the memory of those who watched the house. Beatrix was the first to speak, and her words came quickly, as the words of one who had no time to lose.
“You know that they are watching you here, Brandon?”
“I have known it from the first.”
“And you must find some other house.”
He answered with an assumed indifference. “My foot says no, and my landlady agrees. Why do you think of me when you have troubles of your own, Beatrix?”
“Because I must. You cannot stay here, Brandon. I had hoped that Edmond would come back, but I know that he will not come. What he would have done for you I must do. If there is any friend of yours in Strasburg, he must help you. There can be no secrets now. Your life may depend upon to-morrow.”
He listened to her eagerly.
“Antoine, my clerk,” he explained, “has become afranc-tireur. If I sent to him for money, he would shoot me. Mardon, the banker, would go straight to the citadel with my story if I told him. You know what the others are, men in blue coats mostly, who prate about the honour of the army, and have no honour to spare for their friends. If money were to be had, that would make one difficultythe less. It’s no good mincing matters, Beatrix. I haven’t a shilling to my name. The old woman here will turn me out into the street, bag and baggage, to-morrow, if I don’t pay. Of course, Gatelet knows that. He whines about friendship, and will come and remind you of that friendship when his fellows below have cut my throat. He knows that I have no money, and that is his trump card. If only old Watts could be found, the game would go well enough. But I don’t think you’ll find him now. If your friendship for me prompts you to settle with that hag downstairs, that will be a real service, and I can settle with Edmond when he comes in. Meanwhile, there is no time to lose.”
He sank back on his couch exhausted. She saw that there was not even water upon the table, and she sent Jeannette hurrying for wine and brandy. His words had been an inspiration to her. If money could save him, her task was indeed a light one.
“Why did you not ask me before?” she said.“You know that I have never wanted money. Of course, we will pay the woman at once. It has been such a dreadful week, Brandon; even death does not seem the sorrow it should be when there are so many terrible things happening every day. While you are here I shall know no rest. If you could find one friend—”
“There are many, Beatrix, but they don’t come to Strasburg to see me. Their business is of another kind. I would not let you enter this room if I were on that errand. You know why I ventured in, and you may tell Edmond when he returns.”
“I pray God that he will understand,” she said gently.
He turned his face away. When she left him, ten minutes later, she said that she would not rest night or day until she found someone to befriend him. But he buried his face in the pillow of rags, and alone and in the darkness he thought that none had come between them; and he seemed to hold her in his strong arms and to tell her that his life was nothing to him, because he might not speak of his surpassing love for her.