initial commit of ebook 24181HEADmain

10 files changed, 48364 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/24181-0.txt b/24181-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd7460e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24181-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12034 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lorraine
+       A romance
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: January 6, 2008 [EBook #24181]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    LORRAINE
+
+    A ROMANCE
+
+    By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    Author of "Cardigan,"
+    "The Maid at Arms,"
+    "The Maids of Paradise,"
+    "The Fighting Chance," etc.
+
+
+    A. L. BURT COMPANY
+    Publishers New York
+
+    Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers
+
+    Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers.
+
+    All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    MY FATHER
+
+
+
+
+    LORRAINE!
+
+    _When Yesterday shall dawn again,
+    And the long line athwart the hill
+    Shall quicken with the bugle's thrill,
+    Thine own shall come to thee, Lorraine!_
+
+    _Then in each vineyard, vale, and plain,
+    The quiet dead shall stir the earth
+    And rise, reborn, in thy new birth--
+    Thou holy martyr-maid, Lorraine!_
+
+    _Is it in vain thy sweet tears stain
+    Thy mother's breast? Her castled crest
+    Is lifted now! God guide her quest!
+    She seeks thine own for thee, Lorraine!_
+
+    _So Yesterday shall live again,
+    And the steel line along the Rhine
+    Shall cuirass thee and all that's thine.
+    France lives--thy France--divine Lorraine!_
+
+    R. W. C.
+
+
+
+
+    ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+    The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the
+    valuable volumes of Messrs. Victor Duruy, Archibald Forbes,
+    Sir William Fraser, Dr. J. von Pflugk-Harttung, G.
+    Tissandier, Comdt. Grandin, and "Un Officier de Marine,"
+    concerning (wholly or in part) the events of 1870-1871.
+
+    Occasionally the author has deemed it best to change the
+    names of villages, officers, and regiments or battalions.
+
+    The author believes that the romance separated from the
+    facts should leave the historical basis virtually accurate.
+
+    R. W. C.
+
+    New York, September, 1897.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+    CHAPTER                                      PAGE
+
+         I. A Maker of Maps                         1
+
+        II. Telegrams for Two                      11
+
+       III. Summer Thunder                         20
+
+        IV. The Farandole                          30
+
+         V. Cowards and Their Courage              39
+
+        VI. Trains East and West                   51
+
+       VII. The Road To Paradise                   59
+
+      VIII. Under the Yoke                         63
+
+        IX. Saarbrück                              79
+
+         X. An Unexpected Encounter                95
+
+        XI. "Keep Thy Faith"                      102
+
+       XII. From the Frontier                     116
+
+      XIII. Aide-de-camp                          131
+
+       XIV. The Marquis Makes Himself Agreeable   139
+
+        XV. The Invasion of Lorraine              157
+
+       XVI. "In the Hollow of Thy Hand"           171
+
+      XVII. The Keepers of the House              179
+
+     XVIII. The Stretching of Necks               190
+
+       XIX. Rickerl's Sabre                       205
+
+        XX. Sir Thorald Is Silent                 213
+
+       XXI. The White Cross                       226
+
+      XXII. A Door Is Locked                      239
+
+     XXIII. Lorraine Sleeps                       250
+
+      XXIV. Lorraine Awakes                       258
+
+       XXV. Princess Imperial                     270
+
+      XXVI. The Shadow of Pomp                    278
+
+     XXVII. Ça Ira!                               285
+
+    XXVIII. The Braconnier                        297
+
+      XXIX. The Message of the Flag               306
+
+       XXX. The Valley of the Shadow              324
+
+      XXXI. The Prophecy of Lorraine              334
+
+
+
+
+LORRAINE
+
+I
+
+A MAKER OF MAPS
+
+
+There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a
+soft foot-fall on the dead leaves.
+
+Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened.
+
+Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near,
+now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence,
+the silence that startles.
+
+He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly,
+striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a
+moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels,
+and listened again, pipe tightly clutched between his white
+teeth.
+
+All around lay the beautiful Lorraine forests, dim and sweet,
+dusky as velvet in their leafy depths. A single sunbeam, striking
+obliquely through the brush tangle, powdered the forest mould
+with gold.
+
+He heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing, where green
+branches swept its placid surface with a thousand new-born
+leaves; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind.
+
+Suddenly, far ahead, something gray shambled loosely across the
+path, leaped a brush heap, slunk under a fallen tree, and loped
+on again.
+
+For a moment Marche refused to believe his own eyes. A wolf in
+Lorraine!--a big, gray timber-wolf, here, within a mile of the
+Château Morteyn! He could see it yet, passing like a shadow along
+the trees. Before he knew it he was following, running noiselessly
+over the soft, mossy path, holding his little shot-gun tightly. As
+he ran, his eyes fixed on the spot where the wolf had disappeared,
+he began to doubt his senses again, he began to believe that the
+thing he saw was some shaggy sheep-dog from the Moselle, astray in
+the Lorraine forests. But he held his pace, his pipe griped in his
+teeth, his gun swinging at his side. Presently, as he turned into
+a grass-grown carrefour, a mere waste of wild-flowers and tangled
+briers, he caught his ankle in a strand of ivy and fell headlong.
+Sprawling there on the moss and dead leaves, the sound of human
+voices struck his ear, and he sat up, scowling and rubbing his
+knees.
+
+The voices came nearer; two people were approaching the carrefour.
+Jack Marche, angry and dirty, looked through the bushes, stanching
+a long scratch on his wrist with his pocket-handkerchief. The people
+were in sight now--a man, tall, square-shouldered, striding swiftly
+through the woods, followed by a young girl. Twice she sprang
+forward and seized him by the arm, but he shook her off roughly
+and hastened on. As they entered the carrefour, the girl ran in
+front of him and pushed him back with all her strength.
+
+"Come, now," said the man, recovering his balance, "you had
+better stop this before I lose patience. Go back!"
+
+The girl barred his way with slender arms out-stretched.
+
+"What are you doing in my woods?" she demanded. "Answer me! I
+will know, this time!"
+
+"Let me pass!" sneered the man. He held a roll of papers in one
+hand; in the other, steel compasses that glittered in the sun.
+
+"I shall not let you pass!" she said, desperately; "you shall not
+pass! I wish to know what it means, why you and the others come
+into my woods and make maps of every path, of every brook, of
+every bridge--yes, of every wall and tree and rock! I have seen
+you before--you and the others. You are strangers in my country!"
+
+"Get out of my path," said the man, sullenly.
+
+"Then give me that map you have made! I know what you are! You
+come from across the Rhine!"
+
+The man scowled and stepped towards her.
+
+"You are a German spy!" she cried, passionately.
+
+"You little fool!" he snarled, seizing her arm. He shook her
+brutally; the scarlet skirts fluttered, a little rent came in the
+velvet bodice, the heavy, shining hair tumbled down over her
+eyes.
+
+In a moment Marche had the man by the throat. He held him there,
+striking him again and again in the face. Twice the man tried to
+stab him with the steel compasses, but Marche dragged them out of
+his fist and hammered him until he choked and spluttered and
+collapsed on the ground, only to stagger to his feet again and
+lurch into the thicket of second growth. There he tripped and
+fell as Marche had fallen on the ivy, but, unlike Marche, he
+wriggled under the bushes and ran on, stooping low, never
+glancing back.
+
+The impulse that comes to men to shoot when anything is running
+for safety came over Marche for an instant. Instinctively he
+raised his gun, hesitated, lowered it, still watching the running
+man with cold, bright eyes.
+
+"Well," he said, turning to the girl behind him, "he's gone now.
+Ought I to have fired? Ma foi! I'm sorry I didn't! He has torn
+your bodice and your skirt!"
+
+The girl stood breathless, cheeks aflame, burnished tangled hair
+shadowing her eyes.
+
+"We have the map," she said, with a little gasp.
+
+Marche picked up a crumpled roll of paper from the ground and
+opened it. It contained a rough topographical sketch of the
+surrounding country, a detail of a dozen small forest paths, a
+map of the whole course of the river Lisse from its source to its
+junction with the Moselle, and a beautiful plan of the Château de
+Nesville.
+
+"That is my house!" said the girl; "he has a map of my house! How
+dare he!"
+
+"The Château de Nesville?" asked Marche, astonished; "are you
+Lorraine?"
+
+"Yes! I'm Lorraine. Didn't you know it?"
+
+"Lorraine de Nesville?" he repeated, curiously.
+
+"Yes! How dares that German to come into my woods and make maps and
+carry them back across the Rhine! I have seen him before--twice--drawing
+and measuring along the park wall. I told my father, but he thinks only
+of his balloons. I have seen others, too--other strange men in the
+chase--always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do
+Germans want of maps of France? I thought of it all day--every day; I
+watched, I listened in the forest. And do you know what I think?"
+
+"What?" asked Marche.
+
+She pushed back her splendid hair and faced him.
+
+"War!" she said, in a low voice.
+
+"War?" he repeated, stupidly. She stretched out an arm towards
+the east; then, with a passionate gesture, she stepped to his
+side.
+
+"War! Yes! War! War! War! I cannot tell you how I know it--I ask
+myself how--and to myself I answer: 'It is coming! I, Lorraine,
+know it!'"
+
+A fierce light flashed from her eyes, blue as corn-flowers in
+July.
+
+"It is in dreams I see and hear now--in dreams; and I see the
+vineyards black with helmets, and the Moselle redder than the
+setting sun, and over all the land of France I see bayonets,
+moving, moving, like the Rhine in flood!"
+
+The light in her eyes died out; she straightened up; her lithe
+young body trembled.
+
+"I have never before told this to any one," she said, faintly;
+"my father does not listen when I speak. You are Jack Marche, are
+you not?"
+
+He did not answer, but stood awkwardly, folding and unfolding the
+crumpled maps.
+
+"You are the vicomte's nephew--a guest at the Château Morteyn?"
+she asked.
+
+"Yes," said Marche.
+
+"Then you are Monsieur Jack Marche?"
+
+He took off his shooting-cap and laughed frankly. "You find me
+carrying a gun on your grounds," he said; "I'm sure you take me
+for a poacher."
+
+She glanced at his leggings.
+
+"Now," he began, "I ask permission to explain; I am afraid that
+you will be inclined to doubt my explanation. I almost doubt it
+myself, but here it is. Do you know that there are wolves in
+these woods?"
+
+"Wolves?" she repeated, horrified.
+
+"I saw one; I followed it to this carrefour."
+
+She leaned against a tree; her hands fell to her sides.
+
+There was a silence; then she said, "You will not believe what I
+am going to say--you will call it superstition--perhaps
+stupidity. But do you know that wolves have never appeared along
+the Moselle except before a battle? Seventy years ago they were
+seen before the battle of Colmar. That was the last time. And now
+they appear again."
+
+"I may have been mistaken," he said, hastily; "those shaggy
+sheep-dogs from the Moselle are very much like timber-wolves in
+colour. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Nesville, why should you believe
+that we are going to have a war? Two weeks ago the Emperor spoke
+of the perfect tranquillity of Europe." He smiled and added,
+"France seeks no quarrels. Because a brute of a German comes
+sneaking into these woods to satisfy his national thirst for
+prying, I don't see why war should result."
+
+"War did result," she said, smiling also, and glancing at his
+torn shooting-coat; "I haven't even thanked you yet, Monsieur
+Marche--for your victory."
+
+With a sudden gesture, proud, yet half shy, she held out one
+hand, and he took it in his own hands, bronzed and brier
+scratched.
+
+"I thought," she said, withdrawing her fingers, "that I ought to
+give you an American 'shake hands.' I suppose you are wondering
+why we haven't met before. There are reasons."
+
+She looked down at her scarlet skirt, touched a triangular tear
+in it, and, partly turning her head, raised her arms and twisted
+the tangled hair into a heavy burnished knot at her neck.
+
+"You wear the costume of Lorraine," he ventured.
+
+"Is it not pretty? I love it. Alone in the house I always wear
+it, the scarlet skirts banded with black, the velvet bodice and
+silver chains--oh! he has broken my chain, too!"
+
+He leaned on his gun, watching her, fascinated with the grace of
+her white fingers twisting her hair.
+
+"To think that you should have first seen me so! What will they
+say at the Château Morteyn?"
+
+"But I shall tell nobody," laughed Marche.
+
+"Then you are very honourable, and I thank you. Mon Dieu, they
+talk enough about me--you have heard them--do not deny it,
+Monsieur Marche. It is always, 'Lorraine did this, Lorraine did
+that, Lorraine is shocking, Lorraine is silly, Lorraine--' O
+Dieu! que sais'je! Poor Lorraine!"
+
+"Poor Lorraine!" he repeated, solemnly. They both laughed
+outright.
+
+"I know all about the house-party at the Château Morteyn," she
+resumed, mending a tear in her velvet bodice with a hair-pin. "I
+was invited, as you probably know, Monsieur Marche; but I did not
+go, and doubtless the old vicomte is saying, 'I wonder why
+Lorraine does not come?' and Madame de Morteyn replies, 'Lorraine
+is a very uncertain quantity, my dear'--oh, I am sure that they
+are saying these things."
+
+"I think I heard some such dialogue yesterday," said Marche, much
+amused. Lorraine raised her head and looked at him.
+
+"You think I am a crazy child in tatters, neglected and wild as a
+falcon from the Vosges. I know you do. Everybody says so, and
+everybody pities me and my father. Why? Parbleu! he makes
+experiments with air-ships that they don't understand. Voilà! As
+for me, I am more than happy. I have my forest and my fields; I
+have my horses and my books. I dress as I choose; I go where I
+choose. Am I not happy, Monsieur Marche?"
+
+"I should say," he admitted, "that you are."
+
+"You see," she continued, with a pretty, confidential nod, "I can
+talk to you because you are the vicomte's American nephew, and I
+have heard all about you and your lovely sister, and it is all
+right--isn't it?"
+
+"It is," said Marche, fervently.
+
+"Of course. Now I shall tell you why I did not go to the Château
+and meet your sister and the others. Perhaps you will not
+comprehend. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"I'll try to comprehend," said Marche, laughing.
+
+"Well, then, would you believe it? I--Lorraine de Nesville--have
+outgrown my clothes, monsieur, and my beautiful new gowns are
+coming from Paris this week, and then--"
+
+"Then!" repeated Marche.
+
+"Then you shall see," said Lorraine, gravely.
+
+Jack, bewildered, fascinated, stood leaning on his gun, watching
+every movement of the lithe figure before him.
+
+"Until your gowns arrive, I shall not see you again?" he asked.
+
+She looked up quickly.
+
+"Do you wish to?"
+
+"Very much!" he blurted out, and then, aware of the undue fervor
+he had shown, repeated: "Very much--if you don't mind," in a
+subdued but anxious voice.
+
+Again she raised her eyes to his, doubtfully, perhaps a little
+wistfully.
+
+"It wouldn't be right, would it--until you are presented?"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"Still," she said, looking up into the sky, "I often come to the
+river below, usually after luncheon."
+
+"I wonder if there are any gudgeon there?" he said; "I could
+bring a rod--"
+
+"Oh, but are you coming? Is that right? I think there are fish
+there," she added, innocently, "and I usually come after
+luncheon."
+
+"And when your gowns arrive from Paris--"
+
+"Then! Then you shall see! Oh! I shall be a very different
+person; I shall be timid and silent and stupid and awkward, and I
+shall answer, 'Oui, monsieur;' 'Non, monsieur,' and you will
+behold in me the jeune fille of the romances."
+
+"Don't!" he protested.
+
+"I shall!" she cried, shaking out her scarlet skirts full
+breadth. "Good-by!"
+
+In a second she had gone, straight away through the forest,
+leaving in his ears the music of her voice, on his finger-tips
+the touch of her warm hand.
+
+He stood, leaning on his gun--a minute, an hour?--he did not
+know.
+
+Presently earthly sounds began to come back to drown the
+delicious voice in his ears; he heard the little river Lisse,
+flowing, flowing under green branches; he heard a throstle
+singing in the summer wind; he heard, far in the deeper forest,
+something passing--patter, patter, patter--over the dead leaves.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+TELEGRAMS FOR TWO
+
+
+Jack Marche tucked his gun under his arm and turned away along
+the overgrown wood-road that stretched from the De Nesville
+forests to the more open woods of Morteyn.
+
+He walked slowly, puffing his pipe, pondering over his encounter with
+the châtelaine of the Château de Nesville. He thought, too, of the old
+Vicomte de Morteyn and his gentle wife, of the little house-party of
+which he and his sister Dorothy made two, of Sir Thorald and Lady
+Hesketh, their youthful and totally irresponsible chaperons on the
+journey from Paris to Morteyn.
+
+"They're lunching on the Lisse," he thought. "I'll not get a bite
+if Ricky is there."
+
+When Madame de Morteyn wrote to Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh on
+the first of July, she asked them to chaperon her two nieces and
+some other pretty girls in the American colony whom they might
+wish to bring, for a month, to Morteyn.
+
+"The devil!" said Sir Thorald when he read the letter; "am I to
+pick out the girls, Molly?"
+
+"Betty and I will select the men," said Lady Hesketh, sweetly;
+"you may do as you please."
+
+He did. He suggested a great many, and wrote a list for his wife.
+That prudent young woman carefully crossed out every name, saying,
+"Thorald! I am ashamed of you!" and substituted another list. She
+had chosen, besides Dorothy Marche and Betty Castlemaine, the two
+nieces in question, Barbara Lisle and her inseparable little German
+friend, Alixe von Elster; also the latter's brother, Rickerl, or
+Ricky, as he was called in diplomatic circles. She closed the list
+with Cecil Page, because she knew that Betty Castlemaine, Madame
+de Morteyn's younger niece, looked kindly, at times, upon this
+blond giant.
+
+And so it happened that the whole party invaded three first-class
+compartments of an east-bound train at the Gare de l'Est, and
+twenty-two hours later were trooping up the terrace steps of the
+Château Morteyn, here in the forests and fragrant meadows of
+Lorraine.
+
+Madame de Morteyn kissed all the girls on both cheeks, and the
+old vicomte embraced his nieces, Betty Castlemaine and Dorothy
+Marche, and threatened to kiss the others, including Molly
+Hesketh. He desisted, he assured them, only because he feared Sir
+Thorald might feel bound to follow his example; to which Lady
+Hesketh replied that she didn't care and smiled at the vicomte.
+
+The days had flown very swiftly for all: Jack Marche taught
+Barbara Lisle to fish for gudgeon; Betty Castlemaine tormented
+Cecil Page to his infinitely miserable delight; Ricky von Elster
+made tender eyes at Dorothy Marche and rowed her up and down the
+Lisse; and his sister Alixe read sentimental verses under the
+beech-trees and sighed for the sweet mysteries that young German
+girls sigh for--heart-friendships, lovers, _Ewigkeit_--God knows
+what!--something or other that turns the heart to tears until
+everything slops over and the very heavens sob.
+
+They were happy enough together in the Château and out-of-doors.
+Little incidents occurred that might as well not have occurred,
+but apparently no scars were left nor any incurable pang. True,
+Molly Hesketh made eyes at Ricky von Elster; but she reproved him
+bitterly when he kissed her hand in the orangery one evening;
+true also that Sir Thorald whispered airy nothings into the
+shell-like ear of Alixe von Elster until that German maiden could
+not have repeated her German alphabet. But, except for the
+chaperons, the unmarried people did well enough, as unmarried
+people usually do when let alone.
+
+So, on that cloudless day of July, 1870, Rickerl von Elster sat
+in the green row-boat and tugged at the oars while Sir Thorald
+smoked a cigar placidly and Lady Hesketh trailed her pointed
+fingers over the surface of the water.
+
+"Ricky, my son," said Sir Thorald, "you probably gallop better
+than you row. Who ever heard of an Uhlan in a boat? Molly, take
+his oars away."
+
+"Ricky shall row me if he wishes," replied Molly Hesketh; "and
+you do, don't you, Ricky? Thorald will set you on shore if you
+want."
+
+"I have no confidence in Uhlan officers," said her spouse,
+darkly.
+
+Rickerl looked pleased; perspiration stood on his blond eyebrows
+and his broad face glowed.
+
+"As an officer of cavalry in the Prussian army," he said, "and as
+an attaché of the German Embassy in Paris, I suggest that we
+return to first principles and rejoin our base of supplies."
+
+"He's thirsty," said Molly, gravely. "The base of supplies, so
+long cut loose from, is there under the willows, and I see six
+feet two of Cecil Page carrying a case of bottles."
+
+"Row, Ricky!" urged Sir Thorald; "they will leave nothing for
+Uhlan foragers!"
+
+The boat rubbed its nose against the mossy bank; Lady Hesketh
+placed her fair hands in Ricky's chubby ones and sprang to the
+shore.
+
+"Cecil Page," she said, "I am thirsty. Where are the others?"
+
+Betty and Dorothy looked out from their seat in the tall grass.
+
+"Charles brought the hamper; there it is," said Cecil.
+
+Barbara Lisle and sentimental little Alixe von Elster strolled up
+and looked lovingly upon the sandwiches.
+
+Cecil Page stood and sulked, until Dorothy took pity and made
+room on the moss beside her.
+
+"Can't you have a little mercy, Betty?" she whispered; "Cecil
+moons like a wounded elephant."
+
+So Betty smiled at him and asked for more salad, and Cecil
+brought it and basked in her smiles.
+
+"Where is Jack Marche?" asked Molly Hesketh. "Dorothy, your
+brother went into the chase with a gun, and where is he?"
+
+"What does he want to shoot in July? It's too late for rooks,"
+said Sir Thorald, pouring out champagne-cup for Barbara Lisle.
+
+"I don't know where Jack went," said Dorothy. "He heard one of
+the keepers complain of the hawks, so, I suppose, he took a gun.
+I wonder why that strange Lorraine de Nesville doesn't come to
+call. I am simply dying to see her."
+
+"I saw her once," observed Sir Thorald.
+
+"You generally do," added his wife.
+
+"What?"
+
+"See what others don't."
+
+Sir Thorald, a trifle disconcerted, applied himself to caviare
+and, later, to a bottle of Moselle.
+
+"She's a beauty, they say--" began Ricky, and might have
+continued had he not caught the danger-signal in Molly Hesketh's
+black eyes.
+
+"Lorraine de Nesville," said Lady Hesketh, "is only a child of
+seventeen. Her father makes balloons."
+
+"Not the little, red, squeaky kind," added Sir Thorald; "Molly,
+he is an amateur aeronaut."
+
+"He'd much better take care of Lorraine. The poor child runs wild
+all over the country. They say she rides like a witch on a
+broom--"
+
+"Astride?" cried Sir Thorald.
+
+"For shame!" said his wife; "I--I--upon my word, I have heard
+that she has done that, too. Ricky! what do you mean by yawning?"
+
+Ricky had been listening, mouth open. He shut it hurriedly and
+grew pink to the roots of his colourless hair.
+
+Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil, and Dorothy Marche laughed.
+
+"What of it?" she said; "there is nobody here who would dare to!"
+
+"Oh, shocking!" said little Alixe, and tried to look as though
+she meant it.
+
+At that moment Sir Thorald caught sight of Jack Marche, strolling
+up through the trees, gun tucked under his left arm.
+
+"No luncheon, no salad, no champagne-cup, no cigarette!" he
+called; "all gone! all gone! Molly's smoked my last--"
+
+"Jack Marche, where have you been?" demanded Molly Hesketh. "No,
+you needn't dodge my accusing finger! Barbara, look at him!"
+
+"It's a pretty finger--if Sir Thorald will permit me to say so,"
+said Jack, laughing and setting his gun up against a tree.
+"Dorrie, didn't you save any salad? Ricky, you devouring scourge,
+there's not a bit of caviare! I'm hungry--Oh, thanks, Betty, you
+did think of the prodigal, didn't you?"
+
+"It was Cecil," she said, slyly; "I was saving it for him. What
+did you shoot, Jack?"
+
+"Now you people listen and I'll tell you what I didn't shoot."
+
+"A poor little hawk?" asked Betty.
+
+"No--a poor little wolf!"
+
+In the midst of cries of astonishment and exclamations Sir
+Thorald arose, waving a napkin.
+
+"I knew it!" he said--"I knew I saw a wolf in the woods day
+before yesterday, but I didn't dare tell Molly; she never
+believes me."
+
+"And you deliberately chose to expose us to the danger of being eaten
+alive?" said Lady Hesketh, in an awful voice. "Ricky, I'm going to
+get into that boat at once; Dorothy--Betty Castlemaine--bring Alixe
+and Barbara Lisle. We are going to embark at once."
+
+"Ricky and his boat-load of beauty," laughed Sir Thorald.
+"Really, Molly, I hesitated to tell you because--I was afraid--"
+
+"What, you horrid thing?--afraid he'd bite me?"
+
+"Afraid you'd bite the wolf, my dear," he whispered so that
+nobody but she heard it; "I say, Ricky, we ought to have a wolf
+drive! What do you think?"
+
+The subject started, all chimed in with enthusiasm except Alixe
+von Elster, who sat with big, soulful eyes fixed on Sir Thorald
+and trembled for that bad young man's precious skin.
+
+"We have two weeks to stay yet," said Cecil, glancing
+involuntarily at Betty Castlemaine; "we can get up a drive in a
+week."
+
+"You are not going, Cecil," said Betty, in a low voice, partly to
+practise controlling him, partly to see him blush.
+
+Lady Hesketh, however, took enough interest in the sport to
+insist, and Jack Marche promised to see the head-keeper at once.
+
+"I think I see him now," said Sir Thorald--"no, it's Bosquet's
+boy from the post-office. Those are telegrams he's got."
+
+The little postman's son came trotting across the meadow, waving
+two blue envelopes.
+
+"Monsieur le Capitaine Rickerl von Elster and Monsieur Jack
+Marche--two telegrams this instant from Paris, messieurs! I
+salute you." And he took off his peaked cap, adding, as he saw
+the others, "Messieurs, mesdames," and nodded his curly, blond
+head and smiled.
+
+"Don't apologize--read your telegrams!" said Lady Hesketh; "dear
+me! dear me! if they take you two away and leave Thorald, I
+shall--I shall yawn!"
+
+Ricky's broad face changed as he read his despatch; and Molly
+Hesketh, shamelessly peeping over his shoulder, exclaimed, "It's
+cipher! How stupid! Can you understand it, Ricky?"
+
+Yes, Rickerl von Elster understood it well enough. He paled a
+little, thrust the crumpled telegram into his pocket, and looked
+vaguely at the circle of faces. After a moment he said, standing
+very straight, "I must leave to-morrow morning."
+
+"Recalled? Confound your ambassador, Ricky!" said Sir Thorald.
+"Recalled to Paris in midsummer! Well, I'm--"
+
+"Not to Paris," said Rickerl, with a curious catch in his
+voice--"to Berlin. I join my regiment at once."
+
+Jack Marche, who had been studying his telegram with puzzled
+eyes, held it out to Sir Thorald.
+
+"Can't make head or tail of it; can you?" he demanded.
+
+Sir Thorald took it and read aloud: "New York _Herald_ offers you
+your own price and all expenses. Cable, if accepted."
+
+"'Cable, if accepted,'" repeated Betty Castlemaine; "accept
+what?"
+
+"Exactly! What?" said Jack. "Do they want a story? What do
+'expenses' mean? I'm not going to Africa again if I know it."
+
+"It sounds as though the _Herald_ wanted you for some expedition;
+it sounds as if everybody knew about the expedition, except you.
+Nobody ever hears any news at Morteyn," said Molly Hesketh,
+dejectedly. "Are you going, Jack?"
+
+"Going? Where?"
+
+"Does your telegram throw any light on Jack's, Ricky?" asked Sir
+Thorald.
+
+But Rickerl von Elster turned away without answering.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUMMER THUNDER
+
+
+When the old vicomte was well enough to entertain anybody at all,
+which was not very often, he did it skilfully. So when he filled
+the Château with young people and told them to amuse themselves
+and not bother him, the house-party was necessarily a success.
+
+He himself sat all day in the sunshine, studying the week's Paris
+newspapers with dim, kindly eyes, or played interminable chess
+games with his wife on the flower terrace.
+
+She was sixty; he had passed threescore and ten. They never
+strayed far from each other. It had always been so from the
+first, and the first was when Helen Bruce, of New York City,
+married Georges Vicomte de Morteyn. That was long ago.
+
+The chess-table stood on the terrace in the shadow of the
+flower-crowned parapets; the old vicomte sat opposite his wife,
+one hand touching the black knight, one foot propped up on a pile
+of cushions. He pushed the knight slowly from square to square
+and twisted his white imperial with stiff fingers.
+
+"Helen," he asked, mildly, "are you bored?"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+Madame de Morteyn smiled at her husband and lifted a pawn in her
+thin, blue-veined hand; but the vicomte had not finished, and she
+replaced the pawn and leaned back in her chair, moving the two
+little coffee-cups aside so that she could see what her husband
+was doing with the knight.
+
+From the lawn below came the chatter and laughter of girls. On
+the edge of the lawn the little river Lisse glided noiselessly
+towards the beech woods, whose depths, saturated with sunshine,
+rang with the mellow notes of nesting thrushes.
+
+The middle of July had found the leaves as fresh and tender as
+when they opened in May, the willow's silver green cooled the
+richer verdure of beach and sycamore; the round poplar leaves,
+pale yellow and orange in the sunlight, hung brilliant as lighted
+lanterns where the sun burned through.
+
+"Helen?"
+
+"Dear?"
+
+"I am not at all certain what to do with my queen's knight. May I
+have another cup of coffee?"
+
+Madame de Morteyn poured the coffee from the little silver
+coffee-pot.
+
+"It is hot; be careful, dear."
+
+The vicomte sipped his coffee, looking at her with faded eyes.
+She knew what he was going to say; it was always the same, and
+her answer was always the same. And always, as at that first
+breakfast--their wedding-breakfast--her pale cheeks bloomed again
+with a subtle colour, the ghost of roses long dead.
+
+"Helen, are you thinking of that morning?"
+
+"Yes, Georges."
+
+"Of our wedding-breakfast--here--at this same table?"
+
+"Yes, Georges."
+
+The vicomte set his cup back in the saucer and, trembling, poured
+a pale, golden liquid from a decanter into two tiny glasses.
+
+"A glass of wine?--I have the honour, my dear--"
+
+The colour touched her cheeks as their glasses met; the still air
+tinkled with the melody of crystal touching crystal; a golden
+drop fell from the brimming glasses. The young people on the lawn
+below were very noisy.
+
+She placed her empty glass on the table; the delicate glow in her
+cheeks faded as skies fade at twilight. He, with grave head
+leaning on his hand, looked vaguely at the chess-board, and saw,
+mirrored on every onyx square, the eyes of his wife.
+
+"Will you have the journals, dear?" she asked presently. She
+handed him the _Gaulois_, and he thanked her and opened it,
+peering closely at the black print.
+
+After a moment he read: "M. Ollivier declared, in the Corps
+Législatif, that 'at no time in the history of France has the
+maintenance of peace been more assured than to-day.' Oh, that
+journal is two weeks' old, Helen.
+
+"The treaty of Paris in 1856 assured peace in the Orient, and the
+treaty of Prague in 1866 assures peace in Germany," continued the
+vicomte; "I don't see why it should be necessary for Monsieur
+Ollivier to insist."
+
+He dropped the paper on the stones and touched his white
+mustache.
+
+"You are thinking of General Chanzy," said his wife,
+laughing--"you always twist your mustache like that when you're
+thinking of Chanzy."
+
+He smiled, for he was thinking of Chanzy, his sword-brother; and
+the hot plains of Oran and the dusty columns of cavalry passed
+before his eyes--moving, moving across a world of desert into the
+flaming disk of the setting sun.
+
+"Is to-day the 16th of July, Helen?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Then Chanzy is coming back from Oran. I know you dread it. We
+shall talk of nothing but Abd-el-Kader and Spahis and Turcos, and
+how we lost our Kabyle tobacco at Bou-Youb."
+
+She had heard all about it, too; she knew every étape of the 48th
+of the Line--from the camp at Sathonay to Sidi-Bel-Abbès, and
+from Daya to Djebel-Mikaidon. Not that she cared for sabres and
+red trousers, but nothing that concerned her husband was
+indifferent to her.
+
+"I hope General Chanzy will come," she said, "and tell you all
+about those poor Kabyles and the Legion and that horrid 2d
+Zouaves that you and he laugh over. Are you tired, dear?"
+
+"No. Shall we play? I believe it was my move. How warm it is in
+the sun--no, don't stir, dear--I like it, and my gout is better
+for it. What do you suppose all those young people are doing?
+Hear Betty Castlemaine laugh! It is very fortunate for them,
+Helen, that I married an American with an American's disregard of
+French conventionalities."
+
+"I am very strict," said his wife, smiling; "I can survey them en
+chaperone."
+
+"If you turn around. But you don't."
+
+"I do when it is necessary," said Madame de Morteyn, indignantly;
+"Molly Hesketh is there."
+
+The vicomte laughed and picked up the knight again.
+
+"You see," he said, waving it in the air, "that I also have
+become a very good American. I think no evil until it comes, and
+when it comes I say, 'Shocking!'"
+
+"Georges!"
+
+"That's what I say, my dear--"
+
+"Georges!"
+
+"There, dear, I won't tease. Hark! What is that?"
+
+Madame de Morteyn leaned over the parapet.
+
+"It is Jean Bosquet. Shall I speak to him?"
+
+"Perhaps he has the Paris papers."
+
+"Jean!" she called; and presently the little postman came
+trotting up the long stone steps from the drive. Had he anything?
+Nothing for Monsieur le Vicomte except a bundle of the week's
+journals from Paris. So Madame de Morteyn took the papers, and
+the little postman doffed his cap again and trotted away, blue
+blouse fluttering and sabots echoing along the terrace pavement.
+
+"I am tired of chess," said the old vicomte; "would you mind
+reading the _Gaulois_?"
+
+"The politics, dear?"
+
+"Yes, the weekly summary--if it won't bore you."
+
+"Tais toi! Écoute. This is dated July 3d. Shall I begin?"
+
+"Yes, Helen."
+
+She held the paper nearer and read: "'A Paris journal publishes a
+despatch through l'agence Havas which declares that a deputation
+from the Spanish Government has left Madrid for Berlin to offer
+the crown of Spain to Leopold von Hohenzollern.'"
+
+"What!" cried the vicomte, angrily. Two chessmen tipped over and
+rolled among the others.
+
+"It's what it says, mon ami; look--see--it is exactly as I read
+it."
+
+"Are those Spaniards crazy?" muttered the vicomte, tugging at his
+imperial. "Look, Helen, read what the next day's journal says."
+
+His wife unfolded the paper dated the 4th of July and found the
+column and read: "'The press of Paris unanimously accuses the
+Imperial Government of allowing Prim and Bismarck to intrigue
+against the interests of France. The French ambassador, Count
+Benedetti, interviewed the King of Prussia at Ems and requested
+him to prevent Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern's acceptance. It
+is rumoured that the King of Prussia declined to interfere.'"
+
+Madame de Morteyn tossed the journal on to the terrace and opened
+another.
+
+"'On the 12th of July the Spanish ambassador to Paris informed
+the Duc de Gramont, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the Prince
+von Hohenzollern renounces his candidacy to the Spanish throne.'"
+
+"À la bonheur!" said the vicomte, with a sigh of relief; "that
+settles the Hohenzollern matter. My dear, can you imagine France
+permitting a German prince to mount the throne of Spain? It was
+more than a menace--it was almost an insult. Do you remember
+Count Bismarck when he was ambassador to France? He is a man who
+fascinates me. How he used to watch the Emperor! I can see him
+yet--those puffy, pale eyes! You saw him also, dear--you
+remember, at Saint-Cloud?"
+
+"Yes; I thought him brusque and malicious."
+
+"I know he is at the bottom of this. I'm glad it is over. Did you
+finish the telegraphic news?"
+
+"Almost all. It says--dear me, Georges!--it says that the Duc de
+Gramont refuses to accept any pledge from the Spanish ambassador
+unless that old Von Werther--the German ambassador, you
+know--guarantees that Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern will never
+again attempt to mount the Spanish throne!"
+
+There was a silence. The old vicomte stirred restlessly and
+knocked over some more chessmen.
+
+"Sufficient unto the day--" he said, at last; "the Duc de Gramont
+is making a mistake to press the matter. The word of the Spanish
+ambassador is enough--until he breaks it. General Lebœuf might
+occupy himself in the interim--profitably, I think."
+
+"General Lebœuf is minister of war. What do you mean, Georges?"
+
+"Yes, dear, Lebœuf is minister of war."
+
+"And you think this German prince may some time again--"
+
+"I think France should be ready if he does. Is she ready? Not if
+Chanzy and I know a Turco from a Kabyle. Perhaps Count Bismarck
+wants us to press his king for guarantees. I don't trust him. If
+he does, we should not oblige him. Gramont is making a grave
+mistake. Suppose the King of Prussia should refuse and say it is
+not his affair? Then we would be obliged to accept that answer,
+or--"
+
+"Or what, Georges?"
+
+"Or--well, my dear--or fight. But Gramont is not wicked enough,
+nor is France crazy enough, to wish to go to war over a
+contingency--a possibility that might never happen. I foresee a
+snub for our ambassador at Ems, but that is all. Do you care to
+play any more? I tipped over my king and his castles."
+
+"Perhaps it is an omen--the King of Prussia, you know, and his
+fortresses. I feel superstitious, Georges!"
+
+The vicomte smiled and set the pieces up on their proper squares.
+
+"It is settled; the Spanish ambassador pledges his word that
+Prince Hohenzollern will not be King of Spain. France should be
+satisfied. It is my move, I believe, and I move so--check to you,
+my dear!"
+
+"I resign, dearest. Listen! Here come the children up the terrace
+steps."
+
+"But--but--Helen, you must not resign so soon. Why should you?"
+
+"Because you are already beaten," she laughed, gently--"your king
+and his castles and all his men! How headstrong you Chasseurs
+d'Afrique are!"
+
+"I'm not beaten!" said the old man, stoutly, and leaned closer
+over the board. Then he also laughed, and said, "Tiens! tiens!
+tiens!" and his wife rose and gave him her arm. Two pretty girls
+came running up the terrace, and the old vicomte stood up,
+crying: "Children! Naughty ones! I see you coming! Madame de
+Morteyn has beaten me at chess. Laugh if you dare! Betty
+Castlemaine, I see you smiling!"
+
+"I?" laughed that young lady, turning her flushed face from her
+aunt to her uncle.
+
+"Yes, you did," repeated the vicomte, "and you are not the niece
+that I love any more. Where have you been? And you, Dorothy
+Marche?--your hair is very much tangled."
+
+"We have been lunching by the Lisse," said Dorothy, "and Jack
+caught a gudgeon; here it is."
+
+"Pooh!" said the old vicomte; "I must show them how to fish.
+Helen, I shall go fishing--"
+
+"Some time," said his wife, gently. "Betty, where are the men?"
+
+"Jack and Barbara Lisle are fishing; Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh
+are in the green boat, and Ricky is rowing them. The others are
+somewhere. Ricky got a telegram, and must go to Berlin."
+
+"Tell Rickerl von Elster that his king is making mischief,"
+laughed the vicomte, "and he may go back to Berlin when he
+chooses." Then, smiling at the young, flushed faces, he leaned on
+his wife's arm and passed slowly along the terrace towards the
+house.
+
+"I wonder why Lorraine has not come?" he said to his wife. "Won't
+she come to-night for the dance?"
+
+"Lorraine is a very sweet but a very uncertain girl," replied
+Madame de Morteyn. She led him through the great bay-window
+opening on the terrace, drew his easy-chair before his desk,
+placed the journals before him, and, stooping, kissed him.
+
+"If you want me, send Charles. I really ought to be with the
+young people a moment. I wonder why Ricky must leave?"
+
+"How far away are you going, Helen?"
+
+"Only to the Lisse."
+
+"Then I shall read about Monsieur Bismarck and his Spanish
+friends until you come. The day is long without you."
+
+They smiled at each other, and she sat down by the window.
+
+"Read," she said; "I can see my children from here. I wonder why
+Ricky is leaving?"
+
+Suddenly, in the silence of the summer noon, far in the east, a
+dull sound shook the stillness. Again they heard it--again, and
+again--a deep boom, muttering, reverberating like summer thunder.
+
+"Why should they fire cannon to-day, Helen?" asked the old man,
+querulously. "Why should they fire cannon beyond the Rhine?"
+
+"It is thunder," she said, gently; "it will storm before long."
+
+"I am tired," said the vicomte. "Helen, I shall sleep. Sit by
+me--so--no--nearer yet! Are the children happy?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"When the cannon cease, I shall fall asleep. Listen! what is
+that?"
+
+"A blackbird singing in the pear-tree."
+
+"And what is that--that sound of galloping? Look out and see,
+Helen."
+
+"It is a gendarme riding fast towards the Rhine."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FARANDOLE
+
+
+That evening Dorothy Marche stood on the terrace in the moonlight
+waving her plumed fan and listening to the orchestra from the
+hamlet of Saint-Lys. The orchestra--two violins, a reed-pipe, a
+biniou, and a harp--were playing away with might and main.
+Through the bay-window she could see the crystal chandeliers
+glittering with prismatic light, the slender gilded chairs, the
+cabinets and canapés, golden, backed with tapestry; and
+everywhere massed banks of ferns and lilies. They were dancing in
+there; she saw Lady Hesketh floating in the determined grip of
+Cecil Page, she saw Sir Thorald proudly prancing to the air of
+the farandole; Betty Castlemaine, Jack, Alixe, Barbara Lisle
+passed the window only to re-pass and pass again in a whirl of
+gauze and filmy colour; and the swish! swish! swish! of silken
+petticoats, and the rub of little feet on the polished floor grew
+into a rhythmic, monotonous cadence, beating, beating the measure
+of the farandole.
+
+Dorothy waved her fan and looked at Rickerl, standing in the
+moonlight beside her.
+
+"Why won't you dance, Ricky?" she asked; "it is your last
+evening, if you are determined to leave to-morrow." He turned to
+her with an abrupt gesture; she thought he was going to speak,
+but he did not, and after a moment she said: "Do you know what
+that despatch from the New York _Herald_ to my brother means?"
+
+"Yes," he said. His voice was dull, almost indifferent.
+
+"Will you tell me?"
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"Is--is it anything dangerous that they want him to do?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ricky--tell me, then! You frighten me."
+
+"To-morrow--perhaps to-night."
+
+"Perhaps to-night?"
+
+"If I receive another telegram. I expect to."
+
+"Then, if you receive another despatch, we shall all know?"
+
+Rickerl von Elster bent his head and laid a gloved hand lightly
+on her own.
+
+"I am very unhappy," he said, simply. "May we not speak of other
+things?"
+
+"Yes, Ricky," she said, faintly. He looked almost handsome there
+in the moonlight, but under his evening dress the square build of
+the Prussian trooper, the rigid back, and sturdy limbs were
+perhaps too apparent for ideal civilian elegance. Dorothy looked
+into his serious young face. He touched his blond mustache, felt
+unconsciously for the sabre that was not dangling from his left
+hip, remembered, coloured, and stood up even straighter.
+
+"We are thinking of the same thing," said Dorothy; "I was trying
+to recall that last time we met--do you remember? In Paris?"
+
+He nodded; eyes fixed on hers.
+
+"At the Diplomatic Ball?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you were in uniform, and your sabre was very beautiful,
+but--do you remember how it clashed and banged on the marble
+stairway, and how the other attachés teased you until you tucked
+it under your left arm? Dear me! I was fascinated by your
+patent-leather sabre-tache, and your little spurs, that rang like
+tiny chimes when you walked. What sentimental creatures young
+girls are! Ne c'est pas, Ricky?"
+
+"I have never forgotten that evening," he said, in a voice so low
+that she leaned involuntarily nearer.
+
+"We were very young then," she said, waving her fan.
+
+"It was not a year ago."
+
+"We were young," she repeated, coldly.
+
+"Yet I shall never forget, Dorothy."
+
+She closed her fan and began to examine the fluffy plumes. Her
+cheeks were red, and she bit her lips continually.
+
+"Do you particularly admire Molly Hesketh's hand?" she asked,
+indifferently.
+
+He turned crimson. How could she know of the episode in the
+orangery? Know? There was no mystery in that; Molly Hesketh had
+told her. But Rickerl von Elster, loyal in little things, saw but
+one explanation--Dorothy must have seen him.
+
+"Yes--I kissed her hand," he said. He did not add that Molly had
+dared him.
+
+Dorothy raised her head with an icy smile.
+
+"Is it honourable to confess such a thing?" she asked, in steady
+tones.
+
+"But--but you knew it, for you saw me--" he stammered.
+
+"I did not!" she flashed out, and walked straight into the house.
+
+"Dorrie!" cried her brother as she swept by him, "what do you
+think? Lorraine de Nesville is coming this evening!"
+
+"Lorraine?" said his sister--"dear me, I am dying to see her."
+
+"Then turn around," whispered Betty Castlemaine, leaning across
+from Cecil's arm. "Oh, Dorrie! what a beauty!"
+
+At the same moment the old vicomte rose from his gilded chair and
+stepped forward to the threshold, saying, "Lorraine! Lorraine!
+Then you have come at last, little bad one?" And he kissed her
+white hands and led her to his wife, murmuring, "Helen, what
+shall we do with the little bad one who never comes to bid two
+old people good-day?"
+
+"Ah, Lorraine!" said Madame de Morteyn; "kiss me, my child."
+
+There she stood, her cheeks faintly touched with colour, her
+splendid eyes shining like azure stars, the candle-light setting
+her heavy hair aglow till it glistened and burned as molten ore
+flashes in a crucible. They pressed around her; she saw, through
+the flare of yellow light, a sea of rosy faces; a vague mist of
+lace set with jewels; and she smiled at them while the colour
+deepened in her cheeks. There was music in her ears and music in
+her heart, and she was dancing now--dancing with a tall, bronzed
+young fellow who held her strong and safe, and whose eyes
+continually sought her own.
+
+"You see," she said, demurely, "that my gowns came to-day from
+Paris."
+
+"It is a dream--this one," he said, smiling back into her eyes,
+"but I shall never forget the scarlet skirt and little bodice of
+velvet, and the silver chains, and your hair--"
+
+"My hair? It is still on my head."
+
+"It was tangled across your face--then."
+
+"Taisez-vous, Monsieur Marche!"
+
+"And you seem to have grown taller--"
+
+"It is my ball-gown."
+
+"And you do not cast down your eyes and say, 'Oui, monsieur,'
+'Non, monsieur'--"
+
+"Non, monsieur."
+
+Again they laughed, looking into each other's eyes, and there was
+music in the room and music in their hearts.
+
+Presently the candle-light gave place to moonlight, and they
+found themselves on the terrace, seated, listening to the voice
+of the wind in the forest; and they heard the little river Lisse
+among the rushes and the murmur of leaves on the eaves.
+
+When they became aware of their own silence they turned to each
+other with the gentle haste born of confusion, for each feared
+that the other might not understand. Then, smiling, half fearful,
+they reassured each other with their silence.
+
+She was the first to break the stillness, hesitating as one who
+breaks the seal of a letter long expected, half dreaded: "I came
+late because my father was restless, and I thought he might need
+me. Did you hear cannon along the Rhine?"
+
+"Yes. Some German fête. I thought at first it might be thunder.
+Give me your fan."
+
+"You do not hold it right--there--"
+
+"Do you feel the breeze? Your fan is perfumed--or is it the
+lilies on the terrace? They are dancing again; must we go back?"
+
+She looked out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a
+nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat
+darted by, turned, rose, dipped, and vanished.
+
+"They are dancing," she repeated.
+
+"Must we go?"
+
+"No."
+
+In the stillness the nightingale grew bolder; the woods seemed
+saturated with song.
+
+"My father is restless; I must return soon," she said, with a
+little sigh. "I shall go in presently and make my adieux. I wish
+you might know my father. Will you? He would like you. He speaks
+to few people except me. I know all that he thinks, all that he
+dreams of. I know also all that he has done, all that he is
+doing, all that he will do--God willing. Why is it I tell you
+this? Ma foi, I do not know. And I am going to tell you more.
+Have you heard that my father has made a balloon?"
+
+"Yes--everybody speaks of it," he answered, gravely.
+
+"But--ah, this is the wonderful part!--he has made a balloon that
+can be inflated in five seconds! Think! All other balloons
+require a long, long while, and many tubes; and one must take
+them to a usine de gaz. My father's balloon needs no gas--that
+is, it needs no common illuminating gas."
+
+"A montgolfier?" asked Marche, curiously.
+
+"Oh, pooh! The idea! No, it is like other balloons, except
+that--well--there is needed merely a handful of silvery dust--to
+which you touch a drop of water--piff! puff! c'est fini! The
+balloon is filled."
+
+"And what is this silvery dust?" he asked, laughing.
+
+"Voilà! Do you not wish you knew? I--Lorraine de Nesville--I know!
+It is a secret. If the time ever should come--in case of war, for
+instance--my father will give the secret to France--freely--without
+recompense--a secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy!
+Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"
+
+"And you know?"
+
+"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.
+
+"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations
+get wind of this they might kidnap you."
+
+"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain,
+Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my father--as though he
+bought and sold the welfare of his country!"
+
+"And that map-making fellow this morning--do you suppose he might
+have been hanging about after that sort of thing--trying to pry
+and pick up some scrap of information?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, quietly; "I only saw him making maps.
+Listen! there are two secrets that my father possesses, and they
+are both in writing. I do not know where he keeps them, but I
+know what they are. Shall I tell you? Then listen--I shall
+whisper. One is the chemical formula for the silvery dust, the
+gas of which can fill a balloon in five seconds. The other
+is--you will be astonished--the plan for a navigable balloon!"
+
+"Has he tried it?"
+
+"A dozen times. I went up twice. It steers like a ship."
+
+"Do people know this, too?"
+
+"Germany does. Once we sailed, papa and I, up over our forest and
+across the country to the German frontier. We were not very high;
+we could see the soldiers at the custom-house, and they saw us,
+and--would you believe it?--they fired their horrid guns at
+us--pop! pop! pop! But we were too quick; we simply sailed back
+again against the very air-currents that brought us. One bullet
+made a hole in the silk, but we didn't come down. Papa says a
+dozen bullets cannot bring a balloon down, even when they pierce
+the silk, because the air-pressure is great enough to keep the
+gas in. But he says that if they fire a shell, that is what is to
+be dreaded, for the gas, once aflame!--that ends all. Dear me! we
+talk a great deal of war--you and I. It is time for me to go."
+
+They rose in the moonlight; he gave her back her fan. For a full
+minute they stood silent, facing each other. She broke a lily
+from its stem, and drew it out of the cluster at her breast. She
+did not offer it, but he knew it was his, and he took it.
+
+"Symbol of France," she whispered.
+
+"Symbol of Lorraine," he said, aloud.
+
+A deep boom, sullen as summer thunder, shook the echoes awake
+among the shrouded hills, rolling, reverberating, resounding,
+until the echoes carried it on from valley to valley, off into
+the world of shadows.
+
+The utter silence that followed was broken by a call, a gallop of
+hoofs on the gravel drive, the clink of stirrups, the snorting of
+hard-run horses.
+
+Somebody cried, "A telegram for you, Ricky!" There was a patter
+of feet on the terrace, a chorus of voices: "What is it, Ricky?"
+"Must you go at once?" "Whatever is the matter?"
+
+The young German soldier, very pale, turned to the circle of
+lamp-lit faces.
+
+"France and Germany--I--I--"
+
+"What?" cried Sir Thorald, violently.
+
+"War was declared at noon to-day!"
+
+Lorraine gave a gasp and reached out one hand. Jack Marche took
+it in both of his.
+
+Inside the ballroom the orchestra was still playing the
+farandole.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+COWARDS AND THEIR COURAGE
+
+
+Rickerl took the old vicomte's withered hand; he could not speak;
+his sister Alixe was crying.
+
+"War? War? Allons donc!" muttered the old man. "Helen! Ricky says
+we are to have war. Helen, do you hear? War!"
+
+Then Rickerl hurried away to dress, for he was to ride to the
+Rhine, nor spare whip nor spur; and Barbara Lisle comforted
+little Alixe, who wept as she watched the maids throwing
+everything pell-mell into their trunks; for they, too, were to
+leave at daylight on the Moselle Express for Cologne.
+
+Below, a boy appeared, leading Rickerl's horse from the stables;
+there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures
+passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the
+messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a
+sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the
+rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War
+was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!"
+And always the burden of the busy voices was the same, menacing,
+incredulous, half-whispered, but always the same--"War! war!
+war!"
+
+Booted and spurred, square-shouldered and muscular in his corded
+riding-suit, Rickerl passed the terrace again after the last
+adieux. The last? No, for as his heavy horse stamped out across
+the drive a voice murmured his name, a hand fell on his arm.
+
+"Dorothy," he whispered, bending from his saddle.
+
+"I love you, Ricky," she gasped.
+
+And they say women are cowards!
+
+He lifted her to his breast, held her crushed and panting; she
+put both hands before her eyes.
+
+"There has never been any one but you; do you believe it?" he
+stammered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you are mine!"
+
+"Yes. May God spare you!"
+
+And Rickerl, loyal in little things, swung her gently to the
+ground again, unkissed.
+
+There was a flurry of gravel, a glimpse of a horse rearing,
+plunging, springing into the darkness--that was all. And she
+crept back to the terrace with hot, tearless lids, that burned
+till all her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She
+passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel
+drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian
+pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little
+biniou man from the Côte-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating
+at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone
+was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence
+that her little slippered feet echoed along the gravel--War! war!
+
+At the foot of the steps which skirted the terrace she met her
+brother and Lorraine watching the groom rubbing down the
+messengers' horses. A lantern, glimmering on the ground, shed a
+sickly light under their eyes.
+
+"Dorrie," said Jack, "Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh think that we all
+should start for Paris by the early train. They have already sent
+some of our trunks to Saint-Lys; Mademoiselle de Nesville"--he
+turned with a gesture almost caressing to Lorraine--"Mademoiselle
+de Nesville has generously offered her carriage to help transport
+the luggage, and she is going to wait until it returns."
+
+"And uncle--and our aunt De Morteyn?"
+
+"I shall stay at Morteyn until they decide whether to close the
+house and go to Paris or to stay until October. Dorrie, dear, we
+are very near the frontier here."
+
+"There will be no invasion," said Lorraine, faintly.
+
+"The Rhine is very near," repeated Dorothy. She was thinking of
+Rickerl.
+
+"So you and Betty and Cecil," continued Jack, "are to go with the
+Heskeths to Paris. Poor little Alixe is crying her eyes out
+up-stairs. She and Barbara Lisle are going to Cologne, where
+Ricky will either find them or have his father meet them."
+
+After a moment he added, "It seems incredible, this news. They
+say, in the village, that the King of Prussia insulted the French
+ambassador, Count Benedetti, on the public promenade of Ems. It's
+all about that Hohenzollern business and the Spanish succession.
+Everybody thought it was settled, of course, because the Spanish
+ambassador said so, and Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern withdrew
+his claim. I can't understand it; I can scarcely believe it."
+
+Dorothy stood a moment, looking at the stars in the midnight
+sky. Then she turned with a sigh to Lorraine.
+
+"Good-night," she said, and they kissed each other, these two
+young girls who an hour before had been strangers.
+
+"Shall I see you again? We leave by the early train," whispered
+Dorothy.
+
+"No--I must return when my carriage comes back from the village.
+Good-by, dear--good-by, dear Dorothy."
+
+A moment later, Dorothy, flinging her short ermine-edged cloak
+from her shoulders, entered the empty ballroom and threw herself
+upon the gilded canapé.
+
+One by one the candles spluttered, glimmered, flashed up, and
+went out, leaving a trail of smoke in the still air. Up-stairs
+little Alixe was sobbing herself to sleep in Barbara's arms; in
+his own chamber the old vicomte paced to and fro, and to and fro,
+and his sweet-faced wife watched him in silence, her thin hand
+shading her eyes in the lamplight. In the next room Sir Thorald
+and Lady Hesketh sat close together, whispering. Only Betty
+Castlemaine and Cecil Page had lost little of their cheerfulness,
+perhaps because neither were French, and Cecil was not going to
+the war, and--after all, war promised to be an exciting thing,
+and well worth the absorbed attention of two very young lovers.
+Arm in arm, they promenaded the empty halls and galleries,
+meeting no one save here and there a pale-faced maid or scared
+flunky; and at length they entered the gilded ballroom where
+Dorothy lay, flung full length on the canapé.
+
+She submitted to Betty's caresses, and went away to bed with her,
+saying good-night to Cecil in a tear-choked voice; and a moment
+later Cecil sought his own chamber, lighted a pipe, and gave
+himself up to delightful visions of Betty, protected from several
+Prussian army-corps by the single might of his strong right arm.
+
+At the foot of the terrace, Lorraine de Nesville stood with Jack,
+watching the dark drive for the lamps of the returning carriage.
+Her maid loitered near, exchanging whispered gossip with the
+groom, who now stood undecided, holding both horses and waiting
+for orders. Presently Jack asked him where the messengers were,
+and he said he didn't know, but that they had perhaps gone to the
+kitchens for refreshments.
+
+"Go and find them, then; here, give me the bridles," said Jack;
+"if they are eating, let them finish; I'll hold their horses. Why
+doesn't Mademoiselle de Nesville's carriage come back from
+Saint-Lys? When you leave the kitchens, go down the road and look
+for it. Tell them to hurry."
+
+The groom touched his cap and hastened away.
+
+"I wish the carriage would come--I wish the carriage would
+hurry," repeated Lorraine, at intervals. "My father is alone; I
+am nervous, I don't know why. What are you reading?"
+
+"My telegram from the New York _Herald_," he answered,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"It is easy to understand now," she said.
+
+"Yes, easy to understand. They want me for war correspondent."
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I don't know--" He hesitated, trying to see her eyes in the
+darkness. "I don't know; shall you stay here in the Moselle
+Valley?"
+
+"Yes--I suppose so."
+
+"You are very near the Rhine."
+
+"There will be--there shall be no invasion," she said,
+feverishly. "France also ends at the Rhine; let them look to
+their own!"
+
+She moved impatiently, stepped from the stones to the damp
+gravel, and walked slowly across the misty lawn. He followed,
+leading the horses behind him and holding his telegram open in
+his right hand. Presently she looked back over her shoulder, saw
+him following, and waited.
+
+"Why, will you go as war correspondent?" she asked when he came
+up, leading the saddled horses.
+
+"I don't know; I was on the _Herald_ staff in New York; they gave
+me a roving commission, which I enjoyed so much that I resigned
+and stayed in Paris. I had not dreamed that I should ever be
+needed--I did not think of anything like this."
+
+"Have you never seen war?"
+
+"Nothing to speak of. I was the _Herald's_ representative at
+Sadowa, and before that I saw some Kabyles shot in Oran. Where
+are you going?"
+
+"To the river. We can hear the carriage when it comes, and I want
+to see the lights of the Château de Nesville."
+
+"From the river? Can you?"
+
+"Yes--the trees are cut away north of the boat-house. Look! I
+told you so. My father is there alone."
+
+Far away in the night the lights of the Château de Nesville
+glimmered between the trees, smaller, paler, yellower than the
+splendid stars that crowned the black vault above the forest.
+
+After a silence she reached out her hand abruptly and took the
+telegram from between his fingers. In the starlight she read it,
+once, twice; then raised her head and smiled at him.
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I don't know. Yes."
+
+"No," she said, and tore the telegram into bits.
+
+One by one she tossed the pieces on to the bosom of the placid
+Lisse, where they sailed away towards the Moselle like dim, blue
+blossoms floating idly with the current.
+
+"Are you angry?" she whispered.
+
+He saw that she was trembling, and that her face had grown very
+pale.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked, amazed.
+
+"The matter--the matter is this: I--I--Lorraine de Nesville--am
+afraid! I am afraid! It is fear--it is fear!"
+
+"Fear?" he asked, gently.
+
+"Yes!" she cried. "Yes, it is fear! I cannot help it--I never
+before knew it--that I--I could be afraid. Don't--don't leave
+us--my father and me!" she cried, passionately. "We are so alone
+there in the house--I fear the forest--I fear--"
+
+She trembled violently; a wolf howled on the distant hill.
+
+"I shall gallop back to the Château de Nesville with you," he said;
+"I shall be close beside you, riding by your carriage-window. Don't
+tremble so--Mademoiselle de Nesville."
+
+"It is terrible," she stammered; "I never knew I was a coward."
+
+"You are anxious for your father," he said, quietly; "you are no
+coward!"
+
+"I am--I tremble--see! I shiver."
+
+"It was the wolf--"
+
+"Ah, yes--the wolf that warned us of war! and the men--that one who
+made maps; I never could do again what I did! Then I was afraid of
+nothing; now I fear everything--the howl of that beast on the hill,
+the wind in the trees, the ripple of the Lisse--C'est plus fort que
+moi--I am a coward. Listen! Can you hear the carriage?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Listen--ah, listen!"
+
+"It is the noise of the river."
+
+"The river? How black it is! Hark!"
+
+"The wind."
+
+"Hark!"
+
+"The wind again--"
+
+"Look!" She seized his arm frantically. "Look! Oh, what--what was
+that?"
+
+The report of a gun, faint but clear, came to their ears.
+Something flashed from the lighted windows of the Château de
+Nesville--another flash broke out--another--then three dull
+reports sounded, and the night wind spread the echoes broadcast
+among the wooded hills.
+
+For a second she stood beside him, white, rigid, speechless; then
+her little hand crushed his arm and she pushed him violently
+towards the horses.
+
+"Mount!" she cried; "ride! ride!"
+
+Scarcely conscious of what he did, he backed one of the horses,
+seized the gathered bridle and mane, and flung himself astride.
+The horse reared, backed again, and stood stamping. At the same
+instant he swung about in his saddle and cried, "Go back to the
+house!"
+
+But she was already in the saddle, guiding the other horse, her
+silken skirts crushed, her hair flying, sawing at the bridle-bit
+with gloved fingers. The wind lifted the cloak on her shoulders,
+her little satin slipper sought one stirrup.
+
+"Ride!" she gasped, and lashed her horse.
+
+He saw her pass him in a whirl of silken draperies streaming in
+the wind; the swan's-down cloak hid her body like a cloud. In a
+second he was galloping at her bridle-rein; and both horses, nose
+to nose and neck to neck, pounded across the gravel drive,
+wheeled, leaped forward, and plunged down the soft wood road,
+straight into the heart of the forest. The lace from her corsage
+fluttered in the air; the lilies at her breast fell one by one,
+strewing the road with white blossoms. The wind loosened her
+heavy hair to the neck, seized it, twisted it, and flung it out
+on the wind. Under the clusters of ribbon on her shoulders there
+was a gleam of ivory; her long gloves slipped to the wrists; her
+hair whipped the rounded arms, bare and white below the riotous
+ribbons, snapping and fluttering on her shoulders; her cloak
+unclasped at the throat and whirled to the ground, trampled into
+the forest mould.
+
+They struck a man in the darkness; they heard him shriek; the
+horses staggered an instant, that was all, except a gasp from the
+girl, bending with whitened cheeks close to her horse's mane.
+
+"Look out! A lantern!--close ahead!" panted Marche.
+
+The sharp crack of a revolver cut him short, his horse leaped
+forward, the blood spurting from its neck.
+
+"Are you hit?" he cried.
+
+"No! no! Ride!"
+
+Again and again, but fainter and fainter, came the crack! crack!
+of the revolver, like a long whip snapped in the wind.
+
+"Are you hit?" he asked again.
+
+"Yes, it is nothing! Ride!"
+
+In the darkness and confusion of the plunging horses he managed
+to lean over to her where she bent in her saddle; and, on one
+white, round shoulder, he saw the crimson welt of a bullet, from
+which the blood was welling up out of the satin skin.
+
+And now, in the gloom, the park wall loomed up along the river,
+and he shouted for the lodge-keeper, rising in his stirrups; but
+the iron gate swung wide, and the broad, empty avenue stretched
+up to the Château.
+
+They galloped up to the door; he slipped from his horse, swung
+Lorraine to the ground, and sprang up the low steps. The door was
+open, the long hall brilliantly lighted.
+
+"It is I--Lorraine!" cried the girl. A tall, bearded man burst in
+from a room on the left, clutching a fowling-piece.
+
+"Lorraine! They've got the box! The balloon secret was in it!" he
+groaned; "they are in the house yet--" He stared wildly at Marche,
+then at his daughter. His face was discoloured with bruises, his
+thick, blond hair fell in disorder across steel-blue eyes that
+gleamed with fury.
+
+Almost at the same moment there came a crash of glass, a heavy
+fall from the porch, and then a shot.
+
+In an instant Marche was at the door; he saw a game-keeper raise
+his gun and aim at him, and he shrank back as the report roared
+in his ears.
+
+"You fool!" he shouted; "don't shoot at me! drop your gun and
+follow!" He jumped to the ground and started across the garden
+where a dark figure was clutching the wall and trying to climb to
+the top. He was too late--the man was over; but he followed,
+jumped, caught the tiled top, and hurled himself headlong into
+the bushes below.
+
+Close to him a man started from the thicket, and ran down the wet
+road--splash! splash! slop! slop! through the puddles; but Marche
+caught him and dragged him down into the mud, where they rolled
+and thrashed and spattered and struck each other. Twice the man
+tore away and struggled to his feet, and twice Marche fastened to
+his knees until the huge, lumbering body swayed and fell again.
+It might have gone hard with Jack, for the man suddenly dropped
+the steel box he was clutching to his breast and fell upon the
+young fellow with a sullen roar. His knotted, wiry fingers had
+already found Jack's throat; he lifted the young fellow's head
+and strove to break his neck. Then, in a flash, he leaped back
+and lifted a heavy stone from the wall; at the same instant
+somebody fired at him from the wall; he wheeled and sprang into
+the woods.
+
+That was all Jack Marche knew until a lantern flared in his
+eyes, and he saw Lorraine's father, bright-eyed, feverish,
+dishevelled, beside him.
+
+"Raise him!" said a voice that he knew was Lorraine's.
+
+They lifted Jack to his knees; he stumbled to his feet, torn,
+bloody, filthy with mud, but in his arms, clasped tight, was the
+steel box, intact.
+
+"Lorraine!--my box!--look!" cried her father, and the lantern
+shook in his hands as he clutched the casket.
+
+But Lorraine stepped forward and flung both arms around Jack
+Marche's neck.
+
+Her face was deadly pale; the blood oozed from the wounded
+shoulder. For the first time her father saw that she had been
+shot. He stared at her, clutching the steel box in his nervous
+hands.
+
+With all the strength she had left she crushed Jack to her and
+kissed him. Then, weak with the loss of blood, she leaned on her
+father.
+
+"I am going to faint," she whispered; "help me, father."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+TRAINS EAST AND WEST
+
+
+It was dawn when Jack Marche galloped into the court-yard of the
+Château Morteyn and wearily dismounted. People were already
+moving about the upper floors; servants stared at him as he
+climbed the steps to the terrace; his face was scratched, his
+clothes smeared with caked mud and blood.
+
+He went straight to his chamber, tore off his clothes, took a
+hasty plunge in a cold tub, and rubbed his aching limbs until
+they glowed. Then he dressed rapidly, donned his riding breeches
+and boots, slipped a revolver into his pocket, and went
+down-stairs, where he could already hear the others at breakfast.
+
+Very quietly and modestly he told his story between sips of
+café-au-lait.
+
+"You see," he ended, "that the country is full of spies, who
+hesitate at nothing. There were three or four of them who tried
+to rob the Château; they seem perfectly possessed to get at the
+secrets of the Marquis de Nesville's balloons. There is no doubt
+but that for months past they have been making maps of the whole
+region in most minute detail; they have evidently been expecting
+this war for a long time. Incidentally, now that war is declared,
+they have opened hostilities on their own account."
+
+"You did for some of them?" asked Sir Thorald, who had been
+fidgeting and staring at Jack through a gold-edged monocle.
+
+"No--I--we rode down and trampled a man in the dark; I should
+think it would have been enough to brain him, but when I galloped
+back just now he was gone, and I don't know how badly he was
+hit."
+
+"But the fellow that started to smash you with a
+paving-stone--the Marquis de Nesville fired at him, didn't he?"
+insisted Sir Thorald.
+
+"Yes, I think he hit him, but it was a long shot. Lorraine was
+superb--"
+
+He stopped, colouring up a little.
+
+"She did it all," he resumed--"she rode through the woods like a
+whirlwind! Good heavens! I never saw such a cyclone incarnate!
+And her pluck when she was hit!--and then very quietly she went
+to her father and fainted in his arms."
+
+Jack had not told all that had happened. The part that he had not
+told was the part that he thought of most--Lorraine's white arms
+around his neck and the touch of her innocent lips on his
+forehead. In silent consternation the young people listened;
+Dorothy slipped out of her chair and came and rested her hands on
+her brother's shoulder; Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil with
+large, questioning eyes that asked, "Would you do something
+heroic for me?" and Cecil's eyes replied, "Oh, for a chance to
+annihilate a couple of regiments!" This pleased Betty, and she
+ate a muffin with appreciation. The old vicomte leaned heavily on
+his elbow and looked at his wife, who sat opposite, pallid and
+eating nothing. He had decided to remain at Morteyn, but this
+episode disquieted him--not on his own account.
+
+"Helen," he said, "Jack and I will stay, but you must go with the
+children. There is no danger--there can be no invasion, for our
+troops will be passing here by night; I only wish to be sure
+that--that in case--in case things should go dreadfully wrong,
+you would not be compelled to witness anything unpleasant."
+
+Madame de Morteyn shook her head gently.
+
+"Why speak of it?" she said; "you know I will not go."
+
+"I'll stay, too," said Sir Thorald, eagerly; "Cecil and Molly can
+take the children to Paris; Madame de Morteyn, you really should
+go also."
+
+She leaned back and shook her head decisively.
+
+"Then you will both come, you and Madame de Morteyn?" urged Lady
+Hesketh of the vicomte.
+
+The old man hesitated. His wife smiled. She knew he could not
+leave in the face of the enemy; she had been the wife of this old
+African campaigner for thirty years, and she knew what she knew.
+
+"Helen--" he began.
+
+"Yes, dear, we will both stay; the city is too hot in July," she
+said; "Sir Thorald, some coffee? No more? Betty, you want another
+muffin?--they are there by Cecil. Children, I think I hear the
+carriages coming; you must not make Lady Hesketh wait."
+
+"I have half a mind to stay," said Molly Hesketh. Sir Thorald
+said she might if she wanted to enlist, and they all tried to
+smile, but the sickly gray of early morning, sombre, threatening,
+fell on faces haggard with foreboding--young faces, too, lighted
+by the pale flames of the candles.
+
+Alixe von Elster and Barbara Lisle went first; there were tears
+and embraces, and au revoirs and aufwiedersehens.
+
+Little Alixe blanched and trembled when Sir Thorald bent over
+her, not entirely unconscious of the havoc his drooping mustache
+and cynical eyes had made in her credulous German bosom. Molly
+Hesketh kissed her, wishing that she could pinch her; and so they
+left, tearful, anxious, to be driven to Courtenay, and whirled
+from there across the Rhine to Cologne.
+
+Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh lingered on the terrace after the
+others had returned to the breakfast-room.
+
+"Thorald," she said, "you are a brute!"
+
+"Eh?" cried Sir Thorald.
+
+"You're a brute!"
+
+"Molly, what the deuce is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing--if you ever see her again, I'll tell Ricky."
+
+"I might say the same thing in regard to Ricky, my dear," said
+Sir Thorald, mildly.
+
+"It is not true," she said; "I did no damage to him; and you
+know--you know down in the depths of your fickle soul that--that--"
+
+"What, my dear?"
+
+"Never mind!" said Molly, sharply; but she crimsoned when he
+kissed her, and held tightly to his sleeve.
+
+"Good ged!" thought Sir Thorald; "what a devil I am with women!"
+
+But now the carriages drove up--coupés, dog-carts, and a
+victoria.
+
+"They say we ought not to miss this train," said Cecil, coming
+from the stables and flourishing a whip; "they say the line may
+be seized for government use exclusively in a few hours."
+
+The old house-keeper, Madame Paillard, nodded and pointed to her
+son, the under-keeper.
+
+"François says, Monsieur Page, that six trains loaded with troops
+passed through Saint-Lys between midnight and dawn; dis,
+François, c'est le Sieur Bosz qui t'a renseigné--pas?"
+
+"Oui, mamam!"
+
+"Then hurry," said Lady Hesketh. "Thorald, call the others."
+
+"I," said Cecil, "am going to drive Betty in the dog-cart."
+
+"She'll probably take the reins," said Sir Thorald, cynically.
+
+Cecil brandished his whip and looked determined; but it was Betty
+who drove him to Saint-Lys station, after all.
+
+The adieux were said, even more tearfully this time. Jack kissed
+his sister tenderly, and she wept a little on his shoulder--thinking
+of Rickerl.
+
+One by one the vehicles rolled away down the gravel drive; and
+last of all came Molly Hesketh in the coupé with Jack Marche.
+
+Molly was sad and a trifle distraite. Those periodical mental
+illuminations during which she discovered for the thousandth and odd
+time that she loved her husband usually left her fairly innocuous.
+But she was a born flirt; the virus was bred in the bone, and after
+the first half-mile she opened her batteries--her eyes--as a matter
+of course on Jack.
+
+What she got for her pains was a little sermon ending, "See here,
+Molly--three years ago you played the devil with me until I
+kissed you, and then you were furious and threatened to tell Sir
+Thorald. The truth is, you're in love with him, and there is no
+more harm in you than there is in a china kitten."
+
+"Jack!" she gasped.
+
+"And," he resumed, "you live in Paris, and you see lots of things
+and you hear lots of things that you don't hear and see in
+Lincolnshire. But you're British, Molly, and you are domestic,
+although you hate the idea, and there will never be a desolated
+hearth in the Hesketh household as long as you speak your
+mother-tongue and read Anthony Trollope."
+
+The rest of the road was traversed in silence. They rattled over
+the stones in the single street of Saint-Lys, rolled into the
+gravel oval behind the Gare, and drew up amid a hubbub of
+restless teams, market-wagons, and station-trucks.
+
+"See the soldiers!" said Jack, lifting Lady Hesketh to the
+platform, where the others were already gathered in a circle. A
+train was just gliding out of the station, bound eastward, and
+from every window red caps projected and sunburned, boyish faces
+expanded into grins as they saw Lady Hesketh and her charges.
+
+"Vive l'Angleterre!" they cried. "Vive Madame la Reine! Vive
+Johnbull et son rosbif!" the latter observation aimed at Sir
+Thorald.
+
+Sir Thorald waved his eye-glass to them condescendingly; faster
+and faster moved the train; the red caps and fresh, tanned
+faces, the laughing eyes became a blur and then a streak; and far
+down the glistening track the faint cheers died away and were
+drowned in the roar of the wheels--little whirling wheels that
+were bearing them merrily to their graves at Wissembourg.
+
+"Here comes our train," said Cecil. "Jack, my boy, you'll
+probably see some fun; take care of your hide, old chap!" He
+didn't mean to be patronizing, but he had Betty demurely leaning
+on his arm, and--dear me!--how could he help patronizing the
+other poor devils in the world who had not Betty, and who never
+could have Betty?
+
+"Montez, madame, s'il vous plait!--Montez, messieurs!" cried the
+Chef de Gare; "last train for Paris until Wednesday! All aboard!"
+and he slammed and locked the doors, while the engineer, leaning
+impatiently from his cab, looked back along the line of cars and
+blew his whistle warningly.
+
+"Good-by, Dorrie!" cried Jack.
+
+"Good-by, my darling Jack! Be careful; you will, won't you?" But
+she was still thinking of Rickerl, bless her little heart!
+
+Lady Hesketh waved him a demure adieu from the open window,
+relented, and gave his hand a hasty squeeze with her gloved
+fingers.
+
+"Take care of Lorraine," she said, solemnly; then laughed at his
+telltale eyes, and leaned back on her husband's shoulder, still
+laughing.
+
+The cars were gliding more swiftly past the platform now; he
+caught a glimpse of Betty kissing her hand to him, of Cecil
+bestowing a gracious adieu, of Sir Thorald's eye-glass--then they
+were gone; and far up the tracks the diminishing end of the last
+car dwindled to a dark square, a spot, a dot, and was ingulfed in
+a flurry of dust. As he turned away and passed along the platform
+to the dog-cart, there came a roar, a shriek of a locomotive, a
+rush, and a train swept by towards the east, leaving a blear of
+scarlet in his eyes, and his ears ringing with the soldiers'
+cheers: "Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! À Berlin! À Berlin! À
+Berlin!" A furtive-eyed young peasant beside him shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Bismarck has called for the menu; his cannon are hungry," he
+sneered; "there goes the bill of fare."
+
+"That's very funny," said a fierce little man with a gray
+mustache, "but the bill of fare isn't complete--the class of '71
+has just been called out!" and he pointed to a placard freshly
+pasted on the side of the station.
+
+"The--the class of '71?" muttered the furtive-eyed peasant,
+turning livid.
+
+"Exactly--the bill of fare needs the hors d'Å“uvres; you'll go as
+an olive, and probably come back a sardine--in a box."
+
+And the fierce little man grinned, lighted a cigarette, and
+sauntered away, still grinning.
+
+What did he care? He was a pompier and exempt.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE ROAD TO PARADISE
+
+
+The road between Saint-Lys and Morteyn was not a military road,
+but it was firm and smooth, and Jack drove back again towards the
+Château at a smart trot, flicking at leaves and twigs with
+Cecil's whip.
+
+The sun had brushed the veil of rain from the horizon; the
+leaves, fresh and tender, stirred and sparkled with dew in the
+morning breeze, and all the air was sweet-scented. In the
+stillness of the fields, where wheat stretched along the road
+like a green river tinged with gold, there was something that
+troubled him. Silence is oppressive to sinners and prophets. He
+concluded he was the former, and sighed restlessly, looking out
+across the fields, where, deep in the stalks of the wheat,
+blood-red poppies opened like raw wounds. At other times he had
+compared them to little fairy camp-fires; but his mood was
+pessimistic, and he saw, in the furrows that the plough had
+raised, the scars on the breast of a tortured earth; and he read
+sermons in bundles of fresh-cut fagots; and death was written
+where a sickle lay beside a pile of grass, crisping to hay in the
+splendid sun of Lorraine.
+
+What he did not see were the corn-flowers peeping at him with
+dewy blue eyes; the vineyards, where the fruit hung faintly
+touched with bloom; the field birds, the rosy-breasted finches,
+the thrush, as speckled as her own eggs--no, nor did he hear
+them; for the silence that weighed on his heart came from his
+heart. Yet all the summer wind was athrill with harmony.
+Thousands of feathered throats swelled and bubbled melody, from
+the clouds to the feathery heath, from the scintillating azure in
+the zenith to the roots of the glittering wheat where the
+corn-flowers lay like bits of blue sky fallen to the earth.
+
+As he drove he thought of Lorraine, of her love for her father
+and her goodness. He already recognized that dominant passion in
+her, her unselfish adoration of her father--a father who sat all
+day behind bolted doors trifling with metals and gases and little
+spinning, noiseless wheels. The selfish to the unselfish, the
+dead to the living, the dwarf to the giant, and the sinner to the
+saint--this is the world and they that dwell therein.
+
+He thought of her as he had seen her last, smiling up into the
+handsome, bearded face that questioned her. No, the wound was
+nothing--a little blood lost--enough to make her faint at his
+feet--that was all. But his precious box was safe--and she had
+flung her loyal arms about the man who saved it and had kissed
+him before her father, because he had secured what was dearer to
+her than life--her father's happiness--a little metal box full of
+it.
+
+Her father was very grateful and very solicitous about her
+wounded shoulder; but he opened his box before he thought about
+bandages. Everything was intact, except the conservatory window
+and his daughter's shoulder. Both could be mended--but his box!
+ah, that, if lost, could never be replaced.
+
+Jack's throat was hard and dry. A lump came into it, and he
+swallowed with a shrug, and flicked at a fly on the headstall. A
+vision of Sir Thorald, bending over little Alixe, came before his
+eyes. "Pah!" he muttered, in disgust. Sir Thorald was one of
+those men who cease to care for a woman when she begins to care
+for them. Jack knew it; that was why he had been so gentle with
+Molly Hesketh, who had turned his head when he was a boy and
+given him his first emotions--passion, hate--and then knowledge;
+for of all the deep emotions that a man shall know before he dies
+the first consciousness of knowledge is the most profound; it
+sounds the depths of heaven and hell in the space of time that
+the heart beats twice.
+
+He was passing through the woods now, the lovely oak and beech
+woods of Lorraine. An ancient dame, bending her crooked back
+beneath a load of fagots, gave him "God bless you!" and he drew
+rein and returned the gift--but his was in silver, with the head
+of his imperial majesty stamped on one side.
+
+As he drove, rabbits ran back into the woods, hoisting their
+white signals of conciliation. "Peace and good will" they seemed
+to read, "but a wise rabbit takes to the woods." Pheasants, too,
+stepped daintily from under the filbert bushes, twisting their
+gorgeous necks curiously as he passed. Once, in the hollow of a
+gorge where a little stream trickled under layers of wet leaves,
+he saw a wild-boar standing hock-deep in the ooze, rooting under
+mosses and rotten branches, absorbed in his rooting. Twice deer
+leaped from the young growth on the edge of the fields and
+bounded lazily into denser cover, only to stop when half
+concealed and stare back at him with gentle, curious eyes. The
+horse pricked up his ears at such times and introduced a few
+waltz steps into his steady if monotonous repertoire, but Jack
+let him have his fling, thinking that the deer were as tame as
+the horse, and both were tamer than man.
+
+Excepting the black panther, man has learned his lesson slowest
+of all, the lesson of acquiescence in the inevitable.
+
+"I'll never learn it," said Jack, aloud. His voice startled
+him--it was trembling.
+
+Lorraine! Lorraine! Life has begun for a very young man. Teach
+him to see and bring him to accept existence in the innocence of
+your knowledge; for, if he and the world collide, he fears the
+result to the world.
+
+A few moments later he drove into Paradise, which is known to
+some as the Château de Nesville.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+UNDER THE YOKE
+
+
+During the next two weeks Jack Marche drove into Paradise
+fourteen times, and fourteen times he drove out of Paradise, back
+to the Château Morteyn. Heaven is nearer than people suppose; it
+was three miles from the road shrine at Morteyn.
+
+Our Lady of Morteyn, sculptured in the cold stone above the
+shrine, had looked with her wide stone eyes on many lovers, and
+had known they were lovers because their piety was as sudden as
+it was fervid.
+
+Twice a day Jack's riding-cap was reverently doffed as he drew
+bridle before the shrine, going and coming from Paradise.
+
+At evening, too, when the old vicomte slept on his pillow and the
+last light went out in the stables, Our Lady of Morteyn saw a
+very young man sitting, with his head in his hands, at her feet;
+and he took no harm from the cold stones, because Our Lady of
+Morteyn is gentle and gracious, and the summer nights were hot in
+the province of Lorraine.
+
+There had been little stir or excitement in Morteyn. Even in
+Saint-Lys, where all day and all night the troop-trains rushed
+by, the cheers of the war-bound soldiers leaning from the flying
+cars were becoming monotonous in the ears of the sober villagers.
+When the long, flat cars, piled with cannon, passed, the people
+stared at the slender guns, mute, canvas-covered, tilted skyward.
+They stared, too, at the barred cars, rolling past in interminable
+trains, loaded with horses and canvas-jacketed troopers who peered
+between the slats and shouted to the women in the street. Other
+trains came and went, trains weighted with bellowing cattle or
+huddled sheep, trains choked with small square boxes marked
+"Cartouches" or "Obus--7^me"; trains piled high with grain or
+clothing, or folded tents packed between varnished poles and piles
+of tin basins. Once a little excitement came to Saint-Lys when a
+battalion of red-legged infantry tramped into the village square
+and stacked rifles and jeered at the mayor and drank many bottles
+of red wine to the health of the shy-eyed girls peeping at them
+from every lattice. But they were only waiting for the next train,
+and when it came their bugles echoed from the bridge to the square,
+and they went away--went where the others had gone--laughing,
+singing, cheering from the car-windows, where the sun beat down
+on their red caps, and set their buttons glittering like a million
+swarming fire-flies.
+
+The village life, the daily duties, the dull routine from the
+vineyard to the grain-field, and from the étang to the forest had
+not changed in Saint-Lys.
+
+There might be war somewhere; it would never come to Saint-Lys.
+There might be death, yonder towards the Rhine--probably beyond
+it, far beyond it. What of it? Death comes to all, but it comes
+slowly in Saint-Lys; and the days are long, and one must eat to
+live, and there is much to be done between the rising and the
+setting of a peasant's sun.
+
+There, below in Paris, were wise heads and many soldiers. They,
+in Paris, knew what to do, and the war might begin and end with
+nothing but a soiled newspaper in the Café Saint-Lys to show for
+it--as far as the people of Saint-Lys knew.
+
+True, at the summons of the mayor, the National Guard of
+Saint-Lys mustered in the square, seven strong and a bugler. This
+was merely a display of force--it meant nothing--but let those
+across the Rhine beware!
+
+The fierce little man with the gray mustache, who was named
+Tricasse, and who commanded the Saint-Lys Pompiers, spoke gravely
+of Francs-corps, and drank too much eau-de-vie every evening. But
+these warlike ebullitions simmered away peacefully in the
+sunshine, and the tranquil current of life flowed as smoothly
+through Saint-Lys as the river Lisse itself, limpid, noiseless,
+under the village bridge.
+
+Only one man had left the village, and that was Brun, the
+furtive-eyed young peasant, the sole representative in Saint-Lys
+of the conscript class of 1871. And he would never have gone had
+not a gendarme pulled him from under his mother's bed and hustled
+him on to the first Paris-bound train, which happened to be a
+cattle train, where Brun mingled his lamentations with the
+bleating of sheep and the desolate bellow of thirsty cows.
+
+Jack Marche heard of these things but saw little of them. The
+great war wave rolling through the provinces towards the Rhine
+skirted them at Saint-Lys, and scarcely disturbed them. They
+heard that Douay was marching through the country somewhere, some
+said towards Wissembourg, some said towards Saarbrück. But these
+towns were names to the peasants of Saint-Lys--tant pis for the
+two towns! And General Douay--who was he? Probably a fat man in
+red breeches and polished boots, wearing a cocked-hat and a cross
+on his breast. Anyway, they would chase the Prussians and kill a
+few, as they had chased the Russians in the Crimea, and the
+Italians in Rome, and the Kabyles in Oran. The result? Nothing
+but a few new colours for the ribbons in their sweethearts'
+hair--like that pretty Magenta and Solferino and Sebastopol gray.
+"Fichtre! Faut-il gaspiller tout de même! mais, à la guerre comme
+à la guerre!" which meant nothing in Saint-Lys.
+
+It meant more to Jack Marche, riding one sultry afternoon through
+the woods, idly drumming on his spurred boots with a battered
+riding-crop.
+
+It was his daily afternoon ride to the Château de Nesville; the
+shy wood creatures were beginning to know him, even the younger
+rabbits of the most recent generation sat up and mumbled their
+prehensile lips, watching him with large, moist eyes. As for the
+red squirrels in the chestnut-trees, and the dappled deer in the
+carrefours, and the sulky boars that bristled at him from the
+overgrown sentiers, they accepted him on condition that he kept
+to the road. And he did, head bent, thoughtful eyes fixed on his
+saddle-bow, drumming absently with his riding-crop on his spurred
+boots, his bridle loose on his horse's neck.
+
+There was little to break the monotony of the ride; a sudden gush
+of song from a spotted thrush, the rustle of a pheasant in the
+brake, perhaps the modest greeting of a rare keeper patrolling
+his beat--nothing more. He went armed; he carried a long Colt's
+six-shooter in his holster, not because he feared for his own
+skin, but he thought it just as well to be ready in case of
+trouble at the Château de Nesville. However, he did not fear
+trouble again; the French armies were moving everywhere on the
+frontier, and the spies, of course, had long ago betaken
+themselves and their projects to the other bank of the Rhine.
+
+The Marquis de Nesville himself felt perfectly secure, now that
+the attempt had been made and had failed.
+
+He told Jack so on the few occasions when he descended from his
+room during the young fellow's visits. He made not the slightest
+objections to Jack's seeing Lorraine when and where he pleased,
+and this very un-Gallic behaviour puzzled Jack until he began to
+comprehend the depths of the man's selfish absorption in his
+balloons. It was more than absorption, it was mania pure and
+simple, an absolute inability to see or hear or think or
+understand anything except his own devices in the little bolted
+chamber above.
+
+He did care for Lorraine to the extent of providing for her every
+want--he did remember her existence when he wanted something
+himself. Also it was true that he would not have permitted a
+Frenchman to visit Lorraine as Jack did. He hated two persons;
+one of these was Jack's uncle, the Vicomte de Morteyn. On the
+other hand, he admired him, too, because the vicomte, like
+himself, was a royalist and shunned the Tuileries as the devil
+shuns holy water. Therefore he was his equal, and he liked him
+because he could hate him without loss of self-respect. The
+reason he hated him was this--the Vicomte de Morteyn had
+pooh-poohed the balloons. That occurred years ago, but he never
+forgot it, and had never seen the old vicomte since. Whether or
+not Lorraine visited the old people at Morteyn, he had neither
+time nor inclination to inquire.
+
+This was the man, tall, gentle, clean-cut of limb and feature,
+and bearded like Jove--this was the man to whom Lorraine devoted
+her whole existence. Every heart-beat was for him, every thought,
+every prayer. And she was very devout.
+
+This also was why she came to Jack so confidently and laid her
+white hands in his when he sprang from his saddle, his heart in
+flames of adoration.
+
+He knew this, he knew that her undisguised pleasure in his
+company was, for her, only another link that welded her closer to
+her father. At night, often, when he had ridden back again, he
+thought of it, and paled with resentment. At times he almost
+hated her father. He could have borne it easier if the Marquis de
+Nesville had been a loving father, even a tyrannically solicitous
+father; but to see such love thrown before a marble-faced man,
+whose expression never changed except when speaking of his
+imbecile machines! "How can he! How can he!" muttered Jack,
+riding through the woods. His face was sombre, almost stern; and
+always he beat the devil's tattoo on his boot with the battered
+riding-crop.
+
+But now he came to the park gate, and the keeper touched his cap
+and smiled, and dragged the heavy grille back till it creaked on
+its hinges.
+
+Lorraine came down the path to meet him; she had never before
+done that, and he brightened and sprang to the ground, radiant
+with happiness.
+
+She had brought some sugar for the horse; the beautiful creature
+followed her, thrusting its soft, satin muzzle into her hand,
+ears pricked forward, wise eyes fixed on her.
+
+"None for me?" asked Jack.
+
+"Sugar?"
+
+With a sudden gesture she held a lump out to him in the centre of
+her pink palm.
+
+Before she could withdraw the hand he had touched it with his
+lips, and, a little gravely, she withdrew it and walked on in
+silence by his side.
+
+Her shoulder had healed, and she no longer wore the silken
+support for her arm. She was dressed in black--the effect of her
+glistening hair and blond skin was dazzling. His eyes wandered
+from the white wrist, dainty and rounded, to the full curved
+neck--to the delicate throat and proud little head. Her body,
+supple as perfect Greek sculpture; her grace and gentle dignity;
+her innocence, sweet as the light in her blue eyes, set him
+dreaming again as he walked at her side, preoccupied, almost
+saddened, a little afraid that such happiness as was his should
+provoke the gods to end it.
+
+He need not have taken thought for the gods, for the gods take
+thought for themselves; and they were already busy at Saarbrück.
+Their mills are not always slow in grinding; nor, on the other
+hand, are they always sure. They may have been ages ago, but now
+the gods are so out of date that saints and sinners have a chance
+about equally.
+
+They traversed the lawn, skirted the tall wall of solid masonry
+that separated the chase from the park, and, passing a gate at
+the hedge, came to a little stone bridge, beneath which the Lisse
+ran dimpling. They watched the horse pursuing his own way
+tranquilly towards the stables, and, when they saw a groom come
+out and lead him in, they turned to each other, ready to begin
+another day of perfect contentment.
+
+First of all he asked about her shoulder, and she told him
+truthfully that it was well. Then she inquired about the old
+vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, and intrusted pretty little
+messages to him for them, which he, unlike most young men,
+usually remembered to deliver.
+
+"My father," she said, "has not been to breakfast or dinner since
+the day before yesterday. I should have been alarmed, but I
+listened at the door and heard him moving about with his
+machinery. I sent him some very nice things to eat; I don't know
+if he liked them, for he sent no message back. Do you suppose he
+is hungry?"
+
+"No," said Jack; "if he were he would say so." He was careful not
+to speak bitterly, and she noticed nothing.
+
+"I believe," she said, "that he is about to make another
+ascension. He often stays a long time in his room, alone, before
+he is ready. Will it not be delightful? I shall perhaps be
+permitted to go up with him. Don't you wish you might go with
+us?"
+
+"Yes," said Jack, with a little more earnestness than he
+intended.
+
+"Oh! you do? If you are very good, perhaps--perhaps--but I dare
+not promise. If it were my balloon I would take you."
+
+"Would you--really?"
+
+"Of course--you know it. But it isn't my balloon, you know."
+After a moment she went on: "I have been thinking all day how
+noble and good it is of my father to consecrate his life to a
+purpose that shall be of use to France. He has not said so, but I
+know that, if the next ascension proves that his discovery is
+beyond the chance of failure, he will notify the government and
+place his invention at their disposal. Monsieur Marche, when I
+think of his unselfish nobleness, the tears come--I cannot help
+it."
+
+"You, too, are noble," said Jack, resentfully.
+
+"I? Oh, if you knew! I--I am actually wicked! Would you believe
+it, I sometimes think and think and wish that my father could
+spend more time with me--with me!--a most silly and thoughtless
+girl who would sacrifice the welfare of France to her own
+caprice. Think of it! I pray--very often--that I may learn to be
+unselfish; but I must be very bad, for I often cry myself to
+sleep. Is it not wicked?"
+
+"Very," said Jack, but his smile faded and there was a catch in
+his voice.
+
+"You see," she said, with a gesture of despair, "even you feel
+it, too!"
+
+"Do you really wish to know what I do think--of you?" he asked,
+in a low voice.
+
+It was on the tip of her tongue to say "Yes." She checked
+herself, lips apart, and her eyes became troubled.
+
+There was something about Jack Marche that she had not been able
+to understand. It occupied her--it took up a good share of her
+attention, but she did not know where to begin to philosophize,
+nor yet where to end. He was different from other men--that she
+understood. But where was that difference?--in his clear, brown
+eyes, sunny as brown streams in October?--in his serious young
+face?--in his mouth, clean cut and slightly smiling under his
+short, crisp mustache, burned blond by the sun? Where was the
+difference?--in his voice?--in his gestures?--in the turn of his
+head?
+
+Lorraine did not know, but as often as she gave the riddle up she
+recommenced it, idly sometimes, sometimes piqued that the
+solution seemed no nearer. Once, the evening she had met him
+after their first encounter in the forest carrefour--that evening
+on the terrace when she stood looking out into the dazzling
+Lorraine moonlight--she felt that the solution of the riddle had
+been very near. But now, two weeks later, it seemed further off
+than ever. And yet this problem, that occupied her so, must
+surely be worth the solving. What was it, then, in Jack Marche
+that made him what he was?--gentle, sweet-tempered, a delightful
+companion--yes, a companion that she would not now know how to do
+without.
+
+And yet, at times, there came into his eyes and into his voice
+something that troubled her--she could not tell why--something
+that mystified and checked her, and set her thinking again on the
+old, old problem that had seemed so near solution that evening on
+the moonlit terrace.
+
+That was why she started to say "Yes" to his question, and did
+not, but stood with lips half parted and blue eyes troubled.
+
+He looked at her in silence for a moment, then, with a
+half-impatient gesture, turned to the river.
+
+"Shall we sit down on the moss?" she asked, vaguely conscious
+that his sympathies had, for a moment, lost touch with hers.
+
+He followed her down the trodden foot-path to the bank of the
+stream, and, when she had seated herself at the foot of a
+linden-tree, he threw himself at her feet.
+
+They were silent. He picked up a faded bunch of blue corn-flowers
+which they had left there, forgotten, the day before. One by one
+he broke the blossoms from the stalks and tossed them into the
+water.
+
+She, watching them floating away under the bridge, thought of the
+blue bits of paper--the telegram--that she had torn up and tossed
+upon the water two weeks before. He was thinking of the same
+thing, for, when she said, abruptly: "I should not have done
+that!" he knew what she meant, and replied: "Such things are
+always your right--if you care to use it."
+
+She laughed. "Then you believe still in the feudal system? I do
+not; I am a good republican."
+
+"It is easy," he said, also laughing, "for a young lady with
+generations of counts and vicomtes behind her to be a republican.
+It is easier still for a man with generations of republicans
+behind him to turn royalist. It is the way of the world,
+mademoiselle."
+
+"Then you shall say: 'Long live the king!'" she said; "say it
+this instant!"
+
+"Long live--your king!"
+
+"My king?"
+
+"I'm his subject if you are; I'll shout for no other king."
+
+"Now, whatever is he talking about?" thought Lorraine, and the
+suspicion of a cloud gathered in her clear eyes again, but was
+dissipated at once when he said: "I have answered the _Herald's_
+telegram."
+
+"What did you say?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"I accepted--"
+
+"What!"
+
+There was resentment in her voice. She felt that he had done
+something which was tacitly understood to be against her wishes.
+True, what difference did it make to her? None; she would lose a
+delightful companion. Suddenly, something of the significance of
+such a loss came to her. It was not a revelation, scarcely an
+illumination, but she understood that if he went she should be
+lonely--yes, even unhappy. Then, too, unconsciously, she had
+assumed a mental attitude of interest in his movements--of
+partial proprietorship in his thoughts. She felt vaguely that she
+had been overlooked in the decision he had made; that even if she
+had not been consulted, at least he might have told her what he
+intended to do. Lorraine was at a loss to understand herself. But
+she was easily understood. For two weeks her attitude had been
+that of every innocent, lovable girl when in the presence of the
+man whom she frankly cares for; and that attitude was one of
+mental proprietorship. Now, suddenly finding that his sympathies
+and ideas moved independently of her sympathies--that her mental
+influence, which existed until now unconsciously, was in reality
+no influence at all, she awoke to the fact that she perhaps
+counted for nothing with him. Therefore resentment appeared in
+the faintest of straight lines between her eyes.
+
+"Do you care?" he asked, carelessly.
+
+"I? Why, no."
+
+If she had smiled at him and said "Yes," he would have despaired;
+but she frowned a trifle and said "No," and Jack's heart began to
+beat.
+
+"I cabled them two words: 'Accept--provisionally,'" he said.
+
+"Oh, what did you mean?"
+
+"Provisionally meant--with your consent."
+
+"My--my consent?"
+
+"Yes--if it is your pleasure."
+
+Pleasure! Her sweet eyes answered what her lips withheld. Her
+little heart beat high. So then she did influence this cool young
+man, with his brown eyes faintly smiling, and his indolent limbs
+crossed on the moss at her feet. At the same moment her instinct
+told her to tighten her hold. This was so perfectly feminine, so
+instinctively human, that she had done it before she herself was
+aware of it. "I shall think it over," she said, looking at him,
+gravely; "I may permit you to accept."
+
+So was accomplished the admitted subjugation of Jack Marche--a
+stroke of diplomacy on his part; and he passed under the yoke in
+such a manner that even the blindest of maids could see that he
+was not vaulting over it instead.
+
+Having openly and admittedly established her sovereignty, she was
+happy--so happy that she began to feel that perhaps the victory
+was not unshared by him.
+
+"I shall think it over very seriously," she repeated, watching
+his laughing eyes; "I am not sure that I shall permit you to go."
+
+"I only wish to go as a special, not a regular correspondent. I
+wish to be at liberty to roam about and sketch or write what I
+please. I think my material will always be found in your
+vicinity."
+
+Her heart fluttered a little; this surprised her so much that her
+cheeks grew suddenly warm and pink. A little confused, she said
+what she had not dreamed of saying: "You won't go very far away,
+will you?" And before she could modify her speech he had
+answered, impetuously: "Never, until you send me away!"
+
+A mottled thrush on the top of the linden-tree surveyed the scene
+curiously. She had never beheld such a pitiably embarrassed young
+couple in all her life. It was so different in Thrushdom.
+
+Lorraine's first impulse was to go away and close several doors
+and sit down, very still, and think. Her next impulse was to stay
+and see what Jack would do. He seemed to be embarrassed, too--he
+fidgeted and tossed twigs and pebbles into the river. She felt
+that she, who already admittedly was arbiter of his goings and
+comings, should do something to relieve this uneasy and strained
+situation. So she folded her hands on her black dress and said:
+"There is something I have been wishing to tell you for two
+weeks, but I did not because I was not sure that I was right, and
+I did not wish to trouble you unnecessarily. Now, perhaps, you
+would be willing to share the trouble with me. Would you?"
+
+Before the eager answer came to his lips she continued, hastily: "The
+man who made maps--the man whom you struck in the carrefour--is the
+same man who ran away with the box; I know it!"
+
+"That spy?--that tall, square-shouldered fellow with the pink
+skin and little, pale, pinkish eyes?"
+
+"Yes. I know his name, too."
+
+Jack sat up on the moss and listened anxiously.
+
+"His name is Von Steyr--Siurd von Steyr. It was written in pencil
+on the back of one map. The morning after the assault on the
+house, when they thought I was ill in bed, I got up and dressed
+and went down to examine the road where you caught the man and
+saved my father's little steel box. There I found a strip of
+cloth torn from your evening coat, and--oh, Monsieur Marche!--I
+found the great, flat stone with which he tried to crush you,
+just as my father fired from the wall!"
+
+The sudden memory, the thought of what might have happened, came
+to her in a flash for the first time. She looked at him--her
+hands were in his before she could understand why.
+
+"Go on," he whispered.
+
+Her eyes met his half fearfully--she withdrew her fingers with a
+nervous movement and sat silent.
+
+"Tell me," he urged, and took one of her hands again. She did not
+withdraw it--she seemed confused; and presently he dropped her
+hand and sat waiting for her to speak, his heart beating
+furiously.
+
+"There is not much more to tell," she said at last, in a voice
+that seemed not quite under control. "I followed the broken
+bushes and his footmarks along the river until I came to a stone
+where I think he sat down. He was bleeding, too--my father shot
+him--and he tore bits of paper and cloth to cover the wound--he
+even tore up another map. I found part of it, with his name on
+the back again--not all of it, though, but enough. Here it is."
+
+She handed him a bit of paper. On one side were the fragments of
+a map in water-colour; on the other, written in German script, he
+read "Siurd von Steyr."
+
+"It's enough," said Jack; "what a plucky girl you are, anyway!"
+
+"I? You don't think so!--do you?"
+
+"You are the bravest, sweetest--"
+
+"Dear me! You must not say that! You are sadly uneducated, and I
+see I must take you under my control at once. Man is born to
+obey! I have decided about your answer to the _Herald's_
+telegram."
+
+"May I know the result?" he asked, laughingly.
+
+"To-morrow. There is a brook-lily on the border of the sedge-grass.
+You may bring it to me."
+
+So began the education of Jack Marche--under the yoke. And
+Lorraine's education began, too--but she was sublimely unconscious
+of that fact.
+
+This also is a law in the world.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SAARBRÃœCK
+
+
+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 had more 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 position of special, or rather
+occasional, war correspondent for the New York _Herald_ if 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 idle curiosity, 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 tender and 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 even in 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 old
+_Herald_? Nom d'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--_what_
+do 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 with infantry,
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
+
+
+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-necked general, 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 the cracking 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 London _Times_.
+
+"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, and he 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
+    men killed--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--"
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+"KEEP THY FAITH"
+
+
+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 the woods 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 in the 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 shoulder where 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 the end. 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 perfumed by 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 into Germany 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.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+FROM THE FRONTIER
+
+
+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 and urge 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 he turned 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.
+
+At the porch she left him to change her gown, and slipped away
+up-stairs, while he found old Pierre and was dusted and fussed
+over until he couldn't stand it another moment. Luckily he heard
+Lorraine calling her maid on the porch, and he went to her at
+once.
+
+"Papa says you may lunch here--I spoke to him through the
+key-hole. It is all ready; will you come?"
+
+A serious-minded maid served them with salad and thin
+bread-and-butter.
+
+"Tea!" exclaimed Jack.
+
+"Isn't that very American?" asked Lorraine, timidly. "I thought
+you might like it; I understood that all Americans drank tea."
+
+"They do," he said, gravely; "it is a terrible habit--a national
+vice--but they do."
+
+"Now you are laughing at me!" she cried. "Marianne, please to
+remove that tea! No, no, I won't leave it--and you can suffer if
+you wish. And to think that I--"
+
+They were both laughing so that the maid's face grew more
+serious, and she removed the teapot as though she were bearing
+some strange and poisonous creature to a deserved doom.
+
+As they sat opposite each other, smiling, a little flurried at
+finding themselves alone at table together, but eating with the
+appetites of very young lovers, the warm summer wind, blowing
+through the open windows, bore to their ears the songs of forest
+birds. It bore another sound, too; Jack had heard it for the last
+two hours, or had imagined he heard it--a low, monotonous
+vibration, now almost distinct, now lost, now again discernible,
+but too vague, too indefinite to be anything but that faint
+summer harmony which comes from distant breezes, distant
+movements, mingling with the stir of drowsy field insects, half
+torpid in the heat of noon.
+
+Still it was always there; and now, turning his ear to the
+window, he laid down knife and fork to listen.
+
+"I have also noticed it," said Lorraine, answering his unasked
+question.
+
+"Do you hear it now?"
+
+"Yes--more distinctly now."
+
+A few moments later Jack leaned back in his chair and listened
+again.
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine, "it seems to come nearer. What is it?"
+
+"It comes from the southeast. I don't know," he answered.
+
+They rose and walked to the window. She was so near that he
+breathed the subtle fragrance of her hair, the fresh sweetness of
+her white gown, that rustled beside him.
+
+"Hark!" whispered Lorraine; "I can almost hear voices in the
+breezes--the murmur of voices, as if millions of tiny people were
+calling us from the ends and outer edges of the earth."
+
+"There is a throbbing, too. Do you notice it?"
+
+"Yes--like one's heart at night. Ah, now it comes nearer--oh,
+nearer! nearer! Oh, what can it be?"
+
+He knew now; he knew that indefinable battle--rumour that steals
+into the senses long before it is really audible. It is not a
+sound--not even a vibration; it is an immense foreboding that
+weights the air with prophecy.
+
+"From the south and east," he repeated; "from the Landesgrenze."
+
+"The frontier?"
+
+"Yes. Hark!"
+
+"I hear."
+
+"From the frontier," he said again. "From the river Lauter and
+from Wissembourg."
+
+"What is it?" she whispered, close beside him.
+
+"Cannon!"
+
+Yes, it was cannon--they knew it now--cannon throbbing,
+throbbing, throbbing along the horizon where the crags of the
+Geisberg echoed the dull thunder and shook it far out across the
+vineyards of Wissembourg, where the heights of Kapsweyer,
+resounding, hurled back the echoes to the mountains in the north.
+
+"Why--why does it seem to come nearer?" asked Lorraine.
+
+"Nearer?" He knew it had come nearer, but how could he tell her
+what that meant?
+
+"It is a battle--is it not?" she asked again.
+
+"Yes, a battle."
+
+She said nothing more, but stood leaning along the wall, her white
+forehead pressed against the edge of the raised window-sash. Outside,
+the little birds had grown suddenly silent; there was a stillness
+that comes before a rain; the leaves on the shrubbery scarcely moved.
+
+And now, nearer and nearer swelled the rumour of battle,
+undulating, quavering over forest and hill, and the muttering of
+the cannon grew to a rumble that jarred the air.
+
+As currents in the upper atmosphere shift and settle north,
+south, east, west, so the tide of sound wavered and drifted, and
+set westward, flowing nearer and nearer and louder and louder,
+until the hoarse, crashing tumult, still vague and distant, was
+cut by the sharper notes of single cannon that spoke out,
+suddenly impetuous, in the dull din.
+
+The whole Château was awake now; maids, grooms, valets,
+gardeners, and keepers were gathering outside the iron grille of
+the park, whispering together and looking out across the fields.
+
+There was nothing to see except pastures and woods, and
+low-rounded hills crowned with vineyards. Nothing more except a
+single strangely shaped cloud, sombre, slender at the base, but
+spreading at the top like a palm.
+
+"I am going up to speak to your father," said Jack, carelessly;
+"may I?"
+
+Interrupt her father! Lorraine fairly gasped.
+
+"Stay here," he added, with the faintest touch of authority in
+his tone; and, before she could protest, he had sped away up the
+staircase and round and round the long circular stairs that led
+to the single turret.
+
+A little out of breath, he knocked at the door which faced the
+top step. There was no answer. He rapped again, impatiently. A
+voice startled him: "Lorraine, I am busy!"
+
+"Open," called Jack; "I must see you!"
+
+"I am busy!" replied the marquis. Irritation and surprise were in
+his tones.
+
+"Open!" called Jack again; "there is no time to lose!"
+
+Suddenly the door was jerked back and the marquis appeared, pale,
+handsome, his eyes cold and blue as icebergs.
+
+"Monsieur Marche--" he began, almost discourteously.
+
+"Pardon," interrupted Jack; "I am going into your room. I wish to
+look out of that turret window. Come also--you must know what to
+expect."
+
+Astonished, almost angry, the Marquis de Nesville followed him to
+the turret window.
+
+"Oh," said Jack, softly, staring out into the sunshine, "it is
+time, is it not, that we knew what was going on along the
+frontier? Look there!"
+
+On the horizon vast shapeless clouds lay piled, gigantic coils
+and masses of vapour, dark, ominous, illuminated by faint, pallid
+lights that played under them incessantly; and over all towered
+one tall column of smoke, spreading above like an enormous
+palm-tree. But this was not all. The vast panorama of hill and
+valley and plain, cut by roads that undulated like narrow satin
+ribbons on a brocaded surface, was covered with moving objects,
+swarming, inundating the landscape. To the south a green hill
+grew black with the human tide, to the north long lines and
+oblongs and squares moved across the land, slowly, almost
+imperceptibly--but they were moving, always moving east.
+
+"It is an army coming," said the marquis.
+
+"It is a rout," said Jack, quietly.
+
+The marquis moved suddenly, as though to avoid a blow.
+
+"What troops are those?" he asked, after a silence.
+
+"It is the French army," replied Jack. "Have you not heard the
+cannonade?"
+
+"No--my machines make some noise when I'm working. I hear it now.
+What is that cloud--a fire?"
+
+"It is the battle cloud."
+
+"And the smoke on the horizon?"
+
+"The smoke from the guns. They are fighting beyond
+Saarbrück--yes, beyond Pfalzburg and Wörth; they are fighting
+beyond the Lauter."
+
+"Wissembourg?"
+
+"I think so. They are nearer now. Monsieur de Nesville, the
+battle has gone against the French."
+
+"How do you know?" demanded the marquis, harshly.
+
+"I have seen battles. One need only listen and look at the army
+yonder. They will pass Morteyn; I think they will pass for miles
+through the country. It looks to me like a retreat towards Metz,
+but I am not sure. The throngs of troops below are fugitives, not
+the regular geometrical figures that you see to the north. Those
+are regiments and divisions moving towards the west in good
+order."
+
+The two men stepped back into the room and faced each other.
+
+"After the rain the flood, after the rout the invasion," said
+Jack, firmly. "You cannot know it too quickly. You know it now,
+and you can make your plans."
+
+He was thinking of Lorraine's safety when he spoke, but the
+marquis turned instinctively to a mass of machinery and chemical
+paraphernalia behind him.
+
+"You will have your hands full," said Jack, repressing an angry
+sneer; "if you wish, my aunt De Morteyn will charge herself with
+Mademoiselle de Nesville's safety."
+
+"True, Lorraine might go to Morteyn," murmured the marquis,
+absently, examining a smoky retort half filled with a silvery
+heap of dust.
+
+"Then, may I drive her over after dinner?"
+
+"Yes," replied the other, indifferently.
+
+Jack started towards the stairs, hesitated, and turned around.
+
+"Your inventions are not safe, of course, if the German army
+comes. Do you need my help?"
+
+"My inventions are my own affair," said the marquis, angrily.
+
+Jack flushed scarlet, swung on his heels, and marched out of the
+room and down the stairs. On the lower steps he met Lorraine's
+maid, and told her briefly to pack her mistress's trunks for a
+visit to Morteyn.
+
+Lorraine was waiting for him at the window where he had left her,
+a scared, uncertain little maid in truth.
+
+"The battle is very near, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+"No, miles away yet."
+
+"Did you speak to papa? Did he send word to me? Does he want me?"
+
+He found it hard to tell her what message her father had sent,
+but he did.
+
+"I am to go to Morteyn? Oh, I cannot! I cannot! Papa will be
+alone here!" she said, aghast.
+
+"Perhaps you had better see him," he said, almost bitterly.
+
+She hurried away up the stairs; he heard her little eager feet on
+the stone steps that led to the turret; climbing up, up, up,
+until the sound was lost in the upper stories of the house. He
+went out to the stables and ordered the dog-cart and a wagon for
+her trunks. He did not fear that this order might be premature,
+for he thought he had not misjudged the Marquis de Nesville. And
+he had not, for, before the cart was ready, Lorraine, silent,
+pale, tearless, came noiselessly down the stairs holding her
+little cloak over one arm.
+
+"I am to stay a week," she said; "he does not want me." She
+added, hastily, "He is so busy and worried, and there is much to
+be done, and if the Prussians should come he must hide the
+balloon and the box of plans and formula--"
+
+"I know," said Jack, tenderly; "it will lift a weight from his
+mind when he knows you are safe with my aunt."
+
+"He is so good, he thinks only of my safety," faltered Lorraine.
+
+"Come," said Jack, in a voice that sounded husky; "the horse is
+waiting; I am to drive you. Your maid will follow with the trunks
+this evening. Are you ready? Give me your cloak. There--now, are
+you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He aided her to mount the dog-cart--her light touch was on his
+arm. He turned to the groom at the horse's head, sprang to the
+seat, and nodded. Lorraine leaned back and looked up at the
+turret where her father was.
+
+"Allons! En route!" cried Jack, cheerily, snapping his
+ribbon-decked whip.
+
+At the same instant a horseless cavalryman, gray with dust and
+dripping with blood and sweat, staggered out on the road from
+among the trees. He turned a deathly face to theirs, stopped,
+tottered, and called out--"Jack!"
+
+"Georges!" cried Jack, amazed.
+
+"Give me a horse, for God's sake!" he gasped. "I've just killed
+mine. I--I must get to Metz by midnight--"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+AIDE-DE-CAMP
+
+
+Lorraine and Jack sprang to the road from opposite sides of the
+vehicle; Georges' drawn face was stretched into an attempt at a
+smile which was ghastly, for the stiff, black blood that had
+caked in a dripping ridge from his forehead to his chin cracked
+and grew moist and scarlet, and his hollow cheeks whitened under
+the coat of dust. But he drew himself up by an effort and saluted
+Lorraine with a punctilious deference that still had a touch of
+jauntiness to it--the jauntiness of a youthful cavalry officer in
+the presence of a pretty woman.
+
+Old Pierre, who had witnessed the episode from the butler's
+window, came limping down the path, holding a glass and a carafe
+of brandy.
+
+"You are right, Pierre," said Jack. "Georges, drink it up, old
+fellow. There, now you can stand on those pins of yours. What's
+that--a sabre cut?"
+
+"No, a scratch from an Uhlan's lance-tip. Cut like a razor,
+didn't it? I've just killed my horse, trying to get over a ditch.
+Can you give me a mount, Jack?"
+
+"There isn't a horse in the stable that can carry you to Metz,"
+said Lorraine, quietly; "Diable is lame and Porthos is not shod.
+I can give you my pony."
+
+"Can't you get a train?" asked Jack, astonished.
+
+"No, the Uhlans are in our rear, everywhere. The railroad is torn
+up, the viaducts smashed, the wires cut, and general deuce to
+pay. I ran into an Uhlan or two--you notice it perhaps," he
+added, with a grim smile. "Could you drive me to Morteyn? Do you
+think the vicomte would lend me a horse?"
+
+"Of course he would," said Jack; "come, then--there is room for
+three," with an anxious glance at Lorraine.
+
+"Indeed, there is always room for a soldier of France!" cried
+Lorraine. At the same moment she instinctively laid one hand
+lightly on Jack's arm. Their eyes spoke for an instant--the
+generous appeal that shone in hers was met and answered by a
+response that brought the delicate colour into her cheeks.
+
+"Let me hang on behind," pleaded Georges--"I'm so dirty, you
+know." But they bundled him into the seat between them, and Jack
+touched his beribboned whip to the horse's ears, and away they
+went speeding over the soft forest road in the cool of the fading
+day; old Pierre, bottle and glass in hand, gaping after them and
+shaking his gray head.
+
+Jack began to fire volleys of questions at the young hussar as
+soon as they entered the forest, and poor Georges replied as best
+he could.
+
+"I don't know very much about it; I was detached yesterday and
+taken on General Douay's staff. We were at Wissembourg--you know
+that little town on the Lauter where the vineyards cover
+everything and the mountains are pretty steep to the north and
+west. All I know is this: about six o'clock this morning our
+outposts on the hills to the south began banging way in a great
+panic. They had been attacked, it seems, by the 4th Bavarian
+Division, Count Bothmer's, I believe. Our posts fell back to the
+town, where the 1st Turcos reinforced them at the railroad
+station. The artillery were at it on our left, too, and there was
+a most infernal racket. The next thing I saw was those crazy
+Bavarians, with their little flat drums beating, and their
+fur-crested helmets all bobbing, marching calmly up the Geisberg.
+Jack, those fellows went through the vineyards like fiends
+astride a tempest. That was at two o'clock. The Prussian
+Crown-Prince rode into the town an hour before; we couldn't hold
+it--Heaven knows why. That's all I saw--except the death of our
+general."
+
+"General Douay?" cried Lorraine, horrified.
+
+"Yes, he was killed about ten o'clock in the morning. The town
+was stormed through the Hagenauer Thor by the Bavarians. After
+that we still held the Geisberg and the Château. You should have
+seen it when we left it. I'll say it was a butcher's shambles.
+I'd say more if Mademoiselle de Nesville were not here." He was
+trying hard to bear up--to speak lightly of the frightful
+calamity that had overwhelmed General Abel Douay and his entire
+division.
+
+"The fight at the Château was worth seeing," said Georges,
+airily. "They went at it with drums beating and flags flying. Oh,
+but they fell like leaves in the gardens, there--the paths and
+shrubbery were littered with them, dead, dying, gasping, crawling
+about, like singed flies under a lamp. We had them beaten, too,
+if it hadn't been for their General von Kirchbach. He stood in
+the garden--he'd been hit, too--and bawled for the artillery.
+Then they came at us again in three divisions. Where they got all
+their regiments, I don't know, but their 7th Grenadier Guards
+were there, and their 47th, 58th, 59th, 80th, and 87th regiments
+of the line, not counting a Jäger battalion and no end of
+artillery. They carried the Three Poplars--a hill--and they began
+devastating everything. We couldn't face their fire--I don't know
+why, Jack; it breaks my heart when I say it, but we couldn't hold
+them. Then they began howling for cannon, and, of course, that
+settled the Château. The town was in flames when I left."
+
+After a silence, Jack asked him whether it was a rout or a
+retreat.
+
+"We're falling back in very decent order," said Georges,
+eagerly--"really, we are. Of course, there were some troops that
+got into a sort of panic--the Uhlans are annoying us considerably.
+The Turcos fought well. We fairly riddled the 58th Prussians--their
+king's regiment, you know. It was the 2d Bavarian Corps that did
+for us. We will meet them later."
+
+"Where are you going--to Metz?" inquired Jack, soberly.
+
+"Yes; I've a packet for Bazaine--I don't know what. They're
+trying to reach him by wire, but those confounded Uhlans are
+destroying everything. My dear fellow, you need not worry; we
+have been checked, that's all. Our promenade to Berlin is
+postponed in deference to King Wilhelm's earnest wishes."
+
+They all tried to laugh a little, and Jack chirped to his horse,
+but even that sober animal seemed to feel the depression, for he
+responded in fits and starts and jerks that were unpleasant and
+jarring to Georges' aching head.
+
+The sky had become covered with bands of wet-looking clouds, the
+leaves of the forest stirred noiselessly on their stems. Along
+the river willows quivered and aspens turned their leaves white
+side to the sky. In the querulous notes of the birds there was a
+prophecy of storms, the river muttered among its hollows of
+floods and tempests.
+
+Suddenly a great sombre raven sailed to the road, alighted,
+sidled back, and sat fearlessly watching them.
+
+Lorraine shivered and nestled closer to Jack.
+
+"Oh," she murmured, "I never saw one before--except in pictures."
+
+"They belong in the snow--they have no business here," said Jack;
+"they always make me think of those pictures of Russia--the
+retreat of the Grand Army, you know."
+
+"Wolves and ravens," said Lorraine, in a low voice; "I know why
+they come to us here in France--Monsieur Marche, did I not tell
+you that day in the carrefour?"
+
+"Yes," he answered; "do you really think you are a prophetess?"
+
+"Did you see wolves here?" asked Georges.
+
+"Yes; before war was declared. I told Monsieur Marche--it is a
+legend of our country. He, of course, laughed at it. I also do not
+believe everything I am told--but--I don't know--I have alway
+believed that, ever since I was, oh, very, very small--like that."
+She held one small gloved hand about twelve inches from the floor
+of the cart.
+
+"At such a height and such an age it is natural to believe
+anything," said Jack. "I, too, accepted many strange doctrines
+then."
+
+"You are laughing again," said Lorraine.
+
+So they passed through the forest, trying to be cheerful, even
+succeeding at times. But Georges' face grew paler every minute,
+and his smile was so painful that Lorraine could not bear it and
+turned her head away, her hand tightening on the box-rail
+alongside.
+
+As they were about to turn out into the Morteyn road, where the
+forest ended, Jack suddenly checked the horse and rose to his
+feet.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lorraine. "Oh, I see! Oh, look!"
+
+The Morteyn road was filled with infantry, solid, plodding
+columns, pressing fast towards the west. The fields, too, were
+black with men, engineers, weighted down with their heavy
+equipments, resting in long double rows, eyes vacant, heads bent.
+Above the thickets of rifles sweeping past, mounted officers sat
+in their saddles, as though carried along on the surface of the
+serried tide. Standards fringed with gold slanted in the last
+rays of the sun, sabres glimmered, curving upward from the
+thronged rifles, and over all sounded the shuffle, shuffle of
+worn shoes in the dust, a mournful, monotonous cadence, a
+hopeless measure, whose burden was despair, whose beat was the
+rhythm of breaking hearts.
+
+Oh, but it cut Lorraine to see their boyish faces, dusty, gaunt,
+hollow-eyed, turn to her and turn away without a change, without
+a shade of expression. The mask of blank apathy stamped on every
+visage almost terrified her. On they came, on, on, and still on,
+under a forest of shining rifles. A convoy of munitions crowded
+in the rear of the column, surrounded by troopers of the
+train-des-equipages; then followed more infantry, then cavalry,
+dragoons, who sat listlessly in their high saddles, carbines
+bobbing on their broad backs, whalebone plumes matted with dust.
+
+Georges rose painfully from his seat, stepped to the side, and
+climbed down into the road. He felt in the breast of his dolman
+for the packet, adjusted his sabre, and turned to Lorraine.
+
+"There is a squadron of the Remount Cavalry over in that
+meadow--I can get a horse there," he said. "Thank you, Jack.
+Good-by, Mademoiselle de Nesville, you have been more than
+generous."
+
+"You can have a horse from the Morteyn stables," said Jack; "my
+dear fellow, I can't bear to see you go--to think of your riding
+to Metz to-night."
+
+"It's got to be done, you know," said Georges. He bowed; Lorraine
+stretched out her hand and he gravely touched it with his
+fingers. Then he exchanged a nervous gripe with Jack, and turned
+away hurriedly, crowding between the passing dragoons, traversing
+the meadows until they lost him in the throng.
+
+"We cannot get to the house by the road," said Jack; "we must
+take the stable path;" and he lifted the reins and turned the
+horse's head.
+
+The stable road was narrow, and crossed with sprays of tender
+leaves. The leaves touched Lorraine's eyes, they rubbed across
+her fair brow, robbing her of single threads of glittering hair,
+they brushed a single bright tear from her cheeks and held it,
+glimmering like a drop of dew.
+
+"Behold the end of the world," said Lorraine--"I am weeping."
+
+He turned and looked into her eyes.
+
+"Is that strange?" he asked, gently.
+
+"Yes; I have often wished to cry. I never could--except once
+before--and that was four days ago."
+
+The day of their quarrel! He thrilled from head to foot, but
+dared not speak.
+
+"Four days ago," said Lorraine again. She thought of herself
+gliding from her bed to seek the stable where Jack's horse stood,
+she thought of her hot face pressed to the wounded creature's
+neck. Then, suddenly aware of what she had confessed, she leaned
+back and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Lorraine!" he whispered, brokenly.
+
+But they were already at the Château.
+
+"Lorraine, my child!" cried Madame de Morteyn, leaning from the
+terrace. Her voice was drowned in the crash of drums rolling,
+rolling, from the lawn below, and the trumpets broke out in harsh
+chorus, shrill, discordant, terrible.
+
+The Emperor had arrived at Morteyn.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE MARQUIS MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE
+
+
+The Emperor dined with the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn that
+evening in the great dining-room. The Château, patrolled by
+doubled guards of the Cent Gardes, was surrounded by triple
+hedges of bayonets and a perfect pest of police spies, secret
+agents, and flunkys. In the breakfast-room General Frossard and
+his staff were also dining; and up-stairs, in a small gilded
+salon, Jack and Lorraine ate soberly, tenderly cared for by the
+old house-keeper.
+
+Outside they could hear the steady tramp of passing infantry
+along the dark road, the clank of artillery, and the muffled
+trample of cavalry. Frossard's Corps was moving rapidly, its back
+to the Rhine.
+
+"I saw the Prince Imperial," said Jack; "he was in the
+conservatory, writing to his mother, the Empress. Have you ever
+seen him, Mademoiselle de Nesville? He is young, really a mere
+child, but he looks very manly in his uniform. He has that same
+charm, that same delicate, winning courtesy that the Emperor is
+famous for. But he looks so pale and tired--like a school-boy in
+the Lycée."
+
+"It would have been unfortunate if the Emperor had stopped at the
+Château de Nesville," said Lorraine, sipping her small glass of
+Moselle; "papa hates him."
+
+"Many Royalists do."
+
+"It is not that only; there is something else--something that I
+don't know about. It concerns my brother who died many years ago,
+before I was born. Have I never spoken of my brother? Has papa
+never said anything?"
+
+"No," said Jack, gently.
+
+"Well, when my brother was alive, our family lived in Paris. That
+is all I know, except that my brother died shortly before the empire
+was proclaimed, and papa and mamma came to our country-place here,
+where I was born. René's--my brother's--death had something to do
+with my father's hatred of the empire, I know that. But papa will
+never speak of it to me, except to tell me that I must always
+remember that the Emperor has been the curse of the De Nesvilles.
+Hark! Hear the troops passing. Why do they never cheer their
+Emperor?"
+
+"They cheered him at Saarbrück--I heard them. You are not eating;
+are you tired?"
+
+"A little. I shall go with Marianne, I think; I am sleepy. Are
+you going to sit up? Do you think we can sleep with the noise of
+the horses passing? I should like to see the Emperor at table."
+
+"Wait," said Jack; "I'll go down and find out whether we can't
+slip into the ballroom."
+
+"Then I'll go too," said Lorraine, rising. "Marianne, stay here;
+I will return in a moment;" and she slipped after Jack, down the
+broad staircase and out to the terrace, where a huge cuirassier
+officer stood in the moonlight, his straight sabre shimmering,
+his white mantle open over the silver breastplate.
+
+The ballroom was brilliantly lighted, the gilded canapés and
+chairs were covered with officers in every conceivable uniform,
+lounging, sprawling, chatting, and gesticulating, or pulling
+papers and maps over the floor. A general traced routes across
+the map at his feet with the point of a naked sword; an officer
+of dragoons, squatting on his haunches, followed the movement of
+the sword-point and chewed an unlighted cigarette. Officers were
+coming and going constantly, entering by the hallway and leaving
+through the door-like windows that swung open to the floor. The
+sinister face of a police-spy peered into the conservatory at
+intervals, where a slender, pale-faced boy sat, clothed in a
+colonel's uniform, writing on a carved table. It was the Prince
+Imperial, back from Saarbrück and his "baptism of fire," back
+also from the Spicheren and the disaster of Wörth. He was writing
+to his mother, that unhappy, anxious woman who looked every day
+from the Tuileries into the streets of a city already clamorous,
+already sullenly suspicious of its Emperor and Empress.
+
+The boy's face was beautiful. He raised his head and sat silently
+biting his pen, eyes wandering. Perhaps he was listening to the
+retreat of Frossard's Corps through the fair province of
+Lorraine--a province that he should never live to see again. A
+few months more, a few battles, a few villages in flames, a few
+cities ravaged, a few thousand corpses piled from the frontier to
+the Loire--and then, what? Why, an emperor the less and an
+emperor the more, and a new name for a province--that is all.
+
+His delicate, high-bred face fell; he shaded his sad eyes with
+one thin hand and wrote again--all that a good son writes to a
+mother, all that a good soldier writes to a sovereign, all that a
+good prince writes to an empress.
+
+"Oh, what sad eyes!" whispered Lorraine; "he is too young to see
+such things."
+
+"He may see worse," said Jack. "Come, shall we walk around the
+lawn to the dining-room?"
+
+They descended the dark steps, her arm resting lightly on his,
+and he guided her through a throng of gossiping cavalrymen and
+hurrying but polite officers towards the western wing of the
+Château, the trample of the passing army always in their ears.
+
+As he was about to cross the drive, a figure stepped from the
+shadow of the porte-cochère--a man in a rough tweed suit, who
+lifted his wide-awake politely and asked Jack if he was not
+English.
+
+"American," said Jack, guardedly.
+
+The man was apparently much relieved. He made a frank, manly
+apology for his intrusion, looked appealingly at Lorraine, and
+said, with a laugh: "The fact is, I'm astray in the wrong camp. I
+rode out from the Spicheren and got mixed in the roads, and first
+I knew I fell in with Frossard's Corps, and I can't get away. I
+thought you were an Englishman; you're American, it seems, and
+really I may venture to feel that there is hope for me--may I
+not?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Jack; "whatever I can do, I'll do gladly."
+
+"Then let me observe without hesitation," continued the man,
+smiling under his crisp mustache, "that I'm in search of a modest
+dinner and a shelter of even more modest dimensions. I'm a war
+correspondent, unattached just at present, but following the
+German army. My name is Archibald Grahame."
+
+At the name of the great war correspondent Jack stared, then
+impulsively held out his hand.
+
+"Aha!" said Grahame, "you must be a correspondent, too. Ha! I
+thought I was not wrong."
+
+He bowed again to Lorraine, who returned his manly salute very
+sweetly. "If," she thought, "Jack is inclined to be nice to this
+sturdy young man in tweeds, I also will be as nice as I can."
+
+"My name is Marche--Jack Marche," said Jack, in some trepidation.
+"I am not a correspondent--that is, not an active one."
+
+"You were at Sadowa, and you've been in Oran with Chanzy," said
+Grahame, quickly.
+
+Jack flushed with pleasure to find that the great Archibald
+Grahame had heard of him.
+
+"We must take Mr. Grahame up-stairs at once--must we not?--if he
+is hungry," suggested Lorraine, whose tender heart was touched at
+the thought of a hungry human being.
+
+They all laughed, and Grahame thanked her with that whimsical but
+charming courtesy that endeared him to all who knew him.
+
+"It is awkward, now, isn't it, Mr. Marche? Here I am in France
+with the army I tried to keep away from, roofless, supperless,
+and rather expecting some of these sentinels or police agents may
+begin to inquire into my affairs. If they do they'll take me for
+a spy. I was threatened by the villagers in a little hamlet west
+of Saint-Avold--and how I'm going to get back to my Hohenzollerns
+I haven't the faintest notion."
+
+"There'll surely be some way. My uncle will vouch for you and get
+you a safe-conduct," said Jack. "Perhaps, Mr. Grahame, you had
+better come and dine in our salon up-stairs. Will you? The
+Emperor occupies the large dining-room, and General Frossard and
+his staff have the breakfast-room."
+
+Amused by the young fellow's doubt that a simple salon on the
+first floor might not be commensurate with the hospitality of
+Morteyn, Archibald Grahame stepped pleasantly to the other side
+of the road; and so, with Lorraine between them, they climbed the
+terrace and scaled the stairs to the little gilt salon where
+Lorraine's maid Marianne and the old house-keeper sat awaiting
+her return.
+
+Lorraine was very wide-awake now--she was excited by the stir and
+the brilliant uniforms. She unconsciously took command, too,
+feeling that she should act the hostess in the absence of Madame
+de Morteyn. The old house-keeper, who adored her, supported her
+loyally; so, between Marianne and herself, a very delightful
+dinner was served to the hungry but patient Grahame when he
+returned with Jack from the latter's chamber, where he had left
+most of the dust and travel stains of a long tramp across
+country.
+
+And how the great war correspondent did eat and drink! It made
+Jack hungry again to watch him, so with a laughing apology to
+Lorraine he joined in with a will, enthusiastically applauded and
+encouraged by Grahame.
+
+"I could tell you were a correspondent by your appetite," said
+Grahame. "Dear me! it takes a campaign to make life worth
+living!"
+
+"Life is not worth living, then, without an appetite?" inquired
+Lorraine, mischievously.
+
+"No," said Grahame, seriously; "and you also will be of that
+opinion some day, mademoiselle."
+
+His kindly, humourous eyes turned inquiringly from Jack to
+Lorraine and from Lorraine to Jack. He was puzzled, perhaps, but
+did not betray it.
+
+They were not married, because Lorraine was Mademoiselle de
+Nesville and Jack was Monsieur Marche. Cousins? Probably.
+Engaged? Probably. So Grahame smiled benignly and emptied another
+bottle of Moselle with a frank abandon that fascinated the old
+house-keeper.
+
+"And you don't mean to say that you are going to put me up for
+the night, too?" he asked Jack. "You place me under eternal
+obligation, and I accept with that understanding. If you run into
+my Hohenzollerns, they'll receive you as a brother."
+
+"I don't think he will visit the Hohenzollern Regiment," observed
+Lorraine, demurely.
+
+"No--er--the fact is, I'm not doing much newspaper work now,"
+said Jack.
+
+Grahame was puzzled but bland.
+
+"Tell us, Monsieur Grahame, of what you saw in the Spicheren,"
+said Lorraine. "Is it a very bad defeat? I am sure it cannot be.
+Of course, France will win, sooner or later; nobody doubts that."
+
+Before Grahame could manufacture a suitable reply--and his wit
+was as quick as his courtesy--a door opened and Madame de Morteyn
+entered, sad-eyed but smiling.
+
+Jack jumped up and asked leave to present Mr. Grahame, and the
+old lady received him very sweetly, insisting that he should
+make the Château his home as long as he stayed in the vicinity.
+
+A few moments later she went away with Lorraine and her maid, and
+Jack and Archibald Grahame were left together to sip their
+Moselle and smoke some very excellent cigars that Jack found in
+the library.
+
+"Mr. Grahame," said Jack, diffidently, "if it would not be an
+impertinent question, who is going to run away in this campaign?"
+
+Grahame's face fell; his sombre glance swept the beautiful room
+and rested on a picture--the "Battle of Waterloo."
+
+"It will be worse than that," he said, abruptly. "May I take one
+of these cigars? Oh, thank you."
+
+Jack's heart sank, but he smiled and passed a lighted cigar-lamp
+to the other.
+
+"My judgment has been otherwise," he said, "and what you say
+troubles me."
+
+"It troubles me, too," said Grahame, looking out of the dark
+window at the watery clouds, ragged, uncanny, whirling one by one
+like tattered witches across the disk of a misshapen moon.
+
+After a silence Jack relighted his half-burned cigar.
+
+"Then it is invasion?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--invasion."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"Good heavens! the very stones in the fields will rise up!"
+
+"If the people did so too it might be to better purpose,"
+observed Grahame, dryly. Then he emptied his glass, flicked the
+ashes from his cigar, and, sitting erect in his chair, said,
+"See here, Marche, you and I are accustomed to this sort of
+thing, we've seen campaigns and we have learned to judge
+dispassionately and, I think, fairly accurately; but, on my
+honour, I never before have seen the beginning of such a
+tempest--never! You say the very stones will rise up in the
+fields of France. You are right. For the fields will be ploughed
+with solid shot, and the shells will sow the earth with iron from
+the Rhine to the Loire. Good Lord, do these people know what is
+coming over the frontier?"
+
+"Prussians," said Jack.
+
+"Yes, Prussians and a few others--Würtembergers, Saxons,
+Bavarians, men from Baden, from Hesse, from the Schwarzwald--from
+Hamburg to the Tyrol they are coming in three armies. I saw the
+Spicheren, I saw Wissembourg--I have seen and I know."
+
+Presently he opened a fresh bottle, and, with that whimsical
+smile and frank simplicity that won whom he chose to win, leaned
+towards Jack and began speaking as though the younger man were
+his peer in experience and age:
+
+"Shall I tell you what I saw across the Rhine? I saw the machinery
+at work--the little wheels and cogs turning and grinding and
+setting in motion that stupendous machine that Gneisenau patented
+and Von Moltke improved--the great Mobilization Machine! How this
+machine does its work it is not easy to realize unless one has
+actually watched its operation. I saw it--and what I saw left me
+divided between admiration and--well, damn it all!--sadness.
+
+"You know, Marche, that there are three strata of fighting men in
+Germany--the regular army, the 'reserve,' and the Landwehr. It
+is a mistake into which many fall to believe that the reserve is
+the rear of the regular army. The war strength of a regiment is
+just double its peace strength, and the increment is the reserve.
+The blending of the two in time of war is complete; the medalled
+men of 1866 and of the Holstein campaign, called up from the
+reserve, are welded into the same ranks with the young soldiers
+who are serving their first period of three years. It is an utter
+mistake to think of the Prussian army or the Prussian reserves as
+a militia like yours or ours. The Prussian reserve man has three
+years active service with his colours to point back to. Have ours?
+The mobilization machine grinds its grinding in this wise. The whole
+country is divided into districts, in the central city of each of
+which are the headquarters of the army corps recruited from that
+district. Thence is sent forth the edict for mobilization to the
+towns, the villages, and the quiet country parishes. From the forge,
+from the harvest, from the store, from the school-room, blacksmiths,
+farmers, clerks, school-masters drop everything at an hour's notice.
+
+"The contingent of a village is sent to headquarters. On the
+route it meets other contingents until the rendezvous is reached.
+And then--the transformation! A yokel enters--a soldier leaves.
+The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown
+forward, his legs straightened, his chin 'well off the stock,'
+his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as
+whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are
+orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none
+are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, and the
+barrack gates are never infested by those hordes of soldiers'
+women."
+
+He paused and puffed at his cigar thoughtfully.
+
+"They are such soldiers as the world has not yet seen. Marching?
+I saw them striding steadily forward with the thermometer at
+eighty-five in the shade, with needle-gun, heavy knapsack, eighty
+rounds of ammunition, huge great-coat, camp-kettle, sword, spade,
+water-bottle, haversack, and lots of odds and ends dangling about
+them, with perhaps a loaf or two under one arm. Sunstroke? No.
+Why? Sobriety. No absinthe there, Mr. Marche."
+
+"We beat those men at Saarbrück," said Jack.
+
+Grahame laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"At Saarbrück, when war was declared, the total German garrison
+consisted of a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Uhlans.
+Frossard and his whole corps were looking across at Saarbrück
+over the ridges of the Spicheren, and nobody had the means of
+knowing what everybody knows now, the reason, so discreditable to
+French organization, which prevented him from blowing out of his
+path the few pickets and patrols, and invading the territory
+which had its frontier only nominally guarded. I was in Saarbrück
+at the time, and I had the pleasure of dodging shells there, too.
+Why, we were all asking each other if it were possible that the
+Frenchmen did not know the weakness of the land. Our Uhlans and
+infantry were manipulated dexterously to make a battalion look
+like a brigade; but we had an army corps in front of us. We held
+the place by sheer impudence."
+
+"I know it," said Jack; "it makes me ill to think of it."
+
+"It ought to make Frossard ill! Had a French army of invasion
+pushed on through Saint-Johann on the 2d of August and marched
+rapidly into the interior, the Germans could not possibly have
+concentrated their scattered regiments, and it is my firm
+conviction that Napoleon would have seen the Rhine without having
+had to fight a pitched battle. Well, Marche, I drink to neither
+one side nor the other, but--here's to the men with backbones.
+Prosit!"
+
+They laughed and clinked glasses. Grahame finished his bottle,
+rose, politely stifled a yawn, and looked humourously at Jack.
+
+"There are two beds in my room; will you take one?" said the
+young fellow.
+
+"Thank you, I will," said Grahame, "and as soon as you please, my
+dear fellow."
+
+So Jack led the way and ushered the other into a huge room with
+two beds, seemingly lost in distant diagonal corners. Grahame
+promptly kicked off his boots, and sat down on his bed.
+
+"I saw a funny thing in Saarbrück," he said. "It was right in the
+midst of a cannonade--the shells were smashing the chimneys on
+the Hotel Hagen and raising hell generally. And right in the
+midst of the whole blessed mess, cool as a cucumber, came
+sauntering a real live British swell with a coat adorned with
+field-glasses and girdle and a dozen pockets, an eye-glass, a dog
+that seemed dearer to him than life, and a drawl that had not
+been perceptibly quickened by the French cannon. He-aw-had been
+going eastward somewhere to-aw-Constantinople, or Saint-Petersburg,
+or-aw-somewhere, when he-aw-heard that it might be amusing at
+Saarbrück. A shell knocked a cart-load of tiles around his head,
+and he looked at it through his eye-glass. Marche, I never laughed
+so in my life. He's a good fellow, though--he's trotting about with
+the Hohenzollern Regiment now, and, really, I miss him. His name is
+Hesketh--"
+
+"Not Sir Thorald?" cried Jack.
+
+"Eh?--yes, that's the man. Know him?"
+
+"A little," said Jack, laughing, and went out, bidding Graham
+good-night, and promising to have him roused at dawn.
+
+"Aren't you going to turn in?" called Grahame, fearful of having
+inconvenienced Jack in his own quarters.
+
+"Yes," said the young fellow. "I won't wake you--I'll be back in
+an hour." And he closed the door, and went down-stairs.
+
+For a few moments he stood on the cool terrace, listening to the
+movement of the host below; and always the tramp of feet, the
+snort of horses, and the metallic jingle of passing cannon filled
+his ears.
+
+The big cuirassier sentinel had been joined by two more, all of
+the Hundred-Guards. Jack noticed their carbines, wondering a
+little to see cuirassiers so armed, and marvelling at the long,
+slender, lance-like bayonets that were attached to the muzzles.
+
+Presently he went into the house, and, entering the smoking-room,
+met his aunt coming out.
+
+"Jack," she said, "I am a little nervous--the Emperor is still in
+the dining-room with a crowd of officers, and he has just sent an
+aide-de-camp to the Château de Nesville to summon the marquis. It
+will be most awkward; your uncle and he are not friendly, and the
+Marquis de Nesville hates the Emperor."
+
+"Why did the Emperor send for him?" asked Jack, wondering.
+
+"I don't know--he wishes for a private interview with the
+marquis. He may refuse to come--he is a very strange man, you
+know."
+
+"Then, if he is, he may come; that would be stranger still," said
+Jack.
+
+"Your uncle is not well, Jack," continued Madame de Morteyn; "he
+is quite upset by being obliged to entertain the Emperor. You
+know how all the Royalists feel. But, Jack, dear, if you could
+have seen your uncle it would have been a lesson in chivalry to
+you which any young man could ill afford to miss--he was so
+perfectly simple, so proudly courteous--ah, Jack, your uncle is
+one in a nation!"
+
+"He is--and so are you!" said Jack, kissing her faded cheek. "Are
+you going to retire now?"
+
+"Yes; your uncle needs me. The lights are out everywhere.
+Lorraine, dear child, is asleep in the next room to mine. Is Mr.
+Grahame comfortable? I am glad. The Prince Imperial is sleeping
+too, poor child--sleeping like a worn-out baby."
+
+Jack conducted his aunt to her chamber, and bade her good-night.
+Then he went softly back through the darkened house, and across
+the hall to the dining-room. The door was open, letting out a
+flood of lamp-light, and the generals and staff-officers were
+taking leave of the Emperor and filing out one by one, Frossard
+leading, his head bent on his breast. Some went away to rooms
+assigned them, guided by a flunky, some passed across the terrace
+with swords trailing and spurs ringing, and disappeared in the
+darkness. They had not all left the Emperor, when, suddenly,
+Jack heard behind him the voice of the Marquis de Nesville,
+cold, sneering, ironical.
+
+"Oh," he said, seeing Jack standing by the door, "can you tell me
+where I may find the Emperor of the French? I am sent for."
+Turning on the aide-de-camp at his side: "This gentleman
+courteously notified me that the Emperor desired my presence. I
+am here, but I do not choose to go alone, and I shall demand,
+Monsieur Marche, that you accompany me and remain during the
+interview."
+
+The aide-de-camp looked at him darkly, but the marquis sneered in
+his face.
+
+"I want a witness," he said, insolently; "you can tell that to
+your Emperor."
+
+The aide-de-camp, helmet under his arm, from which streamed a
+horse-hair plume, entered the dining-room as the last officer
+left it.
+
+Jack looked uneasily at the marquis, and was about to speak when
+the aid returned and requested the marquis to enter.
+
+"Monsieur Marche, remain here, I beg you," said the marquis,
+coolly; "I shall call you presently. It is a service I ask of
+you. Will you oblige me?"
+
+"Yes," said Jack.
+
+The door opened for a second.
+
+Napoleon III. sat at the long table, his head drooping on his
+breast; he was picking absently at threads in the texture of the
+table-cloth. That was all Jack saw--a glimpse of a table covered
+with half-empty glasses and fruit, an old man picking at the
+cloth in the lamplight; then the door shut, and he was alone in
+the dark hall. Out on the terrace he heard the tramp of the
+cuirassier sentinels, and beyond that the uproar of artillery,
+passing, always passing. He stared about in the darkness, he
+peered up the staircase into the gloom. A bat was flying
+somewhere near--he felt the wind from its mousy wings.
+
+Suddenly the door was flung open beside him, and the marquis
+called to him in a voice vibrating with passion. As he entered
+and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white
+with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of
+the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised
+his impassible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged the young
+man's respectful salutation.
+
+"You have asked me a question," said the marquis, harshly, "and I
+demanded to answer it in the presence of a witness. Is your
+majesty willing that this gentleman shall hear my reply?"
+
+The Emperor looked at him with half-closed, inscrutable eyes,
+then, turning his heavy face to Jack's, smiled wearily and
+inclined his head.
+
+"Good," said the marquis, apparently labouring under tremendous
+excitement. "You ask me to give you, or sell you, or loan you my
+secret for military balloons. My answer is, 'No!'"
+
+The Emperor's face did not change as he said, "I ask it for your
+country, not for myself, monsieur."
+
+"And I will give it to my country, not to you!" said the marquis,
+violently.
+
+Jack looked at the Emperor. He noticed his unkempt hair brushed
+forward, his short thumbs pinching the table-cloth, his closed
+eyes.
+
+The Marquis de Nesville took a step towards him.
+
+"Does your majesty remember the night that Morny lay dying in the
+shadows? And that horrible croak from the darkness when he
+raised himself on one elbow and gasped, 'Sire, prenez garde à la
+Prusse!' Then he died. That was all--a warning, a groan, the
+death-rattle in the shadows by the bed. Then he died."
+
+The Emperor never moved.
+
+"'Look out for Prussia!' That was Morny's last gasp. And now?
+Prussia is there, you are here! And you need aid, and you send
+for me, and I tell you that my secrets are for my country, not
+for you! No, not for you--you who said, 'It is easy to govern the
+French, they only need a war every four years!' Now--here is your
+war! Govern!"
+
+The Emperor's slow eyes rested a moment on the man before him.
+But the man, trembling, pallid with passion, clenched his hands
+and hurled an insult at the Emperor through his set teeth:
+"Napoleon the Little! Listen! When you have gone down in the
+crash of a rotten throne and a blood-bought palace, then, when
+the country has shaken this--this thing--from her bent back, then
+I will give to my country all I have! But never to you, to save
+your name and your race and your throne--never!"
+
+He fairly frothed at the lips as he spoke; his eyes blazed.
+
+"Your coup-d'état made me childless! I had a son, fairer than
+yours, who lies asleep in there--brave, gentle, loving--a son of
+mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him--shot him to
+death on the boulevards--him among the others--so that you could
+sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them--those piled corpses! I
+saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the
+heaped slain lying before Tortoni's, where the whole street was
+flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you
+ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honoré, and when you
+met the barricade you turned pale and rode back again! I saw you;
+I was sitting with my dead boy on my knees--I saw you--"
+
+With a furious cry the marquis tore a revolver from his pocket
+and sprang on the Emperor, and at the same instant Jack seized
+the crazy man by the shoulders and hurled him violently to the
+floor.
+
+Stunned, limp as a rag, the marquis lay at the Emperor's feet,
+his clenched hands slowly relaxing.
+
+The Emperor had not moved.
+
+Scarcely knowing what he did, Jack stooped, drew the revolver
+from the extended fingers, and laid it on the table. Then, with a
+fearful glance at the Emperor, he dragged the marquis to the
+door, opened it with a shove of his foot, and half closed it
+again.
+
+The aide-de-camp stood there, staring at the prostrate man.
+
+"Here, help me with him to his carriage; he is ill," panted
+Jack--"lift him!"
+
+Together they carried him out to the terrace, and down the steps
+to a coupé that stood waiting.
+
+"The marquis is ill," said Jack again; "put him to bed at once.
+Drive fast."
+
+Before the sound of the wheels died away Jack hastened back to
+the dining-room. Through the half-opened door he peered,
+hesitated, turned away, and mounted the stairs slowly to his own
+chamber.
+
+In the dining-room the lamp still burned dimly. Beside it sat the
+Emperor, head bent, picking absently at the table-cloth with
+short, shrunken thumbs.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE INVASION OF LORRAINE
+
+
+It was not yet dawn. Jack, sleeping with his head on his elbow,
+shivered in his sleep, gasped, woke, and sat up in bed. There was
+a quiet footfall by his bed, the scrape of a spur, then silence.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Grahame?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; I didn't mean to wake you. I'm off. I was going to leave a
+letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn--"
+
+"Are you dressed? What time is it?"
+
+"Four o'clock--twenty minutes after. It's a shame to rouse you,
+my dear fellow."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Jack. "Will you strike a
+light--there are candles on my dresser. Ah, that's better."
+
+He sat blinking at Grahame, who, booted and spurred and buttoned
+to the chin, looked at him quizzically.
+
+"You were not going off without your coffee, were you?" asked
+Jack. "Nonsense!--wait." He pulled a bell-rope dangling over his
+head. "Now that means coffee and hot rolls in twenty minutes."
+
+When Jack had bathed and shaved, operations he executed with
+great rapidity, the coffee was brought, and he and Grahame fell
+to by candle-light.
+
+"I thought you were afoot?" said Jack, glancing at the older
+man's spurs.
+
+"I'm going to hunt up a horse; I'm tired of this eternal
+tramping," replied Grahame. "Hello, is this package for me?"
+
+"Yes, there's a cold chicken and some things, and a flask to keep
+you until you find your Hohenzollern Regiment again."
+
+Grahame rose and held out his hand. "Good-by. You've been very
+kind, Marche. Will you say, for me, all that should be said to
+Madame de Morteyn? Good-by once more, my dear fellow. Don't
+forget me--I shall never forget you!"
+
+"Wait," said Jack; "you are going off without a safe-conduct."
+
+"Don't need it; there's not a French soldier in Morteyn."
+
+"Gone?" stammered Jack--"the Emperor, General Frossard, the
+army--"
+
+"Every mother's son of them, and I must hurry--"
+
+Their hands met again in a cordial grasp, then Grahame slipped
+noiselessly into the hallway, and Jack turned to finish dressing
+by the light of his clustered candles.
+
+As he stood before the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with
+studs and buttons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the
+night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impassive
+Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned,
+white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling
+from the glittering revolver.
+
+Lorraine's father! And he had laid hands on him and had flung
+him senseless at the feet of the Man of December! He could
+scarcely button his collar, his fingers trembled so. Perhaps he
+had killed the Marquis de Nesville. Sick at heart, he finished
+dressing, buttoned his coat, flung a cap on his head, and stole
+out into the darkness.
+
+On the terrace below he saw a groom carrying a lantern, and he
+went out hastily.
+
+"Saddle Faust at once," he said. "Have the troops all gone?"
+
+"All, monsieur; the last of the cavalry passed three hours ago;
+the Emperor drove away half an hour later with Lulu--"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"The prince--pardon, monsieur--they call him Lulu in Paris."
+
+"Hurry," said Jack; "I want that horse at once."
+
+Ten minutes later he was galloping furiously down the forest road
+towards the Château de Nesville. The darkness was impenetrable,
+so he let the horse find his own path, and gave himself up to a
+profound dejection that at times amounted to blind fear. Before
+his eyes he saw the pallid face of the Marquis de Nesville, he
+saw the man stretched on the floor, horribly still; that was the
+worst, the stillness of the body.
+
+The sky was gray through the trees when he turned into the park
+and skirted the wall to the wicket. The wicket was locked. He
+rang repeatedly, he shook the grille and pounded on the iron
+escutcheon with the butt of his riding-crop; and at length a
+yawning servant appeared from the gate-lodge and sleepily dragged
+open the wicket.
+
+"The marquis was ill, have you heard anything?" asked Jack.
+
+"The marquis is there on the porch," said the servant, with a
+gesture towards the house.
+
+Jack's heart leaped up. "Thank God!" he muttered, and dismounted,
+throwing his bridle to the porter, who now appeared in the
+doorway.
+
+He could see the marquis walking to and fro, hands clasped behind
+his strong, athletic back; his head was turned in Jack's
+direction. "The marquis is crazy," thought Jack, hesitating. He
+was convinced now that long brooding over ancient wrongs had
+unsettled the man's mind. There had always been something in his
+dazzling blue eyes that troubled Jack, and now he knew it was the
+pale light of suppressed frenzy. Still, he would have to face him
+sooner or later, and he did not recoil now that the hour and the
+place and the man had come.
+
+"I'll settle it once for all," he thought, and walked straight up
+the path to the house. The marquis came down the steps to meet
+him.
+
+"I expected you," he said, without a trace of anger. "I have much
+to say to you. Will you come in or shall we sit in the arbour
+there? You will enter? Then come to the turret, Monsieur Marche."
+
+Jack would have refused, but he had not the courage. He was not
+at all pleased at the idea of mounting to a turret with a man
+whom he had laid violent hands on the night before, a man whom he
+had seen succumb to an access of insane fury in the presence of
+the Emperor of France. But he went, cursing the cowardice that
+prevented him from being cautious; and in a few moments he entered
+the chamber where retorts and bottles and steel machinery littered
+every corner, and the pale dawn broke through the window in ghastly
+streams of light, changing the candle-flames to sickly greenish
+blotches.
+
+They sat opposite each other, neither speaking. Jack glanced at a
+heavy steel rod on the floor beside him. It was just as well to
+know it was there, in case of need.
+
+"Monsieur," said the marquis, abruptly, "I owe you a great deal
+more than my life, which is nothing; I owe you my family honour."
+
+This was a new way of looking at the situation; Jack fidgeted in
+his chair and eyed the marquis.
+
+"Thanks to you," he continued, quietly, "I am not an assassin, I
+am not a butcher of dogs. The De Nesvilles were never public
+executioners--they left that to the Bonapartes and Monsieur de
+Paris."
+
+He rose hastily from his chair and held out a hand. Jack took it
+warily and returned the nervous pressure. Then they both resumed
+their seats.
+
+"Let us clear matters up," said the marquis in a wonderfully
+gentle voice, that would have been fascinating to more phlegmatic
+men than Jack--"let us clear up everything and understand each
+other. You, monsieur, dislike me; pardon--you dislike me for
+reasons of your own. I, on the contrary, like you; I like you
+better this moment than I ever did. Had you not come as I
+expected, had you not entered, had you refused to mount to the
+turret, I still should have liked you. Now I also respect you."
+
+Jack twisted and turned in his chair, not knowing what to think
+or say.
+
+
+"Why do you dislike me?" asked the marquis, quietly.
+
+"Because you are not kind to your daughter," said Jack, bluntly.
+
+To his horror the man's eyes filled with tears, big, glittering
+tears that rolled down his immovable face. Then a flush stained
+his forehead; the fever in his cheeks dried the tears.
+
+"Jack," he said, calling the young fellow by his name with a
+peculiarly tender gesture, "I loved my son. My soul died within
+me when René died, there on the muddy pavement of the Paris
+boulevards. I sometimes think I am perhaps a little out of my
+mind; I brood on it too much. That is why I flung myself into
+this"--with a sweep of his arm towards the flasks and machinery
+piled around. "Lorraine is a girl, sweet, lovable, loyal. But she
+is not my daughter."
+
+"Lorraine!" stammered Jack.
+
+"Lorraine."
+
+The young fellow sat up in his chair and studied the face of the
+pale man before him.
+
+"Not--your child?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Whose?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+After a silence the marquis stood up, and walked to the window.
+His face was haggard, his hair dishevelled.
+
+"No," he said, "Lorraine is not my daughter. She is not even my
+heiress. She was--she was--found, eighteen years ago."
+
+The room was becoming lighter; the sky grew faintly luminous and
+the mist from the stagnant fen curled up along the turret like
+smoke.
+
+Jack picked up his cap and riding-crop and rose; the marquis
+turned from the window to confront him. His face was no longer
+furrowed with pain, the cold light had crept back into his eyes.
+
+"Monsieur," said Jack, "I ask your permission to address
+Lorraine. I love her."
+
+The marquis stood silent, scarcely breathing.
+
+"You know who and what I am; you probably know what I have. It is
+enough for me; it will be enough for us both. I shall work to
+make it enough. I do not expect or wish for anything from you for
+Lorraine; I do not give it a thought. Lorraine does not love me,
+but," and here he spoke with humility, "I believe that she might.
+If I win her, will you give her to me?"
+
+"Win her?" repeated the marquis, with an ugly look. The man's
+face was changing now, darkening in the morning light.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, violently, "you may say to her what you
+please!" and he opened the door and showed Jack the way out.
+
+Dazed, completely mystified, Jack hurried away to find his horse
+at the gate where he had left him. The marquis was crazy, that
+was certain. These unaccountable moods and passions, following
+each other so abruptly, were nothing else but reactions from a
+life of silent suffering. All the way back to Morteyn he pondered
+on the strange scene in the turret, the repudiation of Lorraine,
+the sudden tenderness for himself, and then the apathy, the
+suppressed anger, the indifference coupled with unexplainable
+emotion.
+
+"No sane man could act like that," he murmured, as he rode into
+the Morteyn gate, and, with a smart slap of his hand on Faust's
+withers, he sent that intelligent animal at a trot towards the
+stables, where a groom awaited him with sponge and bucket.
+
+The gardeners were cleaning up the litter in the roads and paths
+left by the retreating army. The road by the gate was marked with
+hoof and wheel, but the macadam had not suffered very much, and
+already a roller was at work removing furrow and hoof-print.
+
+He entered the dining-room. It was empty. So also was the
+breakfast-room, for breakfast had been served an hour before.
+
+He sent for coffee and muffins and made a hasty breakfast,
+looking out of the window at times for signs of his aunt and
+Lorraine. The maid said that Madame de Morteyn had driven to
+Saint-Lys with the marquis, and that Mademoiselle de Nesville had
+gone to her room. So he finished his coffee, went to his room,
+changed his clothes, and sent a maid to inquire whether Lorraine
+would receive him in the small library at the head of the stairs.
+The maid returned presently, saying that Mademoiselle de Nesville
+would be down in a moment or two, so Jack strolled into the
+library and leaned out of the window to smoke.
+
+When she came in he did not hear her until she spoke.
+
+"Don't throw your cigarette away, monsieur; I permit you to
+smoke--indeed, I command it. How do you do?" This in very timid
+English. "I mean--good-morning--oh, dear, this terrible English
+language! Now you may sit there, in that large leather arm-chair,
+and you may tell me why you did not appear at breakfast. Is
+Monsieur Grahame still sleeping? Gone? Oh, dear! And you have
+been to the Château de Nesville? Is my father well? And contented?
+There, I knew he would miss me. Did you give him my dearest love?
+Thank you for remembering. Now tell me--"
+
+"What?" laughed Jack.
+
+"Everything, of course."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+She looked at him, but did not answer.
+
+Then he deliberately sat down and made love to her, not actual,
+open, unblushing love--but he started in to win her, and what his
+tongue refused to tell, his eyes told until trepidation seized
+her, and she sat back speechless, watching him with shy blue eyes
+that always turned when they met his, but always returned when
+his were lowered.
+
+It is a pretty game, this first preliminary of love--like the
+graceful sword-play and salute of two swordsmen before a duel.
+There was no one to cry "Garde à vous!" no one to strike up the
+weapons that were thrust at two unarmoured hearts, for the
+weapons were words and glances, and Love, the umpire, alas! was
+not impartial.
+
+So the timid heart of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she
+knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with
+desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that,
+if not utter treachery, was giving aid and encouragement to the
+enemy.
+
+Besieged, threatened, she sat there in the arm-chair, half
+frightened, half smiling, fearful yet contented, alarmed yet
+secure, now resisting, now letting herself drift on, until the
+result of the combination made Jack's head spin; and he felt
+resentful in his heart, and he said to himself what all men under
+such circumstances say to themselves--"Coquetry!"
+
+One moment he was sure she loved him, the next he was certain she
+did not. This oscillation between heaven and hell made him
+unhappy, and, manlike, he thought the fault was hers. This is the
+foundation for man's belief in the coquetry of women.
+
+As for Lorraine, she thrilled with a gentle fear that was the
+most delightful sensation she had ever known. She looked shyly at
+the strong-limbed, sunburned young fellow opposite, and she began
+to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head,
+every gesture, every change in his face she knew now--knew so
+well that she blushed at her own knowledge.
+
+But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not,
+although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she
+refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then
+she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then
+she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then--But it is
+always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of
+fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love.
+So the morning wore away.
+
+The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library
+with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after
+that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that
+Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the
+vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying on
+the lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy
+to sleep.
+
+He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and
+wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation
+to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two
+letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his
+sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.
+
+    "DEAR JACK,--I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off
+    to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at
+    Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to
+    come back. You're the only person on earth I can write
+    this to.
+
+    "Faithfully yours, MOLLY HESKETH."
+
+Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit
+of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could
+read between the lines--a man in love is less dense than when in
+his normal state--and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought
+of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing
+amid a shower of bricks and bursting shells, staring at war
+through a monocle.
+
+"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to
+Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came
+before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's
+drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment,
+that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led
+him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to
+the 11th Uhlans.
+
+"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half
+aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this
+war lasts."
+
+Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's
+lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's
+troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered
+whether any other troops were between him and Saarbrück. The
+truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But
+how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And
+there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the
+Germans should pass that way; not at all likely--but suppose they
+should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No,
+he could never go away and leave Lorraine--that was out of the
+question.
+
+He lighted a match and moodily burned Molly's letter to ashes in
+the fireplace. He also stirred the ashes up, for he was
+honourable in little things--like Ricky--and also, alas!
+apparently no novice.
+
+Dorothy's letter lay on the table--her third since she had left
+for Paris. He opened his knife and split the envelope carefully,
+still thinking of Lorraine.
+
+    "MY OWN DEAR JACK,--There is something I have been
+    trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I
+    have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall
+    tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so
+    if you do not read carefully between every line, you may
+    not find it, after all.
+
+    "I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and
+    ill--the excitement in the city and that horrid National
+    Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald
+    is away on business, she says--where, I forgot to ask
+    her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday.
+    Some ragamuffins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her.
+    Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think
+    I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very
+    cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to
+    Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the English
+    papers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me
+    sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear.
+
+    "The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every
+    day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no
+    men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d
+    of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you
+    know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there?
+    Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak
+    of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren.
+    Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and
+    write me _at once_. Don't forget--the _11th Uhlans_. Oh,
+    Jack, darling! can't you understand?
+
+    Your loving sister, DOROTHY."
+
+"Understand? What?" repeated Jack. He read the letter again
+carefully.
+
+"I can't see what the mischief is extraordinary in that," he
+mused, "unless she's giving me a tip about Sir Thorald; but
+no--she can't know anything in that direction. Now what is it
+that she has hidden away? Oh, here's a postscript."
+
+He turned the sheet and read:
+
+    "My love to aunt and uncle, Jack--don't forget. I am
+    writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in
+    Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out.
+    There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about
+    the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one
+    expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to the
+    _Berlin Post_ and the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ and the
+    _Munich Neueste Nachrichten_, but the horrid creature at
+    the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her
+    place. I hope the _Herald_ will give particulars of
+    losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on
+    earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?
+
+    "DORRIE.
+
+    "P. P. S.--Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I
+    ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to
+    find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."
+
+"Now, what on earth interests Dorrie in all these battle
+statistics?" he wondered; "and what in the name of common-sense
+can she find to interest her in the 11th Uhlans? Ricky? Absurd!"
+
+He repeated "absurd" two or three times, but he became more
+thoughtful a moment later, and sat smoking and pondering. That
+would be a nice muddle if she, the niece of a Frenchman--an
+American, too--should fix her affections on a captain of Uhlans
+whose regiment he, Jack Marche, would avoid as he would hope to
+avoid the black small-pox.
+
+"Absurd," he repeated for the fourth time, and tossed his
+cigarette into the open fireplace. And as he rose to go up-stairs
+something out on the road by the gate attracted his attention,
+and he went to the window.
+
+Three horsemen sat in their saddles on the lawn, lance on thigh,
+eyes fixed on him.
+
+They were Uhlans!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+"IN THE HOLLOW OF THY HAND"
+
+
+For a moment he recoiled as though he had received a blow between
+the eyes.
+
+There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over
+one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points,
+schabraques edged with yellow--aye, and tunics also, yellow and
+blue--those were the colours--the colours of the 11th Uhlans.
+
+Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what
+it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done--death
+even though the man he had shot were not dead--death though he
+had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its
+most awful form--hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian,
+foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing
+upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the
+sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling,
+informing, or otherwise, was hung--sometimes with a drum-head
+court-martial, sometimes without.
+
+Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he
+leaned back against the table, cold with fear.
+
+This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the
+needle-guns sent a shower of lead over his rocky observatory;
+the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when
+he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in
+the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle horsemen.
+
+Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did
+not understand ropes.
+
+He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there
+were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back
+from the open window. Had they seen him?
+
+All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled
+like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans,
+plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a
+fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were
+gone.
+
+Utterly unnerved, Jack sank into the arm-chair. What should he
+do? If he stayed at Morteyn he stood a good chance of hanging. He
+could not leave his aunt and uncle, nor could he tell them, for
+the two old people would fall sick with the anxiety. And yet, if
+he stayed at Morteyn, and the Germans came, it might compromise
+the whole household and bring destruction to Château and park. He
+had not thought of that before, but now he remembered also
+another German rule, inflexible, unvarying. It was this, that in
+a town or village where the inhabitants resisted by force or
+injured any German soldier, the village should be burned and the
+provisions and stock confiscated for the use of King Wilhelm's
+army.
+
+Shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he sprang to his feet and
+walked hastily to the terrace. Nothing was to be seen on the
+road, nor yet in the meadows beyond. Up-stairs he heard
+Lorraine's voice, and his aunt's voice, too. Sometimes they
+laughed a little in low tones, and he even caught the rustle of
+stiff silken embroidery against the window-sill.
+
+His mind was made up in an instant; his coolness returned as the
+colour returns to a pale cheek. The Uhlans had probably not seen
+him; if they had, it made little difference, for even the picquet
+that had chased him could not have recognized him at that
+distance. Then, again, in a whole regiment it was not likely that
+the three horsemen who had peeped at Morteyn through the
+road-gate could have been part of that same cursed picquet. No,
+the thing to avoid was personal contact with any of the 11th
+Uhlans. This would be a matter of simple prudence; outside of
+that he had nothing to fear from the Prussian army. Whenever he
+saw the schapskas and lances he would be cautious; when these
+lances were pennoned with black and white, and when the schapskas
+and schabraques were edged with yellow, he would keep out of the
+way altogether. It shamed him terribly to think of his momentary
+panic; he cursed himself for a coward, and dug his clenched fists
+into both pockets. But even as he stood there, withering himself
+with self-scorn, he could not help hoping that his aunt and uncle
+would find it convenient to go to Paris soon. That would leave
+him free to take his own chances by remaining, to be near
+Lorraine. For it did not occur to him that he might leave Morteyn
+as long as Lorraine stayed.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when he lighted a pipe and walked
+out to the road, where the smooth macadam no longer bore the
+slightest trace of wheel or hoof, and nobody could have imagined
+that part of an army corps had passed there the night before.
+
+He felt lonely and a little despondent, and he walked along the
+road to the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn and sat down at her
+naked stone feet. And as he sat there smoking, twirling his
+shooting-cap in his hands, without the least warning a horseman,
+advancing noiselessly across the turf, passed him, carbine on
+thigh, busby glittering with the silver skull and crossbones.
+Before he could straighten up another horseman passed, then
+another, then three, then six, then a dozen, all sitting with
+poised carbines, scarcely noticing him at all, the low, blazing
+sun glittering on the silver skulls and crossed thigh-bones, deep
+set in their sombre head-gear.
+
+They were Black Hussars.
+
+A distant movement came to his ear at the same time, the soft
+shock of thousands of footfalls on the highway. He sprang up and
+started forward, but a trooper warned him back with a stern
+gesture, and he stood at the foot of the shrine, excited but
+outwardly cool, listening to the approaching trample.
+
+He knew what it meant now; these passing videttes were the dust
+before the tempest, the prophecy of the deluge. For the sound on
+the distant highway was the sound of infantry, and a host was on
+the march, a host helmeted with steel and shod with steel, a vast
+live bulk, gigantic, scaled in mail, whose limbs were human,
+whose claws were lances and bayonets, whose red tongues were
+flame-jets from a thousand cannon.
+
+The German army had entered France and the province of Lorraine
+was a name.
+
+Like a hydra of three hideous heads the German army had pushed
+its course over the Saar, over the Rhine, over the Lauter; it
+sniffed at the frontier line; licked Wissembourg and the
+Spicheren with flaming tongues, shuddered, coiled, and glided
+over the boundary into the fair land of Lorraine. Then, like some
+dreadful ringed monster, it cast off two segments, north, south,
+and moved forward on its belly, while the two new segments,
+already turned to living bodies, with heads and eyes and
+contracted scales, struggled on alone, diverging to the north and
+south, creeping, squirming, undulating, penetrating villages and
+cities, stretching across hills and rivers, until all the land
+was shining with shed scales and the sky reeked with the smoke of
+flaming tongues. This was the invasion of France. Before it
+Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before
+it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte
+had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour
+lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet
+of the Garde Impériale.
+
+On the hill-sides of Lorraine were letters of fire, writing for
+all France to read, and every separate letter was a flaming
+village. The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards
+Châlons; Bazaine read it and said, "There is time;" MacMahon,
+Canrobert, Lebœuf, Ladmirault read it and wondered idly what it
+meant, till Vinoy turned a retreat into a triumph, and Gambetta,
+flabby, pompous, unbalanced, bawled platitudes from the Palais
+Bourbon.
+
+In three splendid armies the tide of invasion set in; the Red
+Prince tearing a bloody path to Metz, the Crown Prince riding
+west by south, resting in Nancy, snubbing Toul, spreading out
+into the valley of the Marne to build three monuments of bloody
+bones--Saint-Marie, Amanvilliers, Saint-Privat.
+
+Metz, crouching behind Saint-Quentin and Les Bottes, turned her
+anxious eyes from Thionville to Saint-Julien and back to where
+MacMahon's three rockets should have starred the sky; and what
+she saw was the Red Prince riding like a fiery spectre from east
+to west; what she saw was the spiked helmets of the Feldwache and
+the sodded parapets of Longeau. Chained and naked, the beautiful
+city crouched in the tempest that was to free her forever and
+give her the life she scorned, the life more bitter than death.
+
+Something of this ominous prophecy came to Jack, standing below
+the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn, listening to the on-coming
+shock of German feet, as he watched the cavalry riding past in
+the glow of the setting sun.
+
+And now the infantry burst into view, a gloomy, solid column tramp,
+tramp along the road--jägers, with their stiff fore-and-aft shakos,
+dull-green tunics, and snuffy, red-striped trousers tucked into
+dusty half-boots. On they came, on, on--would they never pass? At
+last they were gone, somewhere into the flaming west, and now the
+red sunbeams slanted on eagle crests and tipped the sea of polished
+spiked helmets with fire, for a line regiment was coming, shaking
+the earth with its rhythmical tramp--thud! thud! thud!
+
+He looked across the fields to the hills beyond; more regiments,
+dark masses moving against the sky, covered the landscape far as
+the eye could reach; cavalry, too, were riding on the Saint-Avold
+road through the woods; and beyond that, vague silhouettes of
+moving wagons and horsemen, crawling out into the world of valleys
+that stretched to Bar-le-Duc and Avricourt.
+
+Oppressed, almost choked, as though a rising tide had washed
+against his breast, ever mounting, seething, creeping, climbing,
+he moved forward, waiting for a chance to cross the road and gain
+the Château, where he could see the servants huddling over the
+lawn, and the old vicomte, erect, motionless, on the terrace
+beside his wife and Lorraine.
+
+Already in the meadow behind him the first bivouac was pitched;
+on the left stood a park of field artillery, ammunition-wagons in
+the rear, and in front the long lines of picket-ropes to which
+the horses were fastened, their harness piled on the grass behind
+them.
+
+The forge was alight, the farriers busy shoeing horses; the
+armourer also bent beside his blazing forge, and the tinkling of
+his hammer on small-arms rose musically above the dull shuffle of
+leather-shod feet on the road.
+
+To the right of the artillery, bisected as is the German fashion,
+lay two halves of a battalion of infantry. In the foreground the
+officers sat on their camp-chairs, smoking long faïence pipes; in
+the rear, driven deep into the turf, the battalion flag stood
+furled in its water-proof case, with the drum-major's halberd
+beside it, and drums and band instruments around it on the grass.
+Behind this lay a straight row of knapsacks, surrounded by the
+rolled great-coats; ten paces to the rear another similar row;
+between these two rows stood stacks of needle-guns, then another
+row of knapsacks, another stack of needle-guns, stretching with
+mathematical exactness to the grove of poplars by the river. A
+cordon of sentinels surrounded the bivouac; there was a group of
+soldiers around a beer-cart, another throng near the wine-cart.
+All was quiet, orderly, and terribly sombre.
+
+Near the poplar-trees the pioneers had dug their trenches and
+lighted fires. Across the trenches, on poles of green wood, were
+slung simmering camp-kettles.
+
+He turned again towards the Château; a regiment of Saxon riders
+was passing--had just passed--and he could get across now, for
+the long line had ended and the last Prussian cuirassiers were
+vanishing over the hill, straight into the blaze of the setting
+sun.
+
+As he entered the gate, behind him, from the meadow, an infantry
+band crashed out into a splendid hymn--a hymn in praise of the
+Most High God, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
+
+And the soldiers' hoarse voices chimed in--
+
+    "Thou, who in the hollow of Thy Hand--"
+
+And the deep drums boomed His praise.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE
+
+
+The candles were lighted again in the ballroom, and again the
+delicate, gilded canapés were covered with officers, great
+stalwart fellows with blond hair and blue eyes, cuirassiers in
+white tunics faced with red, cuirassiers in green and white,
+black, yellow, and white, orange and white; dragoons in blue and
+salmon colour, bearing the number "7" on their shoulder-straps,
+dragoons of the Guard in blue and white, dragoons of the 2d
+Regiment in black and blue. There were hussars too, dandies of
+the 19th in their tasselled boots and crimson busby-crowns; Black
+Hussars, bearing, even on their soft fatigue-caps, the emblems of
+death, the skull and crossed thigh-bones. An Uhlan or two of the
+2d Guard Regiment, trimmed with white and piped with scarlet,
+dawdled around the salon, staring at gilded clock and candelabra,
+or touching the grand-piano with hesitating but itching fingers.
+Here and there officers of the general staff stood in consultation,
+great, stiff, strapping men, faultlessly clothed in scarlet and
+black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms.
+The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals,
+some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little
+even when questioned. The huge Saxon officers, beaming with
+good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men
+and the stiff-necked Prussians.
+
+In the long dining-room dinner was nearly ended. Facing each
+other sat the old Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, he pale,
+dignified, exquisitely courteous, she equally pale but more
+gentle in her sweet dignity. On the right sat the Red Prince,
+stiff as steel, jerky in every movement, stern, forbidding,
+unbending as much as his black Prussian blood would let him; on
+the left sat a thin old man, bald as an ivory ball, pallid,
+hairless of face, a frame of iron in a sombre, wrinkled tunic,
+without a single decoration. His short hawk's nose, keen and fine
+as a falcon's beak, quivered with every breath; his thin lips
+rested one upon the other in stern, delicate curves. It was
+Moltke, the master expert, come from Berlin to watch the wheels
+turning in that vast complicated network of machinery which he
+controlled with one fragile finger pressing the button.
+
+There, too, was Von Zastrow, destined to make his error at
+Gravelotte, there was Steinmetz, and the handsome Saxon prince,
+and great, flabby August of Würtemberg, talking with Alvensleben,
+dainty, pious, aristocratic. Behind, in the shadow, stood
+Manstein and Goben, a grim, gray pair, with menacing eyes.
+Perhaps they were thinking of the Red Prince's parting words at
+the Spicheren: "Your duty is to march forward, always forward,
+find the enemy, prevent his escape, and fight him wherever you
+find him." To which the fastidious and devout Alvensleben
+muttered, "In the name of God," and poor, brave Kamecke,
+shuddering as he thought of his Westphalians and the cul-de-sac
+where he had sent them on the 6th day of August, sighed and
+looked out into deepening twilight.
+
+Outside a Saxon infantry band began to play a masterpiece of
+Beethoven. It seemed to be the signal for breaking up, and the
+Red Prince, with abrupt deference, turned to Madame de Morteyn,
+who gave the signal and rose. The Red Prince stepped back as the
+old vicomte gave his wife a trembling arm. Then he bowed where he
+stood, clothed in his tight, blood-red tunic, tall, powerful,
+square-jawed, cruel-mouthed, and eyed like a wolf. But his
+forehead was fine, broad, and benevolent, and his beard softened
+the wicked curve of his lips.
+
+Jack and Lorraine had again dined together in the little gilded
+salon above, served by Lorraine's maid and wept over by the old
+house-keeper.
+
+The terrified servants scarcely dared to breathe as they crept
+through the halls where, "like a flight of devils from hell" the
+"Prussian ogres" had settled in the house. They came whimpering
+to their mistress, but took courage at the calm, dignified
+attitude of the old vicomte, and began to think that these
+"children-eating Prussians" might perhaps forego their craving
+for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a
+group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to
+their own plumpness and possible desirability for ragoûts.
+
+The old marquis himself received his unwelcome guests as though
+he were receiving travelling strangers, to whom, now that they
+were under his roof, faultless hospitality was due, nothing more,
+merely the courtesy of a French nobleman to an uninvited guest.
+
+Ah, but the steel was in his heart to the hilt. He, an old
+soldier of the Malakoff, of Algeria, the brother in arms of
+Changarnier, of Chanzy, he obliged to receive invaders--invaders
+belonging to the same nation which had lined the streets of
+Berlin so long ago, cringing, whining "Vive l'Empereur!" at the
+crack of the thongs of Murat's horsemen!
+
+Yet now it was that he showed himself the chivalrous soldier, the
+old colonel of the old régime, the true beau-sabreur of an epoch
+dead. And the Red Prince Frederick Charles knew it, and bowed low
+as the vicomte left the dining-hall with his gentle, pale-faced
+wife on his arm.
+
+Jack, sitting after dinner with Lorraine in the bay-window above,
+looked down upon the vast camp that covered the whole land, from
+the hills to the Lisse, from the forest to the pastures above
+Saint-Lys. There were no tents--the German army carried none.
+Here and there a canvas-covered wagon glistened white in the
+moonlight; the pale radiance fell on acres of stacked rifles, on
+the brass rims of drums, and the spikes of the sentries' helmets.
+Videttes, vaguely silhouetted on distant knolls, stood almost
+motionless, save for the tossing of their horses' heads. Along
+the river Lisse the infantry pickets lay, the sentinels,
+patrolling their beats with brisk, firm steps, only pausing to
+bring their heavy heels together, wheel squarely, and retrace
+their steps, always alert and sturdy. The wind shifted to the
+west and the faint chimes of Saint-Lys came quavering on the
+breeze.
+
+"The bells!" said Jack; "can you hear them?"
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine, listlessly.
+
+She had been very silent during their dinner. He wondered that
+she had not shown any emotion at the sight of the invading
+soldiers. She had not--she had scarcely even shown curiosity. He
+thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this
+swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and
+the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated,
+at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen,
+trampling the meadows of the province that he loved--the province
+of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know
+two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the
+new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of
+those whom she has sheltered.
+
+So Jack felt the shame and humiliation as though a blow had been
+struck at his own home and kin, and he suffered the more thinking
+what his uncle must suffer. And Lorraine! His heart had bled for
+her when the harsh treble of the little, flat Prussian drums
+first broke out among the hills. He looked for the deep sorrow,
+the patience, the proud endurance, the prouder faith that he
+expected in her; he met with silence, even a distrait indifference.
+
+Surely she could comprehend what this crushing disaster
+prophesied for France? Surely she of all women, sensitive,
+tender, and loyal, must know what love of kin and country meant?
+
+Far away in the southwest the great heart of Paris throbbed in
+silence, for the beautiful, sinful city, confused by the din of
+the riffraff within her walls, blinded by lies and selfish
+counsels, crouched in mute agony, listening for the first ominous
+rumbling of a rotten, tottering Empire.
+
+God alone knows why he gave to France, in the supreme moment of
+her need, the beings who filled heaven with the wind of their
+lungs and brought her to her knees in shame--not for brave men
+dead in vain, not for a wasted land, scourged and flame-shrunken
+from the Rhine to the Loire, not for provinces lost nor cities
+gone forever--but for the strange creatures that her agony
+brought forth, shapes simian and weird, all mouth and convulsive
+movement, little pigmy abortions mouthing and playing antics
+before high Heaven while the land ran blood in every furrow and
+the world was a hell of flame.
+
+Gambetta, that incubus of bombastic flabbiness, roaring prophecy
+and platitude through the dismayed city, kept his eye on the
+balcony of the particular edifice where, later, he should pose as
+an animated Jericho trumpet. So, biding his time, he bellowed,
+but it was the Comédie Française that was the loser, not the
+people, when he sailed away in his balloon, posed, squatting
+majestically as the god of war above the clouds of battle. And
+little Thiers, furtive, timid, delighting in senile efforts to
+stir the ferment of chaos till it boiled, he, too, was there,
+owl-like, squeaky-voiced, a true "Bombyx à Lunettes." There, too,
+was Hugo--often ridiculous in his terrible moods, egotistical,
+sloppy, roaring. The Empire pinched Hugo, and he roared; and let
+the rest of the world judge whether, under such circumstances,
+there was majesty in the roar. The spectacle of Hugo, prancing on
+the ramparts and hurling bad names at the German armies, recalls
+the persistent but painful manœuvres of a lion with a flea. Both
+are terribly in earnest--neither is sublime.
+
+Jack sat leaning on the window-ledge, his chin on both hands,
+watching the moonlight rippling across the sea of steel below.
+Lorraine, also silent, buried in an arm-chair, lay huddled
+somewhere in the shadows, looking up at the stars, scarcely
+visible in the radiance of the moon.
+
+After a while she spoke in a low voice: "Do you remember in
+chapel a week ago--what--"
+
+"Yes, I know what you mean. Can you say it--any of it?"
+
+"Yes, all."
+
+Presently he heard her voice in the darkness repeating the
+splendid lines:
+
+"'In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and
+the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease
+because they are few, and they that look out of the windows be
+darkened.
+
+"'And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of
+the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a
+bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.
+
+"'Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall
+be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the
+grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.
+
+"'Because man goeth to his long home--'"
+
+Her voice broke a little.
+
+"'And the mourners go about the streets--'"
+
+He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a
+moment her fingers touched his, moved a little, and were clasped
+close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too
+deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression--a despair
+scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by
+realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first
+outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched
+hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved.
+Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and
+interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body.
+Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but
+not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as
+yet by the keen shaft of grief.
+
+He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to
+understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him,
+perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised
+everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.
+
+Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped
+her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!"--so
+he waited, there alone in the darkness.
+
+The bells of Saint-Lys sounded again, scarcely vibrating in the
+still air; a bank of sombre cloud buried the moon, and put out
+the little stars one by one until the blackness of the night
+crept in, blotting out river and tree and hill, hiding the silent
+camp in fathomless shadow. He slept.
+
+When he awoke, slowly, confused and uncertain, he found her close
+to him, kneeling on the floor, her face on his knees. He touched
+her arm, fearfully, scarcely daring; he touched her hair, falling
+heavily over her face and shoulders and across his knees. Ah!
+but she was tired--her very soul was weary and sick; and she was
+too young to bear her trouble. Therefore she came back to him who
+had reached out his hand to her. She could not cry--she could
+only lie there and try to live through the bitterness of her
+solitude. For now she knew at last that she was alone on earth.
+The knowledge had come in a moment, it had come with the first
+trample of the Prussian horsemen; she knew that her love, given
+so wholly, so passionately, was nothing, had been nothing, to her
+father. He whom she lived for--was it possible that he could
+abandon her in such an hour? She had waited all day, all night;
+she said in her heart that he would come from his machines and
+his turret to be with her. Together they could have lived through
+the shame of the day--of the bitter days to come; together they
+could have suffered, knowing that they had each other to live
+for.
+
+But she could not face the Prussian scourge alone--she could not.
+These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of
+the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade,
+every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that
+her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world
+could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of
+invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it
+nobly, who could have bidden her hope and pray and wait--he sat
+in his turret turning little wheels while the whole land shook
+with the throes of invasion--their native land, Lorraine.
+
+The death-throes of a nation are felt by all the world. Bismarck
+placed a steel-clad hand upon the pulse of France, and knew
+Lorraine lay dying. Amputation would end all--Moltke had the
+apparatus ready; Bismarck, the great surgeon and greater
+executioner, sat with mailed hand on the pulse of France and
+waited.
+
+The girl, Lorraine, too, knew the crisis had come--sensitive
+prophetess in all that she held sacred! She had never prayed for
+the Emperor, but she always prayed for France when she asked
+forgiveness night and morning. At confession she had accused
+herself sometimes because she could not understand the deeper
+meaning of this daily prayer, but now she understood it; the
+fierce love for native soil that blazes up when that soil is
+stamped upon and spurned.
+
+All the devotion, all the tender adoration, that she had given her
+father turned now to bitter grief for this dear land of hers. It, at
+least, had been her mother, her comforter, her consolation; and
+there it lay before her--it called to her; she responded passionately,
+and gave it all her love. So she lay there in the dark, her hot face
+buried in her hands, close to one whom she needed and who needed her.
+
+He was too wise to speak or move; he loved her too much to touch
+again the hair, flung heavily across her face--to touch her
+flushed brow, her clasped hands, her slender body, delicate and
+warm, firm yet yielding. He waited for the tears to come. And
+when they fell, one by one, great, hot drops, they brought no
+relief until she told him all--all--her last and inmost hope and
+fear.
+
+Then when her white soul lay naked in all its innocence before
+him, and when the last word had been said, he raised her head
+and searched in her pure eyes for one message of love for
+himself.
+
+It was not there; and the last word had been said.
+
+And, even as he looked, holding her there almost in his arms, the
+Prussian trumpets clanged from the dim meadows and the drums
+thundered on the hills, and the invading army roused itself at
+the dawn of another day.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE STRETCHING OF NECKS
+
+
+For two days and nights the German army passed through Morteyn
+and Saint-Lys, on the march towards Metz. All day long the hills
+struck back the echoes of their flat brass drums, and shook with
+the shock of armed squadrons, tramping on into the west.
+Interminable trains of wagons creaked along the sandy Saint-Avold
+road; the whistle of the locomotive was heard again at Saint-Lys,
+where the Bavarians had established a base of supplies and were
+sending their endless, multicoloured trains puffing away towards
+Saarbrück for provisions and munitions of war that had arrived
+there from Cologne. Generals with their staffs, serious, civil
+fellows, with anxious, near-sighted eyes, stopped at the Château
+and were courteously endured, only to be replaced by others
+equally polite and serious. And regularly, after each batch left
+with their marching regiments, there came back to the Château by
+courier, the same evening, a packet of visiting-cards and a
+polite letter signed by all the officers entertained, thanking
+the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn for their hospitality.
+
+At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the
+afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the
+hills west of Morteyn, and the last straggling Uhlan followed
+after, twirling his long lance.
+
+Every day Lorraine had watched and waited for one word from her
+father; every day Jack had ridden over to the Château de
+Nesville, but the marquis refused to see him or to listen to any
+message, nor did he send any to Lorraine.
+
+Old Pierre told Jack that no Germans had visited the Château;
+that the marquis was busy all day with his machinery, and never
+left his turret except to eat at daylight in the grand salon
+below. He also intimated that his master was about ready to make
+another ascension in the new balloon, which, old Pierre affirmed,
+had a revolving screw at either side of the wicker car, like a
+ship; and, like a ship, it could be steered with perfect ease. He
+even took Jack to a little stone structure that stood in a
+meadow, surrounded by trees. In there, according to Pierre, stood
+this marvellous balloon, not yet inflated, of course. That was
+only a matter of five seconds; a handful of the silver dust
+placed at the aperture of the silken bag, a drop of pure water
+touched to it, and, puff! the silver dust turns to vapour and the
+balloon swells out tight and full.
+
+Jack had peeped into the barred window and had seen the wicker
+car of the balloon standing on the cement floor, filled with the
+folded silken covering for the globe of the balloon. He could
+just make out, on either side of the car, two twisted twin
+screws, wrought out of some dull oxidized metal. On returning to
+Morteyn that evening he had told Lorraine.
+
+She explained that the screws were made of a metal called
+aluminum, rare then, because so difficult to extract from its
+combining substances, and almost useless on account of its being
+impossible to weld. Her father, however, had found a way to
+utilize it--how, she did not know. If this ascension proved a
+success the French government would receive the balloon and the
+secret of the steering and propelling gear, along with the
+formula for the silvery dust used to inflate it. Even she
+understood what a terrible engine of war such an aërial ship
+might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after
+fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies
+could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before
+a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from the clouds.
+
+On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left
+Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the
+marquis--for Lorraine's sake.
+
+He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was
+disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned
+lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.
+
+"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't
+worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working
+for France."
+
+He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long
+as she lived. He said, too, that the marquis was labouring for
+France. So he was; but France would never see the terrible war
+engine, nor know the secrets of its management, as long as
+Napoleon III. was struggling to keep his family in the high
+places of France.
+
+"Good-by," he said again. "I shall be back by sundown."
+
+Lorraine leaned over the terrace, looking down at him with blue,
+fathomless eyes.
+
+"By sundown?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Truly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tiens ta Foy."
+
+"Always, Lorraine."
+
+She did not chide him; she longed to call him Jack, but it stuck
+in her white throat when she tried.
+
+"If you do not come back by sundown, then I shall know you
+cannot," she said.
+
+"But I shall."
+
+"Yes, I believe it."
+
+"Come after me if I don't return," he laughed, as he descended
+the steps.
+
+"I shall, if you break your faith," she smiled.
+
+She watched him out of sight--he was going on foot this
+time--then the trees hid him, and she turned back into the house,
+where Madame de Morteyn was preparing to close the Château for
+the winter and return to Paris.
+
+It was the old vicomte who had decided; he had stayed and faced
+the music as long as there was any to face--Prussian music, too.
+But now the Prussians had passed on towards Metz--towards Paris,
+also, perhaps, and he wished to be there; it was too sad in the
+autumn of Lorraine.
+
+He had aged fearfully in the last four days; he was in truth an old
+man now. Even he knew it--he who had never before acknowledged age;
+but he felt it at night; for it is when day is ended that the old
+comprehend how old they are.
+
+This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning
+Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to
+Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people
+once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and
+surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and
+return to Morteyn with one servant. This he had promised
+Lorraine, and she had not said no. His aunt also wished it, but
+she did not think it time yet to tell the vicomte.
+
+The servants, with the exception of one maid and the coachman,
+had gone in the morning, by way of Vigny, with the luggage. The
+vicomte and his wife were to travel by carriage to Passy-le-Sel,
+and from there, via Belfort, if the line were open, to Paris by
+rail. Jack, it had been arranged, was to ride to Belfort on
+horseback, and join the old people there for the journey to
+Paris.
+
+So Lorraine turned back into the silent house, where the
+furniture stood in its stiff, white dust-coverings, where cloths
+covered candelabra and mirror, and the piano was bare of
+embroidered scarfs.
+
+She passed through darkened rooms, one after another, through the
+long hall, where no servants remained, through the ballroom and
+dining-room, and out into the conservatory, emptied of every
+palm. She passed on across the interior court, through the
+servants' wicket, and out to the stables. All the stalls save one
+were empty. Faust stood in that one stall switching his tail and
+peering around at her with wise, dark eyes. Then she kissed his
+soft nose, and went sadly back to the house, only to roam over it
+again from terrace to roof, never meeting a living soul, never
+hearing a sound except when she passed the vicomte's suite, where
+Madame de Morteyn and the maid were arranging last details and
+the old vicomte lay asleep in his worn arm-chair.
+
+There was one room she had not visited, one room in which she had
+never set foot, never even peeped into. That was Jack's room. And
+now, by an impulse she could not understand, her little feet led
+her up the stairway, across the broad landing, through the
+gun-room, and there to the door--his door. It was open. She
+glided in.
+
+There was a faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather,
+too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or
+perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle.
+Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes,
+cigar-boxes, neckties, riding-crops, and gloves.
+
+She stole on tiptoe to the bed, looked at her wide, bright eyes
+in the mirror opposite, flushed, hesitated, bent swiftly, and
+touched the white pillow with her lips.
+
+For a second she knelt there where he might have knelt, morning
+and evening, then slipped to her feet, turned, and was gone.
+
+At sundown Jack returned, animated, face faintly touched with red
+from his three-mile walk. He had seen the marquis; more, too, he
+had seen the balloon--he had examined it, stood in the wicker
+car, tested the aluminum screws. He brought back a message for
+Lorraine, affectionate and kindly, asking for her return home
+early the next morning.
+
+"If we do not find you at Belfort to-morrow," said Madame de
+Morteyn, seriously, "we shall not wait. We shall go straight on
+to Paris. The house is ready to be locked, everything is in
+perfect order, and really, Jack, there is no necessity for your
+coming. Perhaps Lorraine's father may ask you to stay there for a
+few days."
+
+"He has," said Jack, growing a trifle pink.
+
+"Then you need not come to Belfort at all," insisted his aunt.
+Jack protested that he could not let them go to Paris alone.
+
+"But I've sent Faust on already," said Madame de Morteyn,
+smiling.
+
+"Then the Marquis de Nesville will lend me a horse; you can't
+keep me away like that," said Jack; "I will drive Mademoiselle de
+Nesville to her home and then come on horseback and meet you at
+Belfort, as I said I would."
+
+"We won't count on you," said his aunt; "if you're not there when
+the train comes, your uncle and I will abandon you to the mercy
+of Lorraine."
+
+"I shall send him on by freight," said Lorraine, trying to smile.
+
+"I'm going back to the Château de Nesville to-night for an hour
+or two," observed Jack, finishing his Moselle; "the marquis
+wanted me to help him on the last touches. He makes an ascent
+to-morrow noon."
+
+"Take a lantern, then," said Madame de Morteyn; "don't you want
+Jules, too--if you're going on foot through the forest?"
+
+"Don't want Jules, and the squirrels won't eat me," laughed Jack,
+looking across at Lorraine. He was thinking of that first dash in
+the night together, she riding with the fury of a storm-witch,
+her ball-gown in ribbons, her splendid hair flashing, he
+galloping at her stirrup, putting his horse at a dark figure that
+rose in their path; and then the collision, the trample, the
+shots in the dark, and her round white shoulder seared with the
+bullet mark.
+
+She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going
+to start.
+
+"Now," he said.
+
+"You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de
+Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her
+chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with
+Lorraine.
+
+Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised
+Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.
+
+"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.
+
+"Always, Lorraine."
+
+The night was starless. As he stood there on the terrace swinging
+his lantern, he looked back at her, up into her eyes. And as he
+looked she bent down, impulsively stretching out both arms and
+whispering, "At eleven--you have promised, Jack."
+
+At last his name had fallen from her lips--had slipped from them
+easily--sweet as the lips that breathed it.
+
+He tried to answer; he could not, for his heart beat in his
+throat. But he took her two hands and crushed them together and
+kissed the soft, warm palms, passive under his lips. That was
+all--a touch, a glimpse of his face half lit by the lantern
+swinging; and again she called, softly, "Jack, 'Tiens ta Foy!'"
+And he was gone.
+
+The distance to the Château de Nesville was three miles; it might
+have been three feet for all Jack knew, moving through the
+forest, swinging his lantern, his eyes on the dim trees towering
+into the blackness overhead, his mind on Lorraine. Where the
+lantern-light fell athwart rugged trunks, he saw her face; where
+the tall shadows wavered and shook, her eyes met his. Her voice
+was in the forest rumour, the low rustle of leafy undergrowth,
+the whisper of waters flowing under silent leaves.
+
+Already the gray wall of the park loomed up in the east, already
+the gables and single turret of the Château grew from the shadows
+and took form between the meshed branches of the trees.
+
+The grille swung wide open, but the porter was not there. He
+walked on, hastening a little, crossed the lawn by the summer
+arbour, and approached the house. There was a light in the
+turret, but the rest of the house was dark. As he reached the
+porch and looked into the black hallway, a slight noise in the
+dining-room fell upon his ear, and he opened the door and went
+in. The dining-room was dark; he set his extinguished lantern on
+the table and lighted a lamp by the window, saying: "Pierre, tell
+the marquis I am here--tell him I am to return to Morteyn by
+eleven--Pierre, do you hear me? Where are you, then?"
+
+He raised his head instinctively, his hand on the lamp-globe.
+Pierre was not there, but something moved in the darkness outside
+the window, and he went to the door.
+
+"Pierre!" he called again; and at the same instant an Uhlan
+struck him with his lance-butt across the temples.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+How long it was before he opened his eyes he could not tell. He
+found himself lying on the ground in a meadow surrounded by
+trees. A camp-fire flickered near, lighting the gray side of the
+little stone house where the balloon was kept.
+
+There were sounds--deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or
+threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing,
+crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt
+button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished schapskas and
+gold-scaled chin-guards. The knot of struggling figures suddenly
+widened out into a half-circle, then came a quick command, a cry
+in French--"Ah! God!"--and something shot up into the air and
+hung from a tree, dangling, full in the firelight.
+
+It was the writhing body of a man.
+
+Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands.
+Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat,
+leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.
+
+Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: "Links! vorwärts!" There
+came a regular tramp of feet--one, two! one, two!--across the
+grass, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in
+his arms.
+
+The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he
+saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right--tall
+Uhlans, buttoned to the chin in their sombre overcoats,
+helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.
+
+Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a
+second or two before he even heard him.
+
+"Prisoner, do you understand German?" repeated the Uhlan,
+harshly.
+
+"Yes," muttered Jack. He began to shiver, perhaps from the chill
+of the wet earth.
+
+"Stand up!"
+
+Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his
+eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the
+man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to
+that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling
+oak-branch at the edge of the grove.
+
+Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name pronounced;
+he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispassionate
+voice--"accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian
+Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully,
+maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded
+trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty."
+
+Again he heard the same voice: "The law of non-combatants
+operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty
+due."
+
+Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now
+he knew him--the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who
+had scaled the park wall with the box--that was the face he had
+struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face,
+with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the
+man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in
+pencil on the maps--Siurd von Steyr!
+
+Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted
+to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispassionate and
+harsh as ever when he said: "The prisoner Marche is at liberty to
+confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!"
+
+There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled
+into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with
+trailing spurs across the road to the tree.
+
+From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his
+name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of
+tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-glasses told
+him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the
+hill-side.
+
+One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks,
+saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.
+
+"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr.
+
+Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was
+choking. Everything around him swam in darkness--a darkness lit
+by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their
+midst now, shouldered and shoved across the grass; their hot
+breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back
+his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree
+where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a
+swivel.
+
+It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the
+first cry out of him: "Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of God!
+Not--not this--"
+
+He was struggling now--he set his teeth and struck furiously. The
+crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man
+in their midst--more mounted men, shouting.
+
+The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in
+his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his
+fingers between the noose and his neck; now the thing loosened
+and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.
+
+"Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr!--here! get
+back there!--get back!"
+
+"Rickerl!" gasped Jack--"tell--tell them--they must shoot--not
+hang--"
+
+He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and
+distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless,
+haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the
+noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up,
+lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive
+horses wheeled.
+
+And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face
+like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car,
+which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.
+
+"This is not the place nor is this the time to judge your
+prisoners," said Rickerl, pushing his horse up to Von Steyr and
+scowling down into his face. "Who called this drum-head court? Is
+that your province? Oh, in my absence? Well, then, I am here! Do
+you see me?"
+
+The insult fell like the sting of a lash across Von Steyr's face.
+He saluted, and, looking straight into Rickerl's eyes, said, "Zum
+Befehl, Herr Hauptmann! I am at your convenience also."
+
+"When you please!" shouted Rickerl, crimson with fury. "Retire!"
+
+Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed
+his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a
+groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his
+hands to his head, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn
+gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as
+a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above
+his head. Then, through the ring of nervous, quivering horses the
+globe of the balloon appeared as by magic--an enormous, looming,
+yellow sphere, tense, glistening, gigantic.
+
+The horses reared, snorting with fright, the Uhlans clung to
+their saddles, shouting and cursing, and the huge balloon,
+swaying from its single rope, pounded and bounced from side to
+side, knocking beast and man into a chaotic mass of frantic
+horses and panic-stricken riders.
+
+With a report like a pistol the rope parted, the great globe
+bounded and shot up into the air; a tumult of harsh shouts arose;
+the crazed horses backed, plunged, and scattered, some falling,
+some bolting into the undergrowth, some rearing and swaying in an
+ecstasy of terror.
+
+The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long
+lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the
+banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the
+forest, drifting slowly westward.
+
+And now Von Steyr had a weapon in his hands--not a carbine, but a
+long chassepot-rifle, a relic of the despoiled franc-tireur,
+dangling from the oak-tree.
+
+Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!"
+
+"Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!"
+
+The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.
+
+The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest was belted by a blue
+line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in
+the sky. Then far away a light report startled the sudden
+stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall,
+swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and
+earth.
+
+"You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand
+at Von Steyr.
+
+"God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his
+teeth.
+
+Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.
+
+"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.
+
+Von Steyr stared around him, right and left--Jack was gone.
+
+"Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously--"if
+you escape my sabre in the morning."
+
+"Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked
+convulsively.
+
+"Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he
+cried. "Open order! Forward!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+RICKERL'S SABRE
+
+
+Jack, lying full length in the depths of the forest, listened
+fearfully for the sounds of the human pack on his heels. The
+blackness was stupefying; the thud of his own heart seemed to
+fill the shrouded forest like the roll of a muffled drum.
+Presently he crept on again, noiselessly, painfully, closing his
+eyes when the invisible twigs brushed his face.
+
+He did not know where he was going, he only thought of getting
+away, anywhere--away from that hangman's rope.
+
+Again he rested, suffocated by the tumult in his breast, burning
+with thirst. For a long while he lay listening; there was not a
+sound in the night. Little by little his coolness returned; he
+thought of Lorraine and his promise, and he knew that now he
+could not keep it. He thought, too, of the marquis, never
+doubting the terrible fate of the half-crazed man. He had seen
+him stun the soldier with a blow of the steel box, he had seen
+the balloon shoot up into the midnight sky, he had heard the shot
+and caught a glimpse of the glare of the burning balloon.
+Somewhere in the forest the battered body of the marquis lay in
+the wreck of the shattered car. The steel box, too, lay
+there--the box that was so precious to the Germans.
+
+He rose to his knees, felt around among the underbrush, bent his
+head and crept on, parting leaves and branches with one hand,
+holding the other over his eyes. The thought that he might be
+moving in a circle filled him with fear. But that was exactly
+what he was doing, for now he found himself close to the park
+wall; and, listening, he heard the river murmuring among the
+alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again
+could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True,
+he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was
+nothing but a reprieve at best.
+
+The murmur of the river filled his ears; his hot throat was
+cracking. Drink he must, at any rate, and he started on in the
+darkness, moving stealthily over the moss. The water was closer
+than he had imagined; he bent above it, first touching it with
+groping hands, then noiselessly bathed his feverish face in the
+dark stream, drinking his fill.
+
+He longed to follow the shallow stream, wading to Morteyn, but he
+dared not risk it; so he went along the bank as far as he could,
+trying to keep within sound of the waters, until again he found
+himself close to the park wall. The stream had vanished again.
+
+Dawn began to gray the forest; little by little the nearest trees
+grew from the darkness, and bushes took vague shapes in the
+gloom. He strained his eyes, peering at every object near him,
+striving to recognize stones, saplings, but he could not. Even
+when dawn at last came up out of the east, and the thickets grew
+distinct, he did not know where he was. A line of vapour through
+the trees marked the course of the little river. Which way was
+it flowing? Even that he could not tell. He looked in vain for
+the park wall; that had vanished utterly with the dawn. Very
+cautiously he advanced over the deep forest mould to the
+willow-fringed bank of the stream. The current was flowing east.
+Where was he? He parted the willows and looked out, and at the
+same instant an Uhlan saw him and shouted.
+
+Running swiftly through the trees, head lowered, hands clenched,
+he heard the sound of galloping on a soft road that seemed to run
+through the forest, parallel to his own course. Then, as he bore
+hastily to the right and plunged into the deeper undergrowth, he
+caught a glimpse of the Château close by through the trees.
+Horrified to find himself back at the place from which he had
+started, he doubled in his tracks, ran on, stooping low, splashed
+into the stream and across, and plunged up to the shoulders
+through the tall weeds and bushes until again he felt the forest
+leaves beneath his feet.
+
+The sudden silence around him was disconcerting. Where had the
+Uhlan gone? He ran on, making straight for the depths of the
+woods, for he knew now where he was, and in which direction
+safety lay.
+
+After a while his breath and legs gave out together, and he
+leaned against a beech-tree, his hands pressed to his mouth,
+where the breath struggled for expulsion. And, as he leaned
+there, two Uhlans, mounted, lances advanced, came picking their
+way among the trees, turning their heads cautiously from side to
+side. Behind these two rode six others, apparently unarmed, two
+abreast. He saw at once that nothing could save him, for they
+were making straight for his beech-tree. In that second of
+suspense he made up his mind to die fighting, for he knew what
+capture meant. He fixed his eyes on the foremost Uhlan, and
+waited. When the Uhlan should pass his tree he would fly at him;
+the rest could stab him to death with their lances--that was the
+only way to end it now.
+
+He shrank back, teeth set, nerving himself for the spring--a
+hunted thing turned fierce, a desperate man knowing that death
+was close. How long they were in coming! Had they seen him? When
+would the horse's nose pass the great tree-trunk?
+
+"Halt!" cried a voice very near. The soft trample of horses
+ceased.
+
+"Dismount!"
+
+It seemed an age; the sluggish seconds crawled on. There was the
+sound of feet among the dry forest leaves--the hum of deep
+voices. He waited, trembling, for now it would be a man on foot
+with naked sabre who should sink under his spring. Would he never
+come?
+
+At last, unable to stand the suspense, he moved his eyes to the
+edge of the tree. There they were, a group of Uhlans standing
+near two men who stood facing each other, jackets off, shirts
+open to the throat.
+
+The two men were Rickerl and Von Steyr.
+
+Rickerl rolled up his white shirt-sleeve and tucked the cuff into
+the folds, his naked sabre under his arm. Von Steyr, in shirt,
+riding-breeches, and boots, stood with one leg crossed before the
+other, leaning on his bared sabre. The surgeon and the two
+seconds walked apart, speaking in undertones, with now and then a
+quick gesture from the surgeon. The three troopers held the
+horses of the party, and watched silently. When at last one of
+the Uhlans spoke, they were so near that every word was perfectly
+distinct to Jack:
+
+"Gentlemen, an affair of honour in the face of the enemy is
+always deplorable."
+
+Rickerl burst out violently. "There can be no compromise--no
+adjustment. Is it Lieutenant von Steyr who seeks it? Then I tell
+him he is a hangman and a coward! He hangs a franc-tireur who
+fires on us with explosive bullets, but he himself does not
+hesitate to disgrace his uniform and regiment by firing explosive
+bullets at an escaping wretch in a balloon!"
+
+"You lie!" said Von Steyr, his face convulsed. At the same moment
+the surgeon stepped forward with a gesture, the two seconds
+placed themselves; somebody muttered a formula in a gross bass
+voice and the swordsmen raised their heavy sabres and saluted.
+The next moment they were at it like tigers; their sabres flashed
+above their heads, the sabres of the seconds hovering around the
+outer edge of the circle of glimmering steel like snakes coiling
+to spring.
+
+To and fro swayed the little group under the blinding flashes of
+light, stroke rang on stroke, steel shivered and tinkled and
+clanged on steel.
+
+Fascinated by the spectacle, Jack crouched close to the tree,
+seeing all he dared to see, but keeping a sharp eye on the three
+Uhlans who were holding the horses, and who should have been
+doing sentry duty also. But they were human, and their eyes could
+not be dragged away from the terrible combat before them.
+
+Suddenly, from the woods to the right, a rifle-shot rang out,
+clear and sharp, and one of the Uhlans dropped the three bridles,
+straightened out to his full height, trembled, and lurched
+sideways. The horses, freed, backed into the other horses; the
+two remaining Uhlans tried to seize them, but another shot rang
+out--another, and then another. In the confusion and turmoil a
+voice cried: "Mount, for God's sake!" but one of the horses was
+already free, and was galloping away riderless through the woods.
+
+A terrible yell arose from the underbrush, where a belt of smoke
+hung above the bushes, and again the rifles cracked. Von Steyr
+turned and seized a horse, throwing himself heavily across the
+saddle; the surgeon and the two seconds scrambled into their
+saddles, and the remaining pair of Uhlans, already mounted,
+wheeled their horses and galloped headlong into the woods.
+
+Jack saw Rickerl set his foot in the stirrup, but his horse was
+restive and started, dragging him.
+
+"Hurry, Herr Hauptmann!" cried a Uhlan, passing him at a gallop.
+Rickerl cast a startled glance over his shoulder, where, from the
+thickets, a dozen franc-tireurs were springing towards him,
+shouting and shaking their chassepots. Something had given
+way--Jack saw that--for the horse started on at a trot, snorting
+with fright. He saw Rickerl run after him, seize the bridle,
+stumble, recover, and hang to the stirrup; but the horse tore
+away and left him running on behind, one hand grasping his naked
+sabre, one clutching a bit of the treacherous bridle.
+
+"À mort les Uhlans!" shouted the franc-tireurs, their ferocious
+faces lighting up as Rickerl's horse eluded its rider and crashed
+away through the saplings.
+
+Rickerl cast one swift glance at the savage faces, turned his
+head like a trapped wolf in a pit, hesitated, and started to run.
+A chorus of howls greeted him: "À mort!" "À mort le voleur!" "À
+la lanterne les Uhlans!"
+
+Scarcely conscious of what he was doing, Jack sprang from his
+tree and ran parallel to Rickerl.
+
+"Ricky!" he called in English--"follow me! Hurry! hurry!"
+
+The franc-tireurs could not see Jack, but they heard his voice,
+and answered it with a roar. Rickerl, too, heard it, and he also
+heard the sound of Jack's feet crashing through the willows along
+the river-bottom.
+
+"Jack!" he cried.
+
+"Quick! Take to the river-bank!" shouted Jack in English again.
+In a moment they were running side by side up the river-bottom,
+hidden from the view of the franc-tireurs.
+
+"Do as I do," panted Jack. "Throw your sabre away and follow me.
+It's our last chance." But Rickerl clung to his sabre and ran on.
+And now the park wall rose right in their path, seeming to block
+all progress.
+
+"We can't get over--it's ended," gasped Rickerl.
+
+"Yes, we can--follow," whispered Jack, and dashed straight into
+the river where it washed the base of the wall.
+
+"Do exactly as I do. Follow close," urged Jack; and, wading to the
+edge of the wall, he felt along under the water for a moment, then
+knelt down, ducked his head, gave a wriggle, and disappeared.
+Rickerl followed him, kneeling and ducking his head. At the same
+moment he felt a powerful current pulling him forward, and, groping
+around under the shallow water, his hands encountered the rim of a
+large iron conduit. He stuck his head into it, gave himself a push,
+and shot through the short pipe into a deep pool on the other side
+of the wall, from which Jack dragged him dripping and exhausted.
+
+"You are my prisoner!" said Jack, between his gasps. "Give me
+your sabre, Ricky--quick! Look yonder!" A loud explosion followed
+his words, and a column of smoke rose above the foliage of the
+vineyard before them.
+
+"Artillery!" blurted out Rickerl, in amazement.
+
+"French artillery--look out! Here come the franc-tireurs over the
+wall! Give me that sabre and run for the French lines--if you
+don't want to hang!" And, as Rickerl hesitated, with a scowl of
+hate at the franc-tireurs now swarming over the wall, Jack seized
+the sabre and jerked it violently from his hand.
+
+"You're crazy!" he muttered. "Run for the batteries!--here, this
+way!"
+
+A franc-tireur fired at them point-blank, and the bullet whistled
+between them. "Leave me. Give me my sabre," said Rickerl, in a
+low voice.
+
+"Then we'll both stay."
+
+"Leave me! I'll not hang, I tell you."
+
+"No."
+
+The franc-tireurs were running towards them.
+
+"They'll kill us both. Here they come!"
+
+"You stood by me--" said Jack, in a faint voice.
+
+Rickerl looked him in the eyes, hesitated, and cried, "I
+surrender! Come on! Hurry, Jack--for your sister's sake!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+SIR THORALD IS SILENT
+
+
+It was a long run to the foot of the vineyard hill, where, on the
+crest, deep hidden among the vines, three cannon clanged at
+regular intervals, stroke following stroke, like the thundering
+summons of a gigantic tocsin.
+
+Behind them they saw the franc-tireurs for a moment, thrashing
+waist-deep through the rank marsh weeds; then, as they plunged
+into a wheat-field, the landscape disappeared, and all around the
+yellow grain rustled, waving above their heads, dense, sun-heated,
+suffocating.
+
+Their shoes sank ankle-deep in the reddish-yellow soil; they
+panted, wet with perspiration as they ran. Jack still clutched
+Rickerl's sabre, and the tall corn, brushing the blade, fell
+under the edge, keen as a scythe.
+
+"I can go no farther," breathed Jack, at last. "Wait a moment,
+Ricky."
+
+The hot air in the depths of the wheat was stifling, and they
+stretched their heads above the sea of golden grain, gasping like
+fishes in a bowl.
+
+"Perhaps I won't have to surrender you, after all," said Jack.
+"Do you see that old straw-stack on the slope? If we could reach
+the other slope--"
+
+He held out his hand to gauge the exact direction, then bent
+again and plodded towards it, Rickerl jogging in his footprints.
+
+As they pressed on under the rustling canopy, the sound of the
+cannon receded, for they were skirting the vineyard at the base
+of the hill, bearing always towards the south. And now they came
+to the edge of the long field, beyond which stretched another
+patch of stubble. The straw-stack stood half-way up the slope.
+
+"Here's your sabre," motioned Jack. He was exhausted and reeled
+about in the stubble, but Rickerl passed one arm about him, and,
+sabre clutched in the other hand, aided him to the straw-stack.
+
+The fresh wind strengthened them both; the sweat cooled and dried
+on their throbbing faces. They leaned against the stack,
+breathing heavily, the breeze blowing their wet hair, the solemn
+cannon-din thrilling their ears, stroke on stroke.
+
+"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the
+smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard--"a brigade or two of
+Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy.
+Their rear-guard is making a stand--that's all. Jack, what on
+earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"
+
+Jack, panting full length in the shadow of the straw-stack, told
+Rickerl the whole wretched story, from the time of his leaving
+Forbach, after having sent the despatches to the _Herald_, up to
+the moment he had called to Rickerl there in the meadow,
+surrounded by Uhlans, a rope already choking him senseless.
+
+Rickerl listened impassively, playing with the sabre on his
+knees, glancing right and left across the country with his
+restless baby-blue eyes. When Jack finished he said nothing, but
+it was plain enough how seriously he viewed the matter.
+
+"As for your damned Uhlans," ended Jack, "I have tried to keep
+out of their way. It's a relief to me to know that I didn't kill
+that trooper; but--confound him!--he shot at me so enthusiastically
+that I thought it time to join the party myself. Ricky, would they
+have hanged me if they had given me a fair court-martial?"
+
+"As a favour they might have shot you," replied Rickerl,
+gloomily.
+
+"Then," said Jack, "there are two things left for me to do--go to
+Paris, which I can't unless Mademoiselle de Nesville goes, or
+join some franc-tireur corps and give the German army as good as
+they send. If you Uhlans think," he continued, violently, "that
+you're coming into France to hang and shoot and raise hell
+without getting hell in return, you're a pack of idiots!"
+
+"The war is none of your affair," said Rickerl, flushing. "You
+brought it on yourself--this hanging business. Good heavens! the
+whole thing makes me sick! I can't believe that two weeks ago we
+were all there together at Morteyn--"
+
+"A pretty return you're making for Morteyn hospitality!" blurted
+out Jack. Then, shocked at what he had said, he begged Rickerl's
+pardon and bitterly took himself to task.
+
+"I _am_ a fool, Ricky; I know you've got to follow your regiment,
+and I know it must cut you to the heart. Don't mind what I say;
+I'm so miserable and bewildered, and I haven't got the feeling
+of that rope off my neck yet."
+
+Rickerl raised his hand gently, but his face was hard set.
+
+"Jack, you don't begin to know what a hell I am living in, I who
+care so much for France and the French people, to know that all,
+all is ended forever, that I can never again--"
+
+His voice choked; he cleared it and went on: "The very name of
+Uhlan is held in horror in France now; the word Prussian is a
+curse when it falls from French lips. God knows why we are
+fighting! We Germans obey, that is all. I am a captain in a
+Prussian cavalry regiment; the call comes, that is all that I
+know. And here I am, riding through the land I love; I sit on my
+horse and see the torch touched to field and barn; I see
+railroads torn out of the ground, I see wretched peasants hung to
+the rafters of their own cottages." He lowered his voice; his
+face grew paler. "I see the friend I care most for in all the
+world, a rope around his neck, my own troopers dragging him to
+the vilest death a man can die! That is war! Why? I am a
+Prussian, it is not necessary for me to know; but the regiment
+moves, and I move! it halts, I halt! it charges, retreats, burns,
+tramples, rends, devastates! I am always with it, unless some
+bullet settles me. For this war is nearly ended, Jack, nearly
+ended--a battle or two, a siege or two, nothing more. What can
+stand against us? Not this bewildered France."
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+Rickerl's blue eyes sought his; he rested his square chin on one
+hand and spoke again:
+
+"Jack, do you know that--that I love your sister?"
+
+"Her last letter said as much," replied Jack, coldly.
+
+Rickerl watched his face.
+
+"You are sorry?"
+
+"I don't know; I had hoped she would marry an American. Have you
+spoken?"
+
+"Yes." This was a chivalrous falsehood; it was Dorothy who had
+spoken first, there in the gravel drive as he rode away from
+Morteyn.
+
+Jack glanced at him angrily.
+
+"It was not honourable," he said; "my aunt's permission should
+have been asked, as you know; also, incidentally, my own.
+Does--does Dorothy care for you? Oh, you need not answer that; I
+think she does. Well, this war may change things."
+
+"Yes," said Rickerl, sadly.
+
+"I don't mean that," cried Jack; "Heaven knows I wouldn't have
+you hurt, Ricky; don't think I meant that--"
+
+"I don't," said Rickerl, half smiling; "you risked your skin to
+save me half an hour ago."
+
+"And you called off your bloody pack of hangmen for me," said
+Jack; "I'm devilish grateful, Ricky--indeed I am--and you know
+I'd be glad to have you in the family if--if it wasn't for this
+cursed war. Never mind, Dorothy generally has what she wants,
+even if it's--"
+
+"Even if it's an Uhlan?" suggested Rickerl, gravely.
+
+Jack smiled and laid his hand on Rickerl's arm.
+
+"She ought to see you now, bareheaded, dusty, in your
+shirt-sleeves! You're not much like the attaché at the
+Diplomatic ball--eh, Ricky? If you marry Dorothy I'll punch your
+head. Come on, we've got to find out where we are."
+
+"That's my road," observed Rickerl, quietly, pointing across the
+fields.
+
+"Where? Why?"
+
+"Don't you see?"
+
+Jack searched the distant landscape in vain.
+
+"No, are the Germans there? Oh, now I see. Why, it's a squadron
+of your cursed Uhlans!"
+
+"Yes," said Rickerl, mildly.
+
+"Then they've been chased out of the Château de Nesville!"
+
+"Probably. They may come back. Jack, can't you get out of this
+country?"
+
+"Perhaps," replied Jack, soberly. He thought of Lorraine, of the
+marquis lying mangled and dead in the forest beside the fragments
+of his balloon.
+
+"Your Lieutenant von Steyr is a dirty butcher," he said. "I hope
+you'll finish him when you find him."
+
+"He fired explosive bullets, which your franc-tireurs use on us,"
+retorted Rickerl, growing red.
+
+"Oh," cried Jack in disgust, "the whole business makes me sick!
+Ricky, give me your hand--there! Don't let this war end our
+friendship. Go to your Uhlans now. As for me, I must get back to
+Morteyn. What Lorraine will do, where she can go, how she will
+stand this ghastly news, I don't know; and I wish there was
+somebody else to tell her. My uncle and aunt have already gone to
+Paris, they said they would not wait for me. Lorraine is at
+Morteyn, alone except for her maid, and she is probably
+frightened at my not returning as I promised. Do you think you
+can get to your Uhlans safely? They passed into the grove beyond
+the hills. What the mischief are those cannon shelling, anyway?
+Well, good-by! Better not come up the hill with me, or you'll
+have to part with your sabre for good. We did lose our franc-tireur
+friends beautifully. I'll write Dorothy; I'll tell her that I
+captured you, sabre and all. Good-by! Good-by, old fellow! If
+you'll promise not to get a bullet in your blond hide I'll promise
+to be a brother-in-law to you!"
+
+Rickerl looked very manly as he stood there, booted, bareheaded,
+his thin shirt, soaked with sweat, outlining his muscular figure.
+
+They lingered a moment, hands closely clasped, looking gravely
+into each other's faces. Then, with a gesture, half sad, half
+friendly, Rickerl started across the stubble towards the distant
+grove where his Uhlans had taken cover.
+
+Jack watched him until his white shirt became a speck, a dot, and
+finally vanished among the trees on the blue hill. When he was
+gone, Jack turned sharply away and climbed the furze-covered
+slope from whence he hoped to see the cannon, now firing only at
+five-minute intervals. As he toiled up the incline he carefully
+kept himself under cover, for he had no desire to meet any lurking
+franc-tireurs. It is true that, even when the franc-tireurs had
+been closest, there in the swamp among the rank marsh grasses, the
+distance was too great for them to have identified him with certainty.
+But he thought it best to keep out of their way until within hail of
+the regular troops, so he took advantage of bushes and inequalities
+of the slope to reconnoitre the landscape before he reached the
+summit of the ridge. There was a tufted thicket of yellow broom in
+flower on the crest of the ridge; behind this he lay and looked out
+across the plain.
+
+A little valley separated this hill from the vineyard, terraced
+up to the north, ridge upon ridge. The cannon smoke shot up from
+the thickets of vines, rose, and drifted to the west, blotting
+out the greater portion of the vineyard. The cannon themselves
+were invisible. At times Jack fancied he saw a human silhouette
+when the white smoke rushed outward, but the spectral vines
+loomed up everywhere through the dense cannon-fog and he could
+not be sure.
+
+However, there were plenty of troops below the hill now--infantry
+of the line trudging along the dusty road in fairly good order,
+and below the vineyard, among the uncut fields of flax, more
+infantry crouched, probably supporting the three-gun battery on
+the hill.
+
+At that distance he could not tell a franc-tireur from any
+regular foot-soldier except line-infantry; their red caps and
+trousers were never to be mistaken. As he looked, he wondered at
+a nation that clothed its troops in a colour that furnished such
+a fearfully distinct mark to the enemy. A French army, moving,
+cannot conceal itself; the red of trousers and caps, the
+mirror-like reflections of cuirass and casque and lance-tip,
+advertise the presence of French troops so persistently that an
+enemy need never fear any open landscape by daylight.
+
+Jack watched the cannonade, lying on his stomach, chin supported
+by both hands. He was perfectly cool now; he neither feared the
+Uhlans nor the franc-tireurs. For a while he vainly tried to
+comprehend the reason of the cannonade; the shells shot out
+across the valley in tall curves, dropping into a distant bit of
+hazy blue woodland, or exploded above the trees; the column of
+infantry below plodded doggedly southward; the infantry in the
+flax-field lay supine. Clearly something was interfering with the
+retreat of the troops--something that threatened them from those
+distant woods. And now he could see cavalry moving about the
+crest of the nearer hills, but, without his glass, it was not
+possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer
+forest that hid the Château de Nesville. Somewhere within those
+sombre woods lay the dead marquis.
+
+With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine,
+passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger
+had made him faint; his head grew dizzy.
+
+"It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the
+hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he
+walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed
+it to dull his hunger. The raw place on his neck, where the rope
+had chafed, stung when the perspiration started. He moved quickly
+but warily, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. Once he passed
+a miniature vineyard, heavy with white-wine grapes; and, as he
+threaded a silent path among the vines, he ate his fill and
+slaked his thirst with the cool amber fruit. He had reached the
+edge of the little vineyard, and was about to cross a tangle of
+briers and stubble, when something caught his eye in the thicket;
+it was a man's face--and he stopped.
+
+For a minute they stared at each other, making no movement, no
+sound.
+
+"Sir Thorald!"--faltered Jack.
+
+But Sir Thorald Hesketh could not speak, for he had a bullet
+through his lungs.
+
+As Jack sprang into the brier tangle towards him, a slim figure
+in the black garments of the Sisters of Mercy rose from Sir
+Thorald's side. He saw the white cross on her breast, he saw the
+white face above it and the whiter lips.
+
+It was Alixe von Elster.
+
+At the same instant the road in front was filled with French
+infantry, running.
+
+Alixe caught his arm, her head turned towards the road where the
+infantry were crowding past at double-quick, enveloped in a
+whirling torrent of red dust.
+
+"There is a cart there," she said. "Oh, Jack, find it quickly!
+The driver is on the seat--and I can't leave Sir Thorald."
+
+In his amazement he stood hesitating, looking from the girl to
+Sir Thorald; but she drew him to the edge of the thicket and
+pointed to the road, crying, "Go! go!" and he stumbled down the
+pasture slope to the edge of the road.
+
+Past him plodded the red-legged infantry; he saw, through the
+whirlwind of dust, the vague outlines of a tumbril and horse
+standing below in the ditch, and he ran along the grassy
+depression towards the vehicle. And now he saw the driver,
+kneeling in the cart, his blue blouse a mass of blood, his
+discoloured face staring out at the passing troops.
+
+As he seized the horse's head and started up the slope again,
+firing broke out among the thickets close at hand; the infantry
+swung out to the west in a long sagging line; the chassepots
+began banging right and left. For an instant he caught a glimpse
+of cavalry riding hard across a bit of stubble--Uhlans he saw at
+a glance--then the smoke hid them. But in that brief instant he
+had seen, among the galloping cavalrymen, a mounted figure,
+bareheaded, wearing a white shirt, and he knew that Rickerl was
+riding for his life.
+
+Sick at heart he peered into the straight, low rampart of smoke;
+he watched the spirts of rifle-flame piercing it; he saw it turn
+blacker when a cannon bellowed in the increasing din. The
+infantry were lying down out there in the meadow; shadowy gray
+forms passed, repassed, reeled, ran, dropped, and rose again.
+Close at hand a long line of men lay flat on their bellies in the
+wheat stubble. When each rifle spoke the smoke rippled through
+the short wheat stalks or eddied and curled over the ground like
+the gray foam of an outrushing surf.
+
+He backed the horse and heavy cart, turned both, half blinded by
+the rifle-smoke, and started up the incline. Two bullets,
+speeding over the clover like singing bees, rang loudly on the
+iron-bound cartwheels; the horse plunged and swerved, dragging
+Jack with him, and the dead figure, kneeling in the cart, tumbled
+over the tail-board with a grotesque wave of its stiffening
+limbs. There it lay, sprawling in an impossible posture in the
+ditch. A startled grasshopper alighted on its face, turned
+around, crawled to the ear, and sat there.
+
+And now the volley firing grew to a sustained crackle, through
+which the single cannon boomed and boomed, hidden in the surging
+smoke that rolled in waves, sinking, rising, like the waves of a
+wind-whipped sea.
+
+"Where are you, Alixe?" he shouted.
+
+"Here! Hurry!"
+
+She stood on the edge of the brier tangle as he laboured up the
+slope with the horse and cart. Sir Thorald's breathing was
+horrible to hear when they stooped and lifted him; Alixe was
+crying. They laid him on the blood-soaked straw; Alixe crept in
+beside him and took his head on her knees.
+
+"To Morteyn?" whispered Jack. "Perhaps we can find a surgeon
+nearer--"
+
+"Oh, hurry!" she sobbed; and he climbed heavily to the seat and
+started back towards the road.
+
+The road was empty where he turned in out of the fields, but,
+just above, he heard cannon thundering in the mist. As he drew in
+the reins, undecided, the cannonade suddenly redoubled in fury;
+the infantry fire blazed out with a new violence; above the
+terrific blast he heard trumpets sounding, and beneath it he felt
+the vibration of the earth; horses were neighing out beyond the
+smoke; a thousand voices rose in a far, hoarse shout:
+
+"Hurrah! Preussen!"
+
+The Prussian cavalry were charging the cannon.
+
+Suddenly he heard them close at hand; they loomed everywhere in
+the smoke, they were among the infantry, among the cannoneers; a
+tall rider in silver helmet and armour plunged out into the road
+behind them, his horse staggered, trembled, then man and beast
+collapsed in a shower of bullets. Others were coming, too,
+galloping in through the grain stubble and thickets, shaking
+their long, straight sabres, but the infantry chased them, and
+fell upon them, clubbing, shooting, stabbing, pulling horses and
+men to earth. The cannon, which had ceased, began again; the
+infantry were cheering; trumpets blew persistently, faintly and
+more faintly. In the road a big, bearded man was crawling on his
+hands and knees away from a dead horse. His helmet fell off in
+the dust.
+
+Jack gathered the reins and called to the horse. As the heavy
+cart moved off, the ground began to tremble again with the shock
+of on-coming horses, and again, through the swelling tumult, he
+caught the cry--
+
+"Hurrah! Preussen!"
+
+The Prussian cuirassiers were coming back.
+
+"Is Sir Thorald dying?" he asked of Alixe; "can he live if I lash
+the horse?"
+
+"Look at him, Jack," she muttered.
+
+"I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You--you are
+wounded, are you? there--on the neck--"
+
+"It is his blood on my breast."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE WHITE CROSS
+
+
+At ten o'clock that night Jack stepped from the ballroom to the
+terrace of the Château Morteyn and listened to the distant murmur
+of the river Lisse, below the meadow. The day of horror had ended
+with a dozen dropping shots from the outposts, now lining the
+banks of the Lisse from the Château de Nesville to Morteyn. The
+French infantry had been pouring into Morteyn since late
+afternoon; they had entered the park when he entered, driving his
+tumbril with its blood-stained burden; they had turned the river
+into a moat, the meadow into an earthwork, the Château itself
+into a fortress.
+
+On the concrete terrace beside him a gatling-gun glimmered in the
+starlight; sentinels leaned on their elbows, sprawling across the
+parapets; shadowy ranks of sleeping men lay among the shrubbery
+below, white-faced, exhausted, motionless.
+
+There were low voices from the darkened ballroom, the stir and
+tinkle of spurred boots, the ring of sabres. Out in the hard
+macadamized road, cannon were passing into the park by the iron
+gate; beyond the road masses of men moved in the starlight.
+
+After a moment Jack turned away and entered the house. For the
+hundredth time he mounted the stairs to Lorraine's bedroom door
+and listened, holding his breath. He heard nothing--not a
+cry--not a sob. It had been so from the first, when he had told
+her that her father lay dead somewhere in the forest of Morteyn.
+
+She had said nothing--she went to her room and sat down on the
+bed, white and still. Sir Thorald lay in the next room, breathing
+deeply. Alixe was kneeling beside him, crying silently.
+
+Twice a surgeon from an infantry regiment had come and gone away
+after a glance at Sir Thorald. A captain came later and asked for
+a Sister of Mercy.
+
+"She can't go," said Jack, in a low voice. But little Alixe rose,
+still crying, and followed the captain to the stables, where a
+dozen mangled soldiers lay in the straw and hay.
+
+It was midnight when she returned to find Jack standing beside
+Sir Thorald in the dark. When he saw it was Alixe he led her
+gently into the hall.
+
+"He is conscious now; I will call you when the time comes. Go
+into that room--Lorraine is there, alone. Ah, go, Alixe; it is
+charity!--and you wear the white cross--"
+
+"It is dyed scarlet," she whispered through her tears.
+
+He returned to Sir Thorald, who lay moving his restless hands
+over the sheets and turning his head constantly from side to
+side.
+
+"Go on," said Jack; "finish what you were saying."
+
+"Will she come?"
+
+"Yes--in time."
+
+Sir Thorald relapsed into a rambling, monotonous account of some
+military movement near Wissembourg until Jack spoke again:
+
+"Yes--I know; tell me about Alixe."
+
+"Yes--Alixe," muttered Sir Thorald--"is she here? I was wrong; I
+saw her at Cologne; that was all, Jack--nothing more."
+
+"There is more," said Jack; "tell me."
+
+"Yes, there is more. I saw that--that she loved me. There was a
+scene--I am not always a beast--I tried not to be. Then--then I
+found that there was nothing left but to go away--somewhere--and
+live--without her. It was too late. She knew it--"
+
+"Go on," said Jack.
+
+Suddenly Sir Thorald's voice grew clear.
+
+"Can't you understand?" he asked; "I damned both our souls. She
+is buying hers back with tears and blood--with the white cross on
+her heart and death in her eyes! And I am dying here--and she's
+to drag out the years afterwards--"
+
+He choked; Jack watched him quietly.
+
+Sir Thorald turned his head to him when the coughing ceased.
+
+"She went with a field ambulance; I went, too. I was shot below
+that vineyard. They told her; that is all. Am I dying?"
+
+Jack did not answer.
+
+"Will you write to Molly?" asked Sir Thorald, drowsily.
+
+"Yes. God help you, Sir Thorald."
+
+"Who cares?" muttered Sir Thorald. "I'm a beast--a dying beast.
+May I see Alixe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then tell her to come--now. Soon I'll wish to be alone; that's
+the way beasts die--alone."
+
+He rambled on again about a battle somewhere in the south, and
+Jack went to the door and called, "Alixe!"
+
+She came, pallid and weeping, carrying a lighted candle.
+
+Jack took it from her hand and blew out the flame.
+
+"They won't let us have a light; they fear bombardment. Go in
+now."
+
+"Is he dying?"
+
+"God knows."
+
+"God?" repeated Alixe.
+
+Jack bent and touched the child's forehead with his lips.
+
+"Pray for him," he said; "I shall write his wife to-night."
+
+Alixe went in to the bedside to kneel again and buy back two
+souls with the agony of her child's heart.
+
+"Pray," she said to Sir Thorald.
+
+"Pray," he repeated.
+
+Jack closed the door.
+
+Up and down the dark hall he wandered, pausing at times to listen
+to some far rifle-shot and the answering fusillade along the
+picket-line. Once he stopped an officer on the stairway and asked
+for a priest, but, remembering that Sir Thorald was Protestant,
+turned away with a vague apology and resumed his objectless
+wandering.
+
+At times he fancied he heard cannon, so far away that nothing of
+sound remained, only a faint jar on the night air. Twice he
+looked from the window over the vast black forest, thinking of
+the dead man lying there alone. And then he longed to go to
+Lorraine; he felt that he must touch her, that his hand on hers
+might help her somehow.
+
+At last, deadly weary, he sat down on the stairs by her door to
+try to think out the problems that to-morrow would bring.
+
+His aunt and uncle had gone on to Paris; Lorraine's father was
+dead and her home had been turned into a fort. Saint-Lys was
+heavily occupied by the Germans, and they held the railroad also
+in their possession. It seemed out of the question to stay in
+Morteyn with Lorraine, for an assault on the Château was
+imminent. How could he get her to Paris? That was the only place
+for her now.
+
+He thought, too, of his own danger from the Uhlans. He had told
+Lorraine, partly because he wished her to understand their
+position, partly because the story of his capture, trial, and
+escape led up to the tragedy that he scarcely knew how to break
+to her. But he had done it, and she, pale as death, had gone
+silently to her room, motioning him away as he stood awkwardly at
+the door.
+
+That last glimpse of the room remained in his mind, it
+obliterated everything else at moments--Lorraine sitting on her
+bedside, her blue eyes vacant, her face whiter than the pillows.
+
+And so he sat there on the stairs, the dawn creeping into the
+hallway; and his eyes never left the panels of her door. There
+was not a sound from within. This for a while frightened him, and
+again and again he started impulsively towards the door, only to
+turn back again and watch there in the coming dawn. Presently he
+remembered that dawn might bring an attack on the Château, and he
+rose and hurried down-stairs to the terrace where a crowd of
+officers stood watching the woods through their night-glasses.
+The general impression among them was that there might be an
+attack. They yawned and smoked and studied the woods, but they
+were polite, and answered all his questions with a courteous
+light-heartedness that jarred on him. He glanced for a moment at
+the infantry, now moving across the meadow towards the river; he
+saw troops standing at ease along the park wall, troops sitting
+in long ranks in the vegetable garden, troops passing the
+stables, carrying pickaxes and wheeling wheelbarrows piled with
+empty canvas sacks.
+
+Sleepy-eyed boyish soldiers of the artillery were harnessing the
+battery horses, rubbing them down, bathing wounded limbs or
+braiding the tails. The farrier was shoeing a great black horse,
+who turned its gentle eyes towards the hay-bales piled in front
+of the stable. One or two slim officers, in pale-blue fur-edged
+pelisses, strolled among the trampled flower-beds, smoking cigars
+and watching a line of men shovelling earth into canvas sacks.
+The odour of soup was in the air; the kitchen echoed with the din
+of pots and pans. Outside, too, the camp-kettles were steaming
+and the rattle of gammels came across the lawn.
+
+"Who is in command here?" asked Jack, turning to a handsome
+dragoon officer who stood leaning on his sabre, the horse-hair
+crinière blowing about his helmet.
+
+"Why, General Farron!" said the officer in surprise.
+
+"Farron!" repeated Jack; "is he back from Africa, here in
+France--here at Morteyn?"
+
+"He is at the Château de Nesville," said the officer, smiling.
+"You seem to know him, monsieur."
+
+"Indeed I do," said Jack, warmly. "Do you think he will come
+here?"
+
+"I suppose so. Shall I send you word when he arrives?"
+
+Another officer came up, a general, white-haired and sombre.
+
+"Is this the Vicomte de Morteyn?" he asked, looking at Jack.
+
+"His nephew; the vicomte has gone to Paris. My name is Marche,"
+said Jack.
+
+The general saluted him; Jack bowed.
+
+"I regret the military necessity of occupying the Château; the
+government will indemnify Monsieur le Vicomte--"
+
+Jack held up his hand: "My uncle is an old soldier of France--the
+government is welcome; I bid you welcome in the name of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."
+
+The old general flushed and bowed deeply.
+
+"I thank you in the name of the government. Blood will tell. It
+is easy, Monsieur Marche, to see that you are the nephew of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."
+
+"Monsieur Marche," said the young dragoon officer, respectfully,
+"is a friend of General Farron."
+
+"I had the honour to be attached as correspondent to his
+staff--in Oran," said Jack.
+
+The old general held out his hand with a gesture entirely
+charming.
+
+"I envy General Farron your friendship," he said. "I had a
+son--perhaps your age. He died--yesterday." After a silence, he
+said: "There are ladies in the Château?"
+
+"Yes," replied Jack, soberly.
+
+The general turned with a gesture towards the woods. "It is too
+late to move them; we are, it appears, fairly well walled in. The
+cellar, in case of bombardment, is the best you can do for them.
+How many are there?"
+
+"Two, general. One is a Sister of Mercy."
+
+Other officers began to gather on the terrace, glasses
+persistently focussed on the nearer woods. Somebody called to an
+officer below the terrace to hurry the cannon.
+
+Jack made his way through the throng of officers to the stairs,
+mounted them, and knocked at Lorraine's door.
+
+"Is it you--Jack?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come."
+
+He went in.
+
+Lorraine lay on the bed, quiet and pale; it startled him to see
+her so calm. For an instant he hesitated on the threshold, then
+went slowly to the bedside. She held out one hand; he took it.
+
+"I cannot cry," she said; "I cannot. Sit beside me, Jack. Listen:
+I am wicked--I have not a single tear for my father. I have been
+here--so--all night long. I prayed to weep; I cannot. I
+understand he is dead--that I shall never again wait for him,
+watch at his door in the turret, dream he is calling me; I
+understand that he will never call me again--never again--never.
+And I cannot weep. Do you hate me? I am tired--so tired, like a
+child--very young."
+
+She raised her other hand and laid it in his. "I need you," she
+said; "I am too tired, too young, to be so alone. It is myself I
+suffer for; think, Jack, myself, in such a moment. I am selfish,
+I know it. Oh, if I could weep now! Why can I not? I loved my
+father. And now I can only think of his little machines in the
+turret and his balloon, and--oh!--I only remember the long days
+of my life when I waited on the turret stairs hoping he would
+come out, dreaming he would come some day and take me in his arms
+and kiss me and hold me close, as I am to you. And now he never
+will. And I waited all my life!"
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, touching her hair; "you are feverish."
+
+Her head was pressed close to him; his arms held her tightly; she
+sighed like a restless child.
+
+"Never again--never--for he is dead. And yet I could have lived
+forever, waiting for him on the turret stairs. Do you understand?"
+
+Holding her strained to his breast he trembled at the fierce
+hopelessness in her voice. In a moment he recognized that a
+crisis was coming; that she was utterly irresponsible, utterly
+beyond reasoning. Like a spectre her loveless childhood had risen
+and confronted her; and now that there was no longer even hope,
+she had turned desperately upon herself with the blank despair of
+a wounded animal. End it all!--that was her one impulse. He felt
+it already taking shape; she shivered in his arms.
+
+"But there is a God--" he began, fearfully.
+
+She looked up at him with vacant eyes, hot and burning.
+
+He tried again: "I love you, Lorraine--"
+
+Her straight brows knitted and she struggled to free herself.
+
+"Let me go!" she whispered. "I do not wish to live--I can't!--I
+can't!"
+
+Then he played his last card, and, holding her close, looked
+straight into her eyes.
+
+"France needs us all," he said.
+
+She grew quiet. Suddenly the warm blood dyed her cheeks. Then,
+drop by drop, the tears came; her sweet face, wet and flushed,
+nestled quietly close to his own face.
+
+"We will both live for that," he said; "we will do what we can."
+
+For an hour she lay sobbing her heart out in his arms; and when
+she was quiet at last he told her how the land lay trembling
+under the invasion, how their armies had struggled and dwindled
+and lost ground, how France, humbled, drenched with blood and
+tears, still stood upright calling to her children. He spoke of
+the dead, the dying, the mutilated creatures gasping out their
+souls in the ditches.
+
+"Life is worth living," he said. "If our place is not in the
+field with the wounded, not in the hospital, not in the prisons
+where these boys are herded like diseased cattle, then it is
+perhaps at the shrine's foot. Pray for France, Lorraine, pray and
+work, for there is work to do."
+
+"There is work; we will go together," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, together. Perhaps we can help a little. Your father, when
+he died, had the steel box with him. Lorraine, when he is found
+and is laid to rest, we will take that box to the French lines.
+The secret must belong to France!"
+
+She was eager enough now; she sat up on the bed and listened
+with bright, wet eyes while he told her what they two might do
+for her land of France.
+
+"Dear--dear Jack!" she cried, softly.
+
+But he knew that it was not the love of a maid for a man that
+parted her lips; it was the love of the land, of her land of
+Lorraine, that fierce, passionate love of soil that had at last
+blazed up, purified in the long years of a loveless life. All
+that she had felt for her father turned to a burning thrill for
+her country. It is such moments that make children defenders of
+barricades, that make devils or saints of the innocent. The maid
+that rode in mail, crowned, holding aloft the banner of the
+fleur-de-lys, died at the stake; her ashes were the ashes of a
+saint. The maid who flung her bullets from the barricade, who
+carried a dagger to the Rue Haxo, who spat in the faces of the
+line when they shoved her to the wall in the Luxembourg, died too
+for France. Her soul is the soul of a martyr; but all martyrs are
+not saints.
+
+For another hour they sat there, planning, devising, eager to
+begin their predestined work. They spoke of the dead, too, and
+Lorraine wept at last for her father.
+
+"There was a Sister of Mercy here," she said; "I saw her. I could
+not speak to her. Later I knew it was Alixe. You called her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Shall I speak to her?"
+
+He went out into the hall and tapped at the door of the next
+room.
+
+"Alixe?"
+
+"Yes--Jack."
+
+He entered.
+
+Sir Thorald lay very still under the sheets, the crucifix on his
+breast. At first Jack thought he was dead, but the slight motion
+of the chest under the sheets reassured him. He turned to Alixe:
+
+"Go for a minute and comfort Lorraine," he whispered. "Go, my
+child."
+
+"I--I cannot--"
+
+"Go," said Sir Thorald, in a distinct voice.
+
+When she had gone, Jack bent over Sir Thorald. A great pity
+filled him, and he touched the half-opened hand with his own.
+
+Sir Thorald looked up at him wistfully.
+
+"I am not worth it," he said.
+
+"Yes, we all are worth it."
+
+"I am not," gasped Sir Thorald. "Jack, you are good. Do you
+believe, at least, that I loved her?"
+
+"Yes, if you say so."
+
+"I do--in the shadow of death."
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+"I never loved--before," said Sir Thorald.
+
+In the stillness that followed Jack tried to comprehend the good
+or evil in this stricken man. He could not; he only knew that a
+great love that a man might bear a woman made necessary a great
+sacrifice if that love were unlawful. The greater the love the
+more certain the sacrifice--self-sacrifice on the altar of
+unselfish love, for there is no other kind of love that man may
+bear for woman.
+
+It wearied Jack to try to think it out. He could not; he only
+knew that it was not his to judge or to condemn.
+
+"Will you give me your hand?" asked Sir Thorald.
+
+Jack laid his hand in the other's feverish one.
+
+"Don't call her," he said, distinctly; "I am dying."
+
+Presently he withdrew his hand and turned his face to the wall.
+
+For a long time Jack sat there, waiting. At last he spoke: "Sir
+Thorald?"
+
+But Sir Thorald had been dead for an hour.
+
+When Alixe entered Jack took her slim, childish hands and looked
+into her eyes. She understood and went to her dead, laying down
+her tired little head on the sheeted breast.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A DOOR IS LOCKED
+
+
+Lorraine stood on the terrace beside the brass gatling-gun, both
+hands holding to Jack's arm, watching the soldiers stuffing the
+windows of the Château with mattresses, quilts, and bedding of
+all kinds.
+
+A stream of engineers was issuing from the hallway, carrying
+tables, chairs, barrels, and chests to the garden below, where
+other soldiers picked them up and bore them across the lawn to
+the rear of the house.
+
+"They are piling all the furniture they can get against the gate
+in the park wall," said Jack; "come out to the kitchen-garden."
+
+She went with him, still holding to his arm. Across the vegetable
+garden a barricade of furniture--sofas, chairs, and wardrobes--lay
+piled against the wooden gate of the high stone wall. Engineers were
+piercing the wall with crowbars and pickaxes, loosening the cement,
+dragging out huge blocks of stone to make embrasures for three cannon
+that stood with their limbers among the broken bell-glasses and
+cucumber-frames in the garden.
+
+A ladder lay against the wall, and on it was perched an officer,
+who rested his field-glasses across the tiled top and stood
+studying the woods. Below him a general and half a dozen
+officers watched the engineers hacking at the wall; a long,
+double line of infantry crouched behind them, the bugler
+kneeling, glancing anxiously at his captain, who stood talking to
+a fat sub-officer in capote and boots.
+
+Artillerymen were gathered about the ammunition-chests, opening
+the lids and carrying shell and shrapnel to the wall; the
+balconies of the Château were piled up with breastworks of rugs,
+boxes, and sacks of earth. Here and there a rifleman stood, his
+chassepot resting on the iron railing, his face turned towards
+the woods.
+
+"They are coming," said a soldier, calling back to a comrade, who
+only laughed and passed on towards the kitchen, loaded down with
+sacks of flour.
+
+A restless movement passed through the kneeling battalion of
+infantry.
+
+"Fiche moi la paix, hein!" muttered a lieutenant, looking
+resentfully at a gossiping farrier. Another lieutenant drew his
+sword, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.
+
+"Are they coming?" asked Lorraine.
+
+"I don't know. Watch that officer on the wall. He seems to see
+nothing yet. Don't you think you had better go to the rear of the
+house now?"
+
+"No, not unless you do."
+
+"I will, then."
+
+"No, stay here. I am not afraid. Where is Alixe?"
+
+"With the wounded men in the stable. They have hoisted the red
+cross over the barn; did you notice?"
+
+Before she could answer, one of the soldiers on the balcony of
+the Château fired. Another rose from behind a mattress and fired
+also; then half a dozen shots rang out, and the smoke whirled up
+over the roof of the house. The officer on the ladder was
+motioning to the group of officers below; already the artillerymen
+were running the three cannon forward to the port-holes that had
+been pierced in the park wall.
+
+"Come," said Jack.
+
+"Not yet--I am not frightened."
+
+A loud explosion enveloped the wall in sulphurous clouds, and a
+cannon jumped back in recoil. The cannoneers swarmed around it,
+there was a quick movement of a sponger, an order, a falling into
+place of rigid artillerymen, then bang! and another up-rush of
+smoke. And now the other cannon joined in--crash! bang!--and the
+garden swam in the swirling fog. Infantry, too, were firing all
+along the wall, and on the other side of the house the rippling
+crash of the gatling-gun rolled with the rolling volleys. Jack
+led Lorraine to the rear of the Château, but she refused to stay,
+and he reluctantly followed her into the house.
+
+From every mattress-stuffed window the red-legged soldiers were
+firing out across the lawn towards the woods; the smoke drifted
+back into the house in thin shreds that soon filled the rooms
+with a blue haze.
+
+Suddenly something struck the chandelier and shattered it to the
+gilt candle-sockets. Lorraine looked at it, startled, but another
+bullet whizzed into the room, starring the long mirror, and
+another knocked the plaster from the fireplace. Jack had her out
+of the room in a second, and presently they found themselves in
+the cellar, the very cement beneath their feet shaking under the
+tremendous shocks of the cannon.
+
+"Wait for me. Do you promise, Lorraine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel
+drive to the stable.
+
+"Alixe!" he called.
+
+She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There
+was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of
+grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely
+knew it.
+
+"What can I do?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"
+
+He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set
+them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four
+surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges,
+basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of
+ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.
+
+"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not--when I
+am ready," he said.
+
+"No; go and stay with her. If I need you I will send."
+
+He could scarcely hear her in the tumult and din, but he
+understood and nodded, watching her busy with her lint and
+bandages. As he turned to go, the first of the wounded, a mere
+boy, was brought in on the shoulders of a comrade. Jack heard him
+scream as they laid him on the table; then he went soberly away
+to the cellar where Lorraine sat, her face in her hands.
+
+"We are holding the Château," he said. "Will you stay quietly for
+a little while longer, if I go out again?"
+
+"If you wish," she said.
+
+He longed to take her in his arms. He did not; he merely said,
+"Wait for me," and went away again out into the smoke.
+
+From the upper-story windows, where he had climbed, he could see
+to the edge of the forest. Already three columns of men had
+started out from the trees across the meadow towards the park
+wall. They advanced slowly and steadily, firing as they came on.
+Somewhere, in the smoke, a Prussian band was playing gayly, and
+Jack thought of the Bavarians at the Geisberg, and their bands
+playing as the men fell like leaves in the Château gardens.
+
+He had his field-glasses with him, and he fixed them on the
+advancing columns. They were Bavarians, after all--there was no
+mistaking the light-blue uniforms and fur-crested helmets. And
+now he made out their band, plodding stolidly along, trombones
+and bass-drums wheezing and banging away in the rifle-smoke; he
+could even see the band-master swinging his halberd forward.
+
+Suddenly the nearest column broke into a heavy run, cheering
+hoarsely. The other columns came on with a rush; the band halted,
+playing them in at the death with a rollicking quickstep; then
+all was blotted out in the pouring cannon-smoke. Flash on flash
+the explosions followed each other, lighting the gloom with a
+wavering yellow glare, and on the terrace the gatling whirred and
+spluttered its slender streams of flame, while the treble crash
+of the chassepots roared accompaniment.
+
+Once or twice Jack thought he heard the rattle of their little
+harsh, flat drums, but he could see them no longer; they were in
+that smoke-pall somewhere, coming on towards the park wall.
+
+Bugles began to sound--French bugles--clear and sonorous. Across
+the lawn by the river a battalion of French infantry were
+running, firing as they ran. He saw them settle at last like
+quail among the stubble, curling up and crouching in groups and
+bevies, alert heads raised. Then the firing rippled along the
+front, and the lawn became gray with smoke.
+
+As he went down the stairs and into the garden he heard the soldiers
+saying that the charge had been checked. The wounded were being
+borne towards the barn, long lines of them, heads and limbs hanging
+limp. A horse in the garden was ending a death-struggle among the
+cucumber-frames, and the battery-men were cutting the traces to give
+him free play. Upon the roof a thin column of smoke and sparks rose,
+where a Prussian shell--the first as yet--had fallen and exploded
+in the garret. Some soldiers were knocking the sparks from the roof
+with the butts of their rifles.
+
+When he went into the cellar again Lorraine was pacing restlessly
+along the wine-bins.
+
+"I cannot stay here," she said. "Jack, get some bottles of brandy
+and come to the barn. The wounded will need them."
+
+"You cannot go out. I will take them."
+
+"No, I shall go."
+
+"I ask you not to."
+
+"Let me, Jack," she said, coming up to him--"with you."
+
+He could not make her listen; she went with him, her slender arms
+loaded with bottles. The shells were falling in the garden now;
+one burst and flung a shower of earth and glass over them.
+
+"Hurry!" he said. "Are you crazy, Lorraine, to come out into
+this?"
+
+"Don't scold, Jack," she whispered.
+
+When she entered the stable he breathed more freely. He watched
+her face narrowly, but she did not blanch at the sickening
+spectacle of the surgeons' tables.
+
+They placed their bottles of brandy along the side of a
+box-stall, and stood together watching the file of wounded
+passing in at the door.
+
+"They do not need us here, yet," he said. "I wonder where Alixe
+is?"
+
+"There is a Sister of Mercy out on the skirmish-line across the
+lawn," said a soldier of the hospital corps, pointing with bloody
+hands towards the smoke-veiled river.
+
+Jack looked at Lorraine in utter despair.
+
+"I must go; she can't stay there," he muttered.
+
+"Yes, you must go," repeated Lorraine. "She will be shot."
+
+"Will you wait here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+So he went away, thinking bitterly that she did not care whether
+he lived or died--that she let him leave her without a word of
+fear, of kindness. Then, for the first time, he realized that she
+had never, after all, been touched by his devotion; that she had
+never understood, nor cared to understand, his love for her. He
+walked out across the smoky lawn, the din of the rifles in his
+ears, the bitterness of death in his heart. He knew he was going
+into danger--that he was already in peril. Bullets whistled
+through the smoke as he advanced towards the firing-line, where,
+in the fog, dim figures were outlined here and there. He passed
+an officer, standing with bared sword, watching his men digging
+up the sod and piling it into low breastworks. He went on,
+passing others, sometimes two soldiers bearing a wounded man, now
+and then a maimed creature writhing on the grass or hobbling away
+to the rear. The battle-line lay close to him now--long open
+ranks of men, flat on their stomachs, firing into the smoke
+across the river-bank. Their officers loomed up in the gloom,
+some leaning quietly back on their sword-hilts, some pacing to
+and fro, smoking, or watchfully steadying the wearied men.
+
+Almost at once he saw Alixe. She was standing beside a tall
+wounded officer, giving him something to drink from a tin cup.
+
+"Alixe," said Jack, "this is not your place."
+
+She looked at him tranquilly as the wounded man was led away by a
+soldier of the hospital corps.
+
+"It is my place."
+
+"No," he said, violently, "you are trying to find death here!"
+
+"I seek nothing," she said, in a gentle, tired voice; "let me
+go."
+
+"Come back. Alixe--your brother is alive."
+
+She looked at him impassively.
+
+"My brother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have no brother."
+
+He understood and chafed inwardly.
+
+"Come, Alixe," he urged; "for Heaven's sake, try to live and
+forget--"
+
+"I have nothing to forget--everything to remember. Let me pass."
+She touched the blood-stained cross on her breast. "Do you not
+see? That was white once. So was my soul."
+
+"It is now," he said, gently. "Come back."
+
+A wounded man somewhere in the smoke called, "Water! water! In
+the name of God!--my sister--"
+
+"I am coming!" called Alixe, clearly.
+
+"To me first! Hasten, my sister!" groaned another.
+
+"Patience, children--I come!" called Alixe.
+
+With a gesture she passed Jack; a flurry of smoke hid her. The
+pungent powder-fog made his eyes dim; his ears seemed to split
+with the terrific volley firing.
+
+He turned away and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the
+well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the
+firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe,
+following her with his buckets where she passed among the
+wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a
+pail full of water, and he held his finger in the hole until the
+water was all used up. Twice he heard cheering and the splash of
+cavalry in the shallow river, but they seemed to be beaten off
+again, and he went about his business, listless, sombre, a dead
+weight at his heart.
+
+He had been kneeling beside a wounded man for some minutes when
+he became conscious that the firing had almost ceased. Bugles
+were sounding near the Château; long files of troops passed him
+in the lifting smoke; officers shouted along the river-bank.
+
+He rose to his feet and looked around for Alixe. She was not in
+sight. He walked towards the river-bank, watching for her, but he
+could not find her.
+
+"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an
+officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.
+
+A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a
+Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Château. I think she was
+hurt."
+
+"Hurt!"
+
+"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the
+stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod
+breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and
+entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables;
+Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.
+
+"Where is Alixe?" he asked.
+
+"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the
+terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech
+of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by
+a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed
+into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very
+tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.
+
+"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone
+with Sir Thorald." And he climbed the stairs and knocked softly
+at the door of the death-chamber.
+
+"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay
+here."
+
+She was kneeling at the bedside, her face buried on the breast of
+the dead man.
+
+"Alixe," he said, but his voice broke in spite of him, and he
+went to her and touched her.
+
+Very tenderly he raised her head, looked into her eyes, then
+quietly turned away.
+
+Outside the door he met Lorraine.
+
+"Don't go in," he murmured.
+
+She looked fearfully up into his face.
+
+"Yes," he said, "she was shot through the body."
+
+Then he closed the door and turned the key on the outside,
+leaving the dead to the dead.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+LORRAINE SLEEPS
+
+
+The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of
+water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of
+amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.
+
+Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before,
+although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about,
+gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary
+observation of the Château.
+
+Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of
+nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse
+with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the
+cover of the woods.
+
+Around the Château the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through
+the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their
+waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches
+dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi,
+grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at
+times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue
+overcoats.
+
+The line of battle stretched from the Château Morteyn, parallel
+with the river and the park wall, to the Château de Nesville; and
+along this line the officers were riding all day, muffled to the
+chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops
+gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they
+expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work
+excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks
+with earth, while in the Château itself preparations were in
+progress for the fighting of fire.
+
+The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched
+over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long
+trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches
+had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of
+each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the
+ground for a head-stone.
+
+Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one
+sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side
+by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse.
+Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It
+was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the
+linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove
+back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his
+face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a
+few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud
+between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned
+with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds.
+Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths
+of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns;
+and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw
+that her fair hands were cut and bleeding from plaiting the
+thorn-covered blossoms.
+
+They spoke briefly, almost coldly. Lorraine hung the two wreaths
+over the head-piece of the cross and, kneeling, signed herself.
+
+When she rose Jack replaced his cap, but said nothing. They stood
+side by side, looking out across the woods, where, behind a
+curtain of mist and rain, the single turret of the Château de
+Nesville was hidden.
+
+She seemed restless and preoccupied, and he, answering aloud her
+unasked question, said, "I am going to search the forest to-day.
+I cannot bear to leave you, but it must be done, for your sake
+and for the sake of France."
+
+She answered: "Yes, it must be done. I shall go with you."
+
+"You cannot," he said; "there is danger in the forest."
+
+"You are going?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They said nothing more for a moment or two. He was thinking of
+Alixe and her love for Sir Thorald. Who would have thought it
+could have turned out so? He looked down at the river Lisse,
+where, under the trees of the bank, they had all sat that day--a
+day that already seemed legendary, so far, so far in the
+mist-hung landscape of the past. He seemed to hear Molly
+Hesketh's voice, soft, ironical, upbraiding Sir Thorald; he
+seemed to see them all there in the sunshine--Dorothy, Rickerl,
+Cecil, Betty Castlemaine--he even saw himself strolling up to
+them, gun under arm, while Sir Thorald waved his wine-cup and
+bantered him.
+
+He looked at the river. The green row-boat lay on the bank, keel
+up, shattered by a shell; the trees were covered with yellow,
+seared foliage that dropped continually into the water; the river
+itself was a canal of mud. And, as he looked, a dead man, face
+under water, sped past, caught on something, drifted, spun
+giddily in an eddy, washed to and fro, then floated on under the
+trees.
+
+"You will catch cold here in the rain," he said, abruptly.
+
+"You also, Jack."
+
+They walked a few steps towards the house, then stopped and
+looked at each other.
+
+"You are drenched," he said; "you must go to your room and lie
+down."
+
+"I will--if you wish," she answered.
+
+He drew her rain-cloak around her, buttoned the cape and high
+collar, and settled the hood on her head. She looked up under her
+pointed hood.
+
+"Do you care so much for me?" she asked, listlessly.
+
+"Will you give me the right--always--forever?"
+
+"Do you mean that--that you love me?"
+
+"I have always loved you."
+
+Still she looked up at him from the shadow of her hood.
+
+"I love you, Lorraine."
+
+One arm was around her now, and with the other hand he held both
+of hers.
+
+She spoke, her eyes on his.
+
+"I loved you once. I did not know it then. It was the first night
+there on the terrace--when they were dancing. I loved you
+again--after our quarrel, when you found me by the river. Again
+I loved you, when we were alone in the Château and you came to
+see me in the library."
+
+He drew her to him, but she resisted.
+
+"Now it is different," she said. "I do not love you--like that. I
+do not know what I feel; I do not care for that--for that love. I
+need something warmer, stronger, more kindly--something I never
+have had. My childhood is gone, Jack, and yet I am tortured with
+the craving for it; I want to be little again--I want to play
+with children--with young girls; I want to be tired with pleasure
+and go to bed with a mother bending over me. It is that--it is
+that that I need, Jack--a mother to hold me as you do. Oh, if you
+knew--if you knew! Beside my bed I feel about in the dark, half
+asleep, reaching out for the mother I never knew--the mother I
+need. I picture her; she is like my father, only she is always
+with me. I lie back and close my eyes and try to think that she
+is there in the dark--close--close. Her cheeks and hands are
+warm; I can never see her eyes, but I know they are like mine. I
+know, too, that she has always been with me--from the years that
+I have forgotten--always with me, watching me that I come to no
+harm--anxious for me, worrying because my head is hot or my hands
+cold. In my half-sleep I tell her things--little intimate things
+that she must know. We talk of everything--of papa, of the house,
+of my pony, of the woods and the Lisse. With her I have spoken of
+you often, Jack. And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell
+you, Jack. I can never love you like--like that, but I need you,
+and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love. Be
+gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret.
+You are all I have."
+
+The intense grief in her face, the wide, childish eyes, the cold
+little hands tightening in his, all these touched the manhood in
+him, and he answered manfully, putting away from himself all that
+was weak or selfish, all that touched on love of man for woman:
+
+"Let me be all you ask," he said. "My love is of that kind,
+also."
+
+"My darling Jack," she murmured, putting both arms around his
+neck.
+
+He kissed her peacefully.
+
+"Come," he said. "Your shoes are soaking. I am going to take
+charge of you now."
+
+When they entered the house he took her straight to her room,
+drew up an arm-chair, lighted the fire, filled a foot-bath with
+hot water, and, calmly opening the wardrobe, pulled out a warm
+bath-robe. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he knelt and
+unbuttoned her shoes.
+
+"Now," he said, "I'll be back in five minutes. Let me find you
+sitting here, with your feet in that hot water."
+
+Before she could answer, he went out. A thrill of comfort passed
+through her; she drew the wet stockings over her feet, shivered,
+slipped out of skirt and waist, put on the warm, soft bath-robe,
+and, sinking back in the chair, placed both little white feet in
+the foot-bath.
+
+"I am ready, Jack," she called, softly.
+
+He came in with a tray of tea and toast and a bit of cold
+chicken. She followed his movement with tired, shy eyes,
+wondering at his knowledge of little things. They ate their
+luncheon together by the fire. Twice he gravely refilled the
+foot-bath with hotter water, and she settled back in her soft,
+warm chair, sighing contentment.
+
+After a while he lighted a cigarette and read to her--fairy tales
+from Perrault--legends that all children know--all children who
+have known mothers. Lorraine did not know them. At first she
+frowned a little, watching him dubiously, but little by little
+the music of the words and the fragrance of the sweet, vague
+tales crept into her heart, and she listened breathless to the
+stories, older than Egypt--stories that will outlast the last
+pyramid.
+
+Once he laid down his book and told her of the Prince of Argolis
+and Æthra; of the sandals and sword, of Medea, and of the
+wreathed wine-cup. He told her, too, of the Isantee, and the
+legends of the gray gull, of Harpan and Chaské, and the white
+lodge of hope.
+
+She listened like a tired child, her wrist curved under her chin,
+the bath-robe close to her throat. While she listened she moved
+her feet gently in the hot water, nestling back with the thrill
+of the warmth that mounted to her cheeks.
+
+Then they were silent, their eyes on each other.
+
+Down-stairs some rain-soaked officer was playing on the piano old
+songs of Lorraine and Alsace. He tried to sing, too, but his
+voice broke, whether from emotion or hoarseness they could not
+tell. A moment or two later a dripping infantry band marched out
+to the conservatory and began to play. The dismal trombone
+vibrated like a fog-horn, the wet drums buzzed and clattered, the
+trumpets wailed with the rising wind in the chimneys. They
+played for an hour, then stopped abruptly in the middle of
+"Partons pour la Syrie," and Jack and Lorraine heard them
+trampling away--slop, slop--across the gravel drive.
+
+The fire in the room made the air heavy, and he raised one window
+a little way, but the wet wind was rank with the odour of
+disinfectants and ether from the stable hospital, and he closed
+the window after a moment.
+
+"I spent all the morning with the wounded," said Lorraine, from
+the depths of her chair. The child-like light in her eyes had
+gone; nothing but woman's sorrow remained in their gray-blue
+depths.
+
+Jack rose, picked up a big soft towel, and, deliberately lifting
+one of her feet from the water, rubbed it until it turned rosy.
+Then he rubbed the other, wrapped the bath-robe tightly about
+her, lifted her in his arms, threw back the bed-covers, and laid
+her there snug and warm.
+
+"Sleep," he said.
+
+She held up both arms with a divine smile.
+
+"Stay with me until I sleep," she murmured drowsily. Her eyes
+closed; one hand sought his.
+
+After a while she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+LORRAINE AWAKES
+
+
+When Lorraine had been asleep for an hour, Jack stole from the
+room and sought the old general who was in command of the park.
+He found him on the terrace, smoking and watching the woods
+through his field-glasses.
+
+"Monsieur," said Jack, "my ward, Mademoiselle de Nesville, is
+asleep in her chamber. I must go to the forest yonder and try to
+find her father's body. I dare not leave her alone unless I may
+confide her to you."
+
+"My son," said the old man, "I accept the charge. Can you give me
+the next room?"
+
+"The next room is where our little Sister of Mercy died."
+
+"I have journeyed far with death--I am at home in death's
+chamber," said the old general. He followed Jack to the
+death-room, accompanied by his aide-de-camp.
+
+"It will do," he said. Then, turning to an aid, "Place a sentry
+at the next door. When the lady awakes, call me."
+
+"Thank you," said Jack. He lingered a moment and then continued:
+"If I am shot in the woods--if I don't return--General Chanzy
+will take charge of Mademoiselle de Nesville, for my uncle's
+sake. They are sword-brothers."
+
+"I accept the responsibility," said the old general, gravely.
+
+They bowed to each other, and Jack went out and down the stairs
+to the lawn. For a moment he looked up into the sky, trying to
+remember where the balloon might have been when Von Steyr's
+explosive bullet set it on fire. Then he trudged on into the
+wood-road, buckling his revolver-case under his arm and adjusting
+the cross-strap of his field-glasses.
+
+Once in the forest he breathed more freely. There was an odour of
+rotting leaves in the wet air; the branches quivered and dripped,
+and the tree-trunks, moist and black, exhaled a rank aroma of
+lichens and rain-soaked moss.
+
+Along the park wall, across the Lisse, sentinels stood in the rain,
+peering out of their caped overcoats or rambling along the river-bank.
+A spiritless challenge or two halted him for a few moments, but he
+gave the word and passed on. Once or twice squads met him and passed
+with the relief, sick boyish soldiers, crusted with mud. Twice he met
+groups of roving, restless-eyed franc-tireurs in straight caps and
+sheepskin jackets, but they did not molest him nor even question him
+beyond asking the time of day.
+
+And now he passed the carrefour where he and Lorraine had first
+met. Its only tenant was a sentinel, yellow with jaundice, who
+seized his chassepot with shaking hands and called a shrill "Qui
+Vive?"
+
+From the carrefour Jack turned to the left straight into the
+heart of the forest. He risked losing his way; he risked more
+than that, too, for a shot from sentry or franc-tireur was not
+improbable, and, more-over, nobody knew whether Uhlans were in
+the woods or not.
+
+As he advanced the forest growth became thicker; underbrush, long
+uncut, rose higher than his head. Over logs and brush tangles he
+pressed, down into soft, boggy gullys deep with dead leaves,
+across rapid, dark brooks, threads of the river Lisse, over stony
+ledges, stumps, windfalls, and on towards the break in the trees
+from which, on clear days, one could see the turret-spire of the
+Château de Nesville. When he reached this point he looked in vain
+for the turret; the rain hid it. Still, he could judge fairly
+well in which direction it lay, and he knew that the distance was
+half a mile.
+
+"The balloon dropped near here," he muttered, and started in a
+circle, taking a gigantic beech-tree as the centre mark.
+Gradually he widened his circuit, stumbling on over the slippery
+leaves, keeping a wary eye out for the thing on the ground that
+he sought.
+
+He had seen no game in the forest, and wondered a little. Once or
+twice he fancied that he heard some animal moving near, but when
+he listened all was quiet, save for the hoarse calling of a raven
+in some near tree. Suddenly he saw the raven, and at the same
+moment it rose, croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket
+floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They
+were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the
+rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and
+sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above
+his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay
+there in the thicket. And he was right; but when he saw the
+thing he covered his eyes with both hands and his heart rose in
+his throat. At last he stepped forward and looked into the vacant
+eye-sockets of a skull from which shreds of a long beard still
+hung, wet and straggling.
+
+It lay under the washed-out roots of a fir-tree, the bare ribs
+staring through the torn clothing, the fleshless hands clasped
+about a steel box.
+
+How he brought himself to get the box from that cage of bones he
+never knew. At last he had it, and stepped back, the sweat
+starting from every pore. But his work was not finished. What the
+ravens and wolves had left of the thing he pushed with sticks
+into a hollow, and painfully covered it with forest mould. Over
+this he pulled great lumps of muddy clay, trampling them down
+firmly, until at last the dead lay underground and a heap of
+stones marked the sepulchre.
+
+The ravens had alighted in the tree-tops around the spot,
+watching him gravely, croaking and sidling away when he moved
+with abruptness. Looking up into the tree-tops he saw some shreds
+of stuff clinging to the branches, perhaps tatters from the
+balloon or the dead man's clothing. Near him on the ground lay a
+charred heap that was once the wicker car of the balloon. This he
+scattered with a stick, laid a covering of green moss on the
+mound, placed two sticks crosswise at the head, took off his cap,
+then went his way, the steel box buttoned securely in his breast.
+As he walked on through the forest, a wolf fled from the
+darkening undergrowth, hesitated, turned, cringing half boldly,
+half sullenly, watching him with changeless, incandescent eyes.
+
+Darkness was creeping into the forest when he came out on the
+wood-road. He had a mile and a half before him without lantern or
+starlight, and he hastened forward through the mire, which seemed
+to pull him back at every step. It astonished him that he
+received no challenge in the twilight; he peered across the
+river, but saw no sentinels moving. The stillness was profound,
+save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet
+branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep
+his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of
+the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the
+whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer
+it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it
+passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp
+report, and the steel fragments hurtled through the naked trees.
+
+He was running now; he knew the Prussian guns had opened on the
+Château again, and the thought of Lorraine in the tempest of iron
+terrified him. And now the shells were streaming into the woods,
+falling like burning stars from the heavens, bursting over the
+tree-tops; the racket of tearing, splintering limbs was in his
+ears, the dull shock of a shell exploding in the mud, the splash
+of fragments in the river. Behind him a red flare, ever growing,
+wavering, bursting into crimson radiance, told him that the
+Château de Nesville was ablaze. The black, trembling shadows cast
+by the trees grew blacker and steadier in the fiery light; the
+muddy road sprang into view under his feet; the river ran
+vermilion. Another light grew in the southern sky, faint yet, but
+growing surely. He ran swiftly, spurred and lashed by fear, for
+this time it was the Château Morteyn that sent a column of sparks
+above the trees, higher, higher, under a pall of reddening smoke.
+
+At last he stumbled into the garden, where a mass of plunging
+horses tugged and strained at their harnessed guns and caissons.
+Muddy soldiers put their ragged shoulders to the gun-wheels and
+pushed; teamsters cursed and lashed their horses; officers rode
+through the throng, shouting. A squad of infantry began a
+fusillade from the wall; other squads fired from the lawn, where
+the rear of a long column in retreat stretched across the gardens
+and out into the road.
+
+As Jack ran up the terrace steps the gatling began to whir like a
+watchman's rattle; needle-pointed flames pricked the darkness
+from hedge and wall, where a dark line swayed to and fro under
+the smoke.
+
+Up the stairs he sped, and flung open the door of the bedroom.
+Lorraine stood in the middle of the room, looking out into the
+darkness. She turned at the sound of the opening door:
+
+"Jack!"
+
+"Hurry!" he gasped; "this time they mean business. Where is your
+sentinel? Where is the general? Hurry, my child--dress quickly!"
+
+He went out to the hall again, and looked up and down. On the
+floor below he heard somebody say that the general was dead, and
+he hurried down among a knot of officers who were clustered at
+the windows, night-glasses levelled on the forest. As he entered
+the room a lieutenant fell dead and a shower of bullets struck
+the coping outside.
+
+He hastened away up-stairs again. Lorraine, in cloak and hat, met
+him at the door.
+
+"Keep away from all windows," he said. "Are you ready?"
+
+She placed her arm in his, and he led her down the stairs to the
+rear of the Château.
+
+"Have they gone--our soldiers?" faltered Lorraine. "Is it defeat?
+Jack, answer me!"
+
+"They are holding the Château to protect the retreat, I think.
+Hark! The gatling is roaring like a furnace! What has happened?"
+
+"I don't know. The old general came to speak to me when I awoke.
+He was very good and kind. Then suddenly the sentinel on the
+stairs fell down and we ran out. He was dead; a bullet had
+entered from the window at the end of the hall. After that I went
+into my room to dress, and the general hurried down-stairs,
+telling me to wait until he called for me. He did not come back;
+the firing began, and some shells hit the house. All the troops
+in the garden began to leave, and I did not know what to do, so I
+waited for you."
+
+Jack glanced right and left. The artillery were leaving by the
+stable road; from every side the infantry streamed past across
+the lawn, running when they came to the garden, where a shower of
+bullets fell among the shrubbery. A captain hastening towards the
+terrace looked at them in surprise.
+
+"What is it?" cried Jack. "Can't you hold the Château?"
+
+"The other Château has been carried," said the captain. "They are
+taking us on the left flank. Madame," he added, "should go at
+once; this place will be untenable in a few moments."
+
+Lorraine spoke breathlessly: "Are you to hold the Château with
+the gatling until the army is safe?"
+
+"Yes, madame," said the captain. "We are obliged to."
+
+There came a sudden lull in the firing. Lorraine caught Jack's
+arm.
+
+"Come," cried Jack, "we've got to go now!"
+
+"I shall stay!" she said; "I know my work is here!"
+
+The German rifle-flames began to sparkle and flicker along the
+river-bank; a bullet rang out against the granite façade behind
+them.
+
+"Come!" he cried, sharply, but she slipped from him and ran
+towards the house.
+
+Drums were beating somewhere in the distant forest--shrill,
+treble drums--and from every hill-side the hollow, harsh Prussian
+trumpets spoke. Then came a sound, deep, menacing--a far cry:
+
+"Hourra! Preussen!"
+
+"Why don't you cheer?" faltered Lorraine, mounting the terrace.
+The artillerymen looked at her in surprise. Jack caught her arm;
+she shook him off impatiently.
+
+"Cheer!" she cried again. "Is France dumb?" She raised her hand.
+
+"Vive la France!" shouted the artillerymen, catching her ardour.
+"Vive la Patrie! Vive Lorraine!"
+
+Again the short, barking, Prussian cheer sounded, and again the
+artillerymen answered it, cheer on cheer, for France, for the
+Land, for the Province of Lorraine. Up in the windows of the
+Château the line soldiers were cheering, too; the engineers on
+the roof, stamping out the sparks and flames, swung their caps
+and echoed the shouts from terrace and window.
+
+In the sudden silence that followed they caught the vibration of
+hundreds of hoofs--there came a rush, a shout:
+
+"Hourra! Preussen! Hourra! Hourra!" and into the lawn dashed the
+German cavalry, banging away with carbine and revolver. At the
+same moment, over the park walls swarmed the Bavarians in a
+forest of bayonets. The Château vomited flame from every window;
+the gatling, pulled back into the front door, roared out in a
+hundred streaks of fire. Jack dragged Lorraine to the first
+floor; she was terribly excited. Almost at once she knelt down
+and began to load rifles, passing them to Jack, who passed them
+to the soldiers at the windows. Once, when a whole window was
+torn in and the mattress on fire, she quenched the flames with
+water from her pitcher; and when the soldiers hesitated at the
+breach, she started herself, but Jack held her back and led the
+cheering, and piled more mattresses into the shattered window.
+
+Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house,
+hammering with rifle-butts at the closed shutters, crouching,
+dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into
+the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres
+in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and
+galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.
+
+Suddenly they all gave way; the garden and lawns were emptied
+save for the writhing wounded and motionless dead.
+
+"Cheer!" gasped Lorraine; and the battered Château rang again
+with frenzied cries of triumph.
+
+The wounded were calling for water, and Jack and Lorraine brought
+it in bowls. Here and there the bedding and wood-work had caught
+fire, but the line soldiers knocked it out with their rifle-butts.
+Whenever Lorraine entered a room they cheered her--the young
+officers waved their caps, even a dying bugler raised himself and
+feebly sounded the salute to the colours.
+
+By the light of the candles Jack noticed for the first time that
+Lorraine wore the dress of the Province--that costume that he had
+first seen her in--the scarlet skirt, the velvet bodice, the
+chains of silver. And as she stood loading the rifles in the
+smoke-choked room, the soldiers saw more than that: they saw the
+Province itself in battle there--the Province of Lorraine. And
+they cheered and leaped to the windows, firing frenziedly, crying
+the old battle-cry of Lorraine: "Tiens ta Foy! Frappe! Pour le
+Roy!" while the child in the bodice and scarlet skirt stood up
+straight and snapped back the locks of the loaded chassepots, one
+by one.
+
+"Once again! For France!" cried Lorraine, as the clamour of the
+Prussian drums broke out on the hill-side, and the hoarse
+trumpets signalled from wood to wood.
+
+A thundering cry arose from the Château:
+
+"France!"
+
+The sullen boom of a Prussian cannon drowned it; the house shook
+with the impact of a shell, bursting in fury on the terrace.
+
+White faces turned to faces whiter still.
+
+"Cannon!"
+
+"Hold on! For France!" cried Lorraine, feverishly.
+
+"Cannon!" echoed the voices, one to another.
+
+Again the solid walls shook with the shock of a solid shot.
+
+Jack stuffed the steel box into his breast and turned to
+Lorraine.
+
+"It is ended, we cannot stay--" he began; but at that instant
+something struck him a violent blow on the chest, and he fell,
+striking the floor with his head.
+
+In a second Lorraine was at his side, lifting him with all the
+strength of her arms, calling to him: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"
+
+The soldiers were leaving the windows now; the house rocked and
+tottered under the blows of shell and solid shot. Down-stairs an
+officer cried: "Save yourselves!" There was a hurry of feet
+through the halls and on the stairs. A young soldier touched
+Lorraine timidly on the shoulder.
+
+"Give him to me; I will carry him down," he said.
+
+She clung to Jack and turned a blank gaze on the soldier.
+
+"Give him to me," he repeated; "the house is burning." But she
+would not move nor relinquish her hold. Then the soldier seized
+Jack and threw him over his shoulder, running swiftly down the
+stairs, that rocked under his feet. Lorraine cried out and
+followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and
+thunder of the exploding shells dazed and stunned her; but the
+soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she
+followed, stumbling to his side.
+
+"To the trees--yonder--the forest--" he gasped.
+
+They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man
+by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.
+
+"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"
+
+"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against
+a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes
+closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+PRINCESS IMPERIAL
+
+
+The glare from the Château Morteyn, now wrapped in torrents of
+curling flame, threw long crimson shafts of light far into the
+forest. The sombre trees glimmered like live cinders; the wet
+moss crisped and bronzed as the red radiance played through the
+thickets. The bright, wavering fire-glow fell full on Jack's
+body; his face was hidden in the shadow of Lorraine's hair.
+
+Twice the timid young soldier drew her away, but she crept back,
+murmuring Jack's name; and at last the soldier seized the body in
+both arms and stumbled on again, calling Lorraine to follow.
+
+Little by little the illumination faded out among the trees; the
+black woods crowded in on every side; the noise of the crackling
+flames, the shouting, the brazen rattle of drums grew fainter and
+fainter, and finally died out in the soft, thick blackness of the
+forest.
+
+When they halted the young soldier placed Jack on the moss, then
+held out his hands. Lorraine touched them. He guided her to the
+prostrate figure; she flung herself face down beside it.
+
+After a moment the soldier touched her again timidly on the
+shoulder:
+
+"Have I done well?"
+
+She sobbed her thanks, rising to her knees. The soldier, a boy of
+eighteen, straightened up; he noiselessly laid his knapsack and
+haversack on the ground, trembled, swayed, and sat down,
+muttering vaguely of God and the honour of France. Presently he
+went away, lurching in the darkness like a drunken man--on, on,
+deep into the forest, where nothing of light or sound penetrated.
+And when he could no longer stand he sat down, his young head in
+his hands, and waited. His body had been shot through and
+through. About midnight he died.
+
+When Jack came to his senses the gray mystery of dawn was passing
+through the silent forest aisles; the beeches, pallid, stark,
+loomed motionless on every side; the pale veil of sky-fog hung
+festooned from tree to tree. There was a sense of breathless
+waiting in the shadowy woods--no sound, no stir, nothing of life
+or palpitation--nothing but foreboding.
+
+Jack crawled to his knees; his chest ached, his mouth cracked
+with a terrible throbbing thirst. Dazed as yet, he did not even
+look around; he did not try to think; but that weight on his
+chest grew to a burning agony, and he tore at his coat and threw
+it open. The flat steel box, pierced by a bullet, fell on the
+ground before his knees. Then he remembered. He ripped open
+waistcoat and shirt and stared at his bare breast. It was
+discoloured--a mass of bruises, but there was no blood there. He
+looked listlessly at the box on the leaves under him, and touched
+his bruised body. Suddenly his mind grew clearer; he stumbled up,
+steadying himself against a tree. His lips moved "Lorraine!" but
+no sound came. Again, in terror, he tried to cry out. He could
+not speak. Then he saw her. She lay among the dead leaves, face
+downward in the moss.
+
+When at last he understood that she was alive he lay down beside
+her, one arm across her body, and sank into a profound sleep.
+
+She woke first. A burning thirst set her weeping in her sleep and
+then roused her. Tear-stained and ghastly pale, she leaned over
+the sleeping man beside her, listened to his breathing, touched
+his hair, then rose and looked fearfully about her. On the
+knapsack under the tree a tin cup was shining. She took it and
+crept down into a gulley, where, through the deep layers of dead
+leaves, water sparkled in a string of tiny iridescent puddles.
+The water, however, was sweet and cold, and, when she had
+satisfied her thirst and had dug into the black loam with the
+edge of the cup, more water, sparkling and pure, gushed up and
+spread out in the miniature basin. She waited for the mud and
+leaves to settle, and when the basin was clear she unbound her
+hair, loosened her bodice, and slipped it off. When she had
+rolled the wide, full sleeves of her chemise to the shoulder she
+bathed her face and breast and arms; they glistened like marble
+tinged with rose in the pale forest dawn. The little scrupulous
+ablutions finished, she dried her face on the fine cambric of the
+under-sleeve, she dried her little ears, her brightening eyes,
+the pink palms of her hand, and every polished finger separately
+from the delicate flushed tip to the wrist, blue-veined and
+slender. She shook out her heavy hair, heavy and gleaming with
+burnished threads, and bound it tighter. She mended the broken
+points of her bodice, then laced it firmly till it pressed and
+warmed her fragrant breast. Then she rose.
+
+There was nothing of fear or sorrow in her splendid eyes; her
+mouth was moist and scarlet, her curved cheeks pure as a child's.
+
+For a moment she stood pensive, her face now grave, now
+sensitive, now touched with that mysterious exaltation that glows
+through the histories of the saints, that shines from tapestries,
+that hides in the dim faces carved on shrines.
+
+For the world was trembling and the land cried out under the
+scourge, and she was ready now for what must be. The land would
+call her where she was awaited; the time, the hour, the place had
+been decreed. She was ready--and where was the bitterness of
+death, when she could face it with the man she loved.
+
+Loved? At the thought her knees trembled under her with the
+weight of this love; faint with its mystery and sweetness, her
+soul turned in its innocence to God. And for the first time in
+her child's life she understood that God lived.
+
+She understood now that the sadness of life was gone forever.
+There was no loneliness now for soul or heart; nothing to fear,
+nothing to regret. Her life was complete. Death seemed an
+incident. If it came to her or to the man she loved, they would
+wait for one another a little while--that was all.
+
+A pale sunbeam stole across the tree-tops. She looked up. A
+little bird sang, head tilted towards the blue. She moved softly
+up the slope, her hair glistening in the early sun, her blue eyes
+dreaming; and when she came to the sleeping man she bent beside
+him and held a cup of sweet water to his lips.
+
+About noon they spoke of hunger, timidly, lest either might think
+the other complained. Her head close against his, her warm arms
+tight around his neck, she told him of the boy soldier, the
+dreadful journey in the night, the terror, and the awakening. She
+told him of the birth of her love for him--how death no longer
+was to be feared or sought. She told him there was nothing to
+alarm him, nothing to make them despair. Sin could not touch
+them; death was God's own gift.
+
+He listened, too happy to even try to understand. Perhaps he
+could not, being only a young man in love. But he knew that all
+she said must be true, perhaps too true for him to comprehend. He
+was satisfied; his life was complete. Something of the contentment
+of a school-boy exhausted with play lingered in his eyes.
+
+They had spoken of the box; she had taken it reverently in her
+hands and touched the broken key, snapped off short in the lock.
+Inside, the Prussian bullet rattled as she turned the box over
+and over, her eyes dim with love for the man who had done all for
+her.
+
+Jack found a loaf of bread in the knapsack. It was hard and dry,
+but they soaked it in the leaf-covered spring and ate it
+deliciously, cheek against cheek.
+
+Little by little their plans took shape. They were to go--Heaven
+knows how!--to find the Emperor. Into his hands they would give
+the box with its secrets, then turn again, always together, ready
+for their work, wherever it might be.
+
+Towards mid-afternoon Lorraine grew drowsy. There was a summer
+warmth in the air; the little forest birds came to the spring
+and preened their feathers in the pale sunshine. Two cicadas,
+high in the tree-tops, droned an endless harmony; hemlock cones
+dropped at intervals on the dead leaves.
+
+When Lorraine lay asleep, her curly head on Jack's folded coat,
+her hands clasped under her cheek, Jack leaned back against the
+tree and picked up the box. He turned it softly, so that the
+bullet within should not rattle. After a moment he opened his
+penknife and touched the broken fragment of the key in the lock.
+Idly turning the knife-blade this way and that, but noiselessly,
+for fear of troubling Lorraine, he thought of the past, the
+present, and the future. Sir Thorald lay dead on the hillock
+above the river Lisse; Alixe slept beside him; Rickerl was
+somewhere in the country, riding with his Uhlan scourges; Molly
+Hesketh waited in Paris for her dead husband; the Marquis de
+Nesville's bones were lying in the forest where he now sat,
+watching the sleeping child of the dead man. His child? Jack
+looked at her tenderly. No, not the child of the Marquis de
+Nesville, but a foundling, a lost waif in the Lorraine Hills,
+perhaps a child of chance. What of it? She would never know. The
+Château de Nesville was a smouldering mass of fire; the lands
+could revert to the country; she should never again need them,
+never again see them, for he would take her to his own land when
+trouble of war had passed, and there she should forget pain and
+sorrow and her desolate, loveless childhood; she should only
+remember that in the Province of Lorraine she had met the man she
+loved. All else should be a memory of green trees and vineyards
+and rivers, growing vaguer and dimmer as the healing years passed
+on.
+
+The knife-blade in the box bent, sprang back--the box flew open.
+
+He did not realize it at first; he looked at the three folded
+papers lying within, curiously, indolently. Presently he took
+them and looked at the superscriptions written on the back, in
+the handwriting of the marquis. The three papers were inscribed
+as follows:
+
+    "1. For the French Government after the fall of the
+    Empire."
+
+    "2. For the French Government on the death of Louis
+    Bonaparte, falsely called Emperor."
+
+    "3. To whom it may concern!"
+
+"To whom it may concern!" he repeated, looking at the third
+paper. Presently he opened it and read it, and as he read his
+heart seemed to cease its beating.
+
+    "_TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN_!
+
+    "Grief has unsettled my mind, yet, what I now write is
+    true, and, if there is a God, I solemnly call His curses
+    on me and mine if I lie.
+
+    "My only son, René Philip d'Harcourt de Nesville, was
+    assassinated on the Grand Boulevard in Paris, on the 2d
+    of December, 1851. His assassin was a monster named
+    Louis Bonaparte, now known falsely as Napoleon III.,
+    Emperor of the French. His paid murderers shot my boy
+    down, and stabbed him to death with their bayonets, in
+    front of the Café Tortoni. I carried his body home; I
+    sat at the window, with my dead boy on my knees, and I
+    saw Louis Bonaparte ride into the Rue St. Honoré with
+    his murderous Lancers, and I saw children spit at him
+    and hurl curses at him from the barricade.
+
+    "Now I, Gilbert, Marquis de Nesville, swore to strike.
+    And I struck, not at his life--that can wait. I struck
+    at the root of all his pride and honour--I struck at
+    that which he held dearer than these--at his dynasty!
+
+    "Do the people of France remember when the Empress was
+    first declared enciente? The cannon thundered from the
+    orangerie at Saint-Cloud, the dome of the Invalides
+    blazed rockets, the city glittered under a canopy of
+    coloured fire. Oh, they were very careful of the Empress
+    of the French! They went to Saint-Cloud, and later to
+    Versailles, as they go to holy cities, praying. And the
+    Emperor himself grew younger, they said.
+
+    "Then came the news that the expected heir, a son, had
+    been born dead! Lies!
+
+    "I, Gilbert de Nesville, was in the forest when the
+    Empress of the French fell ill. When separated from the
+    others she called to Morny, and bade him drive for the
+    love of Heaven! And they drove--they drove to the
+    Trianon, and there was no one there. And there the child
+    was born. Morny held it in his arms. He came out to the
+    colonnade holding it in his arms, and calling for a
+    messenger. I came, and when I was close to Morny I
+    struck him in the face and he fell senseless. I took the
+    child and wrapped it in my cloak. This is the truth!
+
+    "They dared not tell it; they dared not, for fear and
+    for shame. They said that an heir had been born dead;
+    and they mourned for their dead son. It was only a
+    daughter. She is alive; she loves me, and, God forgive
+    me, I hate her for defeating my just vengeance.
+
+    "And I call her Lorraine de Nesville."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE SHADOW OF POMP
+
+
+The long evening shadows were lengthening among the trees; sleepy
+birds twitted in dusky thickets; Lorraine slept.
+
+Jack still stood staring at the paper in his hands, trying to
+understand the purport of what he read and reread, until the page
+became a blur and his hot eyes burned.
+
+All the significance of the situation rose before him. This
+child, the daughter of the oath-breaker, the butcher of December,
+the sly, slow diplomate of Europe, the man of Rome, of Mexico,
+the man now reeling back to Châlons under the iron blows of an
+aroused people. In Paris, already, they cursed his name; they
+hurled insults at the poor Empress, that mother in despair.
+Thiers, putting his senile fingers in the porridge, stirred a
+ferment that had not even germinated since the guillotine towered
+in the Place de la Concorde and the tumbrils rattled through the
+streets. He did not know what he was stirring. The same impulse
+that possessed Gladstone to devastate trees animated Thiers. He
+stirred the dangerous mess because he liked to stir, nothing
+more. But from that hell's broth the crimson spectre of the
+Commune was to rise, when the smoke of Sedan had drifted clear of
+a mutilated nation.
+
+Through the heavy clouds of death which were already girdling
+Paris, that flabby Cyclops, Gambetta, was to mouth his monstrous
+platitudes, and brood over the battle-smoke, a nightmare of
+pomposity and fanfaronade--in a balloon. All France was bowed
+down in shame at the sight of the grotesque convoy, who were
+proclaiming her destiny among nations, and their destiny to lead
+her to victory and "la gloire." A scorched, blood-soaked land, a
+pall of smoke through which brave men bared their breasts to the
+blast from the Rhine, and died uncomplainingly, willingly,
+cheerfully, for the mother-land--was it not pitiful?
+
+The sublime martyrdom of the men who marched, who shall write it?
+And who shall write of those others--Bazaine, Napoleon, Thiers,
+Gambetta, Favre, Ollivier?
+
+If Bazaine died, cursed by a nation, his martyrdom, for martyrdom
+it was, was no greater than that of the humblest French peasant,
+who, dying, knew at last that he died, not for France, but
+because the men who sent him were worse than criminal--they were
+imbecile.
+
+The men who marched were sublime; they were the incarnation of
+embattled France; the starving people of Metz, of Strassbourg, of
+Paris, were sublime. But there was nothing sublime about Monsieur
+Adolphe Thiers, nothing heroic about Hugo, nothing respectable
+about Gambetta. The marshal with the fat neck and Spanish
+affiliations, the poor confused, inert, over-fed marshal caged in
+Metz by the Red Prince, harassed, bewildered, stunned by the
+clashing of politics and military strategy, which his meagre
+brain was unable to reconcile or separate--this unfortunate
+incapable was deserving of pity, perhaps of contempt. His cup
+was to be bitterer than that--it was to be drained, too, with the
+shouts of "Traitor" stunning his fleshy ears.
+
+He was no traitor. Cannot France understand that this single word
+"traitor" has brought her to contempt in the eyes of the world?
+There are two words that mar every glorious, sublime page of the
+terrible history of 1870-71, and these two words are "treason"
+and "revenge." Let the nation face the truth, let the people
+write "incapacity" for "treason," and "honour" for "revenge," and
+then the abused term "la gloire" will be justified in the eyes of
+men.
+
+As for Thiers, let men judge him from his three revolutions, let
+the unknown dead in the ditches beyond the enceinte judge him,
+let the spectres of the murdered from Père Lachaise to the
+bullet-pitted terrace of the Luxembourg judge this meddler, this
+potterer in epoch-making cataclysms. Bismarck, gray, imbittered,
+without honour in an unenlightened court, can still smile when he
+remembers Jules Favre and his prayer for the National Guard.
+
+And these were the men who formed the convoy around the chariot
+of France militant, France in arms!--a cortège at once hideous,
+shameful, ridiculous, grotesque.
+
+What was left of the Empire? Metz still held out; Strassbourg
+trembled under the shock of Prussian mortars; Paris strained its
+eyes for the first silhouette of the Uhlan on the heights of
+Versailles; and through the chill of the dying year the sombre
+Emperor, hunted, driven, threatened, tumbled into the snare of
+Sedan as a sick buzzard flutters exhausted to earth under a
+shower of clubs and stones.
+
+The end was to be brutal: a charge or two of devoted men, a crush
+at the narrow gates, a white flag, a brusque gesture from
+Bismarck, nothing more except a "guard of honour," an imperial
+special train, and Belgian newsboys shrieking along the station
+platform, "Extra! Fall of the Empire! Paris proclaims the
+Republic! Flight of the Empress! Extra!"
+
+Jack, sitting with the paper in his hands, read between the
+lines, and knew that the prophecy of evil days would be
+fulfilled. But as yet the writing on the wall of Alsatian hills
+had not spelled "Sedan," nor did he know of the shambles of
+Mars-la-Tour, the bloody work at Buzancy, the retreat from
+Châlons, and the evacuation of Vitry.
+
+Buzancy marked the beginning of the end. It was nothing but a
+skirmish; the 3d Saxon Cavalry, a squadron or two of the 18th
+Uhlans, and Zwinker's Battery fought a half-dozen squadrons of
+chasseurs. But the red-letter mark on the result was unmistakable.
+Bazaine's correspondence was captured. On the same day the second
+sortie occurred from Strassbourg. It was time, for the trenches
+and parallels had been pushed within six hundred paces of the
+glacis. And so it was everywhere, the whole country was in a
+ferment of disorganized but desperate resistance of astonishment,
+indignation, dismay.
+
+The nation could not realize that it was too late, that it was
+not conquest but invasion which the armies of France must prepare
+for. Blow after blow fell, disaster after disaster stunned the
+country, while the government studied new and effective forms of
+lying and evasion, and the hunted Emperor drifted on to his doom
+in the pitfall of Sedan.
+
+All Alsace except Belfort, Strassbourg, Schlettstadt, and Neuf
+Brisac was in German hands, under German power, governed by
+German law. The Uhlans scoured the country as clean as possible,
+but the franc-tireurs roamed from forest to forest, sometimes
+gallantly facing martyrdom, sometimes looting, burning,
+pillaging, and murdering. If Germans maintain that the only good
+franc-tireur is a dead franc-tireur, they are not always
+justified. Let them sit first in judgment on Andreas Hofer.
+England had Hereward; America, Harry Lee; and, when the South is
+ready to acknowledge Mosby and Quantrell of the same feather, it
+will be time for France to blush for her franc-tireurs. Noble and
+ignoble, patriots and cowards, the justified and the misguided
+wore the straight képi and the sheepskin jacket. All figs in
+Spain are not poisoned.
+
+With the fall of the Château Morteyn, the war in Lorraine would
+degenerate into a combat between picquets of Uhlans and roving
+franc-tireurs. There would be executions of spies, vengeance on
+peasants, examples made of franc-tireurs, and all the horrors of
+irregular warfare. Jack knew this; he understood it perfectly
+when the muddy French infantry tramped out of the Château Morteyn
+and vanished among the dark hills in the rain.
+
+For himself, had he been alone, there would have been nothing to
+keep him in the devastated province. Indeed, considering his
+peculiarly strained relations with the Uhlans of Rickerl's
+regiment, it behooved him to get across the Belgian frontier
+very promptly.
+
+Now he not only had Lorraine, he had the woman who loved him and
+who was ready to sacrifice herself and him too for the honour of
+France. She lived for one thing--the box, with its pitiful
+contents, its secrets of aërial navigation and destruction, must
+be placed at the service of France. The government was France
+now, and the Empress was the government. Lorraine knew nothing of
+the reasons her father had had for his hatred of the Emperor and
+the Empire. Personal grievances, even when those grievances were
+her father's, even though they might be justified, would never
+deter her from placing the secrets that might aid, might save,
+France with the man who, at that moment, in her eyes, represented
+the safety, security, the very existence of the land she loved.
+
+Jack knew this. Whether she was right or not did not occur to him
+to ask. But the irony of it, the grim necessity of such a fate,
+staggered him--a daughter seeking her father at the verge of his
+ruin--a child, long lost, forgotten, unrecognized, unclaimed,
+finding the blind path to a father who, when she had been torn
+from him, dared not seek for her, dared not whisper of her
+existence except to Morny in the cloaked shadows of secret
+places.
+
+For good or ill Jack made up his mind; he had decided for himself
+and for her. Her loveless, lonely childhood had been enough of
+sorrow for one young life; she should have no further storm, no
+more heartaches, nothing but peace and love and the strong arm of
+a man to shield her. Let her remember the only father she had
+ever known--let her remember him with faithful love and sorrow
+as she would. For the wrong he had done, let him account to
+another tribunal; her, the echo of that crime and hate and
+passion must never reach.
+
+Why should he, the man who loved her, bring to her this heritage
+of ruin? Why should he tear the veil from her trusting eyes and
+show her a land bought with blood and broken oaths, sold in blood
+and infamy? Why should he show her this, and say, "This is the
+work of your imperial family! There is your father!--some call
+him the Assassin of December! There is your mother!--read the
+pages of an Eastern diary! There, too, is your brother, a sick
+child of fifteen, baptized at Saarbrück, endowed at Sedan?"
+
+It was enough that France lay prostrate, that the wounded
+screamed from the blood-wet fields, that the quiet dead lay under
+the pall of smoke from the nation's funeral pyre. It was enough
+that the parents suffer, that the son drag out an existence among
+indifferent or hostile people in an alien land. The daughter
+should never know, never weep when they wept, never pray when
+they prayed. This was retribution--not his, he only watched in
+silence the working of divine justice.
+
+He tore the paper into fragments and ground them under his heel
+deep into the soft forest mould.
+
+Lorraine slept.
+
+He stood a long while in silence looking down at her. She was
+breathing quietly, regularly; her long, curling lashes rested on
+curved cheeks, delicate as an infant's.
+
+Half fearfully he stooped to arouse her. A footfall sounded on
+the dead leaves behind him, and a franc-tireur touched him on the
+shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+ÇA IRA!
+
+
+"What do you want?" asked Jack, in a voice that vibrated
+unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips
+grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped
+from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the
+subdued afternoon haze--wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless
+sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and
+trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him
+without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering their
+gunlocks, bayoneted rifles unslung.
+
+"Your name?" said the man who had touched him on the shoulder.
+
+He did not reply at once. One of the men began to laugh.
+
+"He's the vicomte's nephew," said another; and, pointing at
+Lorraine, who, now aroused, sat up on the moss beside Jack, he
+continued: "And that is the little châtelaine of the Château de
+Nesville." He took off his straight-visored cap.
+
+The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine
+stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were
+doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground.
+
+"Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she
+said. "Oh, and there is le Père Passerat, and little Émile Brun!
+Émile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?" The dark
+faces lighted up; somebody snickered; Brun, the conscript of the
+class of '71 who had been hauled by the heels from under his
+mother's bed, looked confused and twiddled his thumbs.
+
+One by one the franc-tireurs came shambling up to pay their
+awkward respects to Lorraine and to Jack, while Tricasse pulled
+his bristling mustache and clattered his sabre in its sheath
+approvingly. When his men had acquitted themselves with all the
+awkward sincerity of Lorraine peasants, he advanced with a superb
+bow and flourish, lifting his cap from his gray head:
+
+"In my quality of ex-pompier and commandant of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn'--my battalion"--here he made a sweeping gesture as
+though briefly reviewing an army corps instead of a dozen
+wolfish-eyed peasants--"I extend to our honoured and beloved
+Châtelaine de Nesville, and to our honoured guest, Monsieur
+Marche, the protection and safe-conduct of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn.'"
+
+As he spoke his expression became exalted. He, Tricasse,
+ex-pompier and exempt, was posing as the saviour of his province,
+and he felt that, though German armies stretched in endless ranks
+from the Loire to the Meuse, he, Tricasse, was the man of
+destiny, the man of the place and the hour when beauty was in
+distress.
+
+Lorraine, her eyes dim with gentle tears, held out both slender
+hands; Tricasse bent low and touched them with his grizzled
+mustache. Then he straightened up, frowned at his men, and said
+"Attention!" in a very fierce voice.
+
+The half-starved fellows shuffled into a single rank; their faces
+were wreathed in sheepish smiles. Jack noticed that a Bavarian
+helmet and side-arm hung from the knapsack of one, a mere
+freckled lad, downy and dimpled. Tricasse drew his sabre, turned,
+marched solemnly along the front, wheeled again, and saluted.
+
+Jack lifted his cap; Lorraine, her arm in his, bowed and smiled
+tearfully.
+
+"The dear, brave fellows!" she cried, impulsively, whereat every
+man reddened, and Tricasse grew giddy with emotion. He tried to
+speak; his emotion was great.
+
+"In my capacity of ex-pompier," he gasped, then went to pieces,
+and hid his eyes in his hands. The "Terrors of Morteyn" wept with
+him to a man.
+
+Presently, with a gesture to Tricasse, Jack led Lorraine down the
+slope, past the spring, and on through the forest, three
+"Terrors" leading, rifles poised, Tricasse and the others
+following, alert and balancing their cocked rifles.
+
+"How far is your camp?" asked Jack. "We need food and the warmth
+of a fire. Tell me, Monsieur Tricasse, what is left of the two
+châteaux?"
+
+Lorraine bent nearer as the old man said: "The Château de Nesville
+is a mass of cinders; Morteyn, a stone skeleton. Pierre is dead.
+There are many dead there--many, many dead. The Prussians burned
+Saint-Lys yesterday; they shot Bosquet, the letter-carrier; they
+hung his boy to the railroad trestle, then shot him to pieces. The
+Curé is a prisoner; the Mayor of Saint-Lys and the Notary have
+been sent to the camp at Strassbourg. We, my 'Terrors of Morteyn'
+and I, are still facing the vandals; except for us, the Province
+of Lorraine is empty of Frenchmen in armed resistance."
+
+The old man, in his grotesque uniform, touched his bristling
+mustache and muttered: "Nom d'une pipe!" several times to steady
+his voice.
+
+Lorraine and Jack pressed on silently, sorrowfully, hand in hand,
+watching the scouts ahead, who were creeping on through the
+trees, heads turning from side to side, rifles raised. They
+passed along the back of a thickly wooded ridge for some
+distance, perhaps a mile, before the thin blue line of a
+smouldering camp-fire rose almost in their very faces. A low
+challenge from a clump of birch-trees was answered, there came
+the sound of rifles dropping, the noise of feet among the leaves,
+a whisper, and before they knew it they were standing at the
+mouth of a hole in the bank, from which came the odour of
+beef-broth simmering. Two or three franc-tireurs passed them,
+looking up curiously into their faces. Tricasse dragged a
+dilapidated cane-chair from the dirt-cave and placed it before
+Lorraine as though he were inviting her to an imperial throne.
+
+"Thank you," she said, sweetly, and seated herself, not
+relinquishing Jack's hand.
+
+Two tin basins of soup were brought to them; they ate it, soaking
+bits of crust in it.
+
+The men pretended not to watch them. With all their instinctive
+delicacy these clumsy peasants busied themselves in guard-mounting,
+weapon cleaning, and their cuisine, as though there was no such
+thing as a pretty woman within miles. But it tried their gallantry
+as Frenchmen and their tact as Lorraine peasants. Furtive glances,
+deprecatory and timid, were met by the sweetest of smiles from
+Lorraine or a kindly nod from Jack. Tricasse, utterly unbalanced by
+his new rôle of protector of beauty, gave orders in fierce, agitated
+whispers, and made sudden aimless promenades around the birch thicket.
+In one of these prowls he discovered a toad staring at the camp-fire,
+and he drew his sword with a furious gesture, as though no living
+toad were good enough to intrude on the Châtelaine of the Château de
+Nesville; but the toad hopped away, and Tricasse unbent his brows
+and resumed his agitated prowl.
+
+When Lorraine had finished her soup, Jack took both plates into
+the cave and gave them to a man who, squatted on his haunches,
+was washing dishes. Lorraine followed him and sat down on a
+blanket, leaning back against the side of the cave.
+
+"Wait for me," said Jack. She drew his head down to hers.
+
+They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the
+amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and
+found Tricasse, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad
+ridge.
+
+A road ran under the overhanging bank.
+
+"I didn't know we were so near a road," said Jack, startled.
+Tricasse laid his finger on his lips.
+
+"It is the high-road to Saint-Lys. We have settled more than one
+Uhlan dog on that curve there by the oak-tree. Look! Here comes
+one of our men. See! He's got something, too."
+
+Sure enough, around the bend in the road slunk a franc-tireur,
+loaded down with what appeared to be mail-sacks. Cautiously he
+reconnoitred the bank, the road, the forest on the other side,
+whistled softly, and, at Tricasse's answering whistle, came
+puffing and blowing up the slope, and flung a mail-bag, a rifle,
+a Bavarian helmet, and a German knapsack to the ground.
+
+"The big police officer?" inquired Tricasse, eagerly.
+
+"Yes, the big one with the red beard. He died hard. I used the
+bayonet only," said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the
+dried blood on his hairy fists. "I got a Bavarian sentry, too;
+there's the proof."
+
+Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with
+his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal
+it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling
+them like cards.
+
+One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest
+into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.
+
+"There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going
+to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding
+the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail
+delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur
+Marche?"
+
+"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly.
+
+He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned
+his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the
+franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from
+Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.
+
+"Put out the fire, too," called Tricasse, softly. "I begin to
+smell it."
+
+When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Tricasse,
+folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the
+flat steel box was.
+
+"Letters from Paris," he said. "The Uhlans have appeared in the
+Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and
+enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege."
+
+"Paris!" blurted out Tricasse, aghast.
+
+Jack nodded, silently.
+
+After a moment he resumed: "The Emperor is said to be with the
+army near Mézières on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going
+to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do."
+
+Tricasse stared at him, incapable of speech.
+
+"Very well," said Jack, gently, "think it over. Tell me, at
+least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this
+evening."
+
+He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by
+the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously
+over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a
+careless footstep might perhaps be heard by passing Uhlans. In a
+few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow,
+where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.
+
+Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat
+down on the blankets beside her.
+
+"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In
+it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the
+other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my
+uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened
+because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The
+Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city
+is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or
+Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all
+going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know
+nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they
+need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my
+duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you
+must not go--it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to
+Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with
+a free heart."
+
+She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.
+
+"Hush," she said; "I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to
+try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our
+path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we
+tread it together, always together, Jack." He struggled to speak;
+she held him close, and laid her head against his breast,
+contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of
+France reconquered, of noble deeds and sacrifices, of the great
+bells of churches thundering God's praise to a humble, thankful
+nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay
+dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the
+sleeping echoes of the cave--the scuffling and thrashing of a
+shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a
+crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.
+
+Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly
+out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they
+hurried from the cave another franc-tireur came up, leading a
+riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his
+rifle, the butt dripping with blood.
+
+"Silence," he motioned to them, pointing to the wooded ridge
+beyond. Jack looked intently at the cavalry horse. The schabraque
+was blue, edged with yellow; the saddle-cloth bore the number
+"11."
+
+"Uhlan?" He formed the word with his lips.
+
+The franc-tireur nodded with a ghastly smile and glanced down at
+his dripping gunstock.
+
+Lorraine's hand closed on Jack's arm.
+
+"Come to the hill," she said; "I cannot stand that."
+
+On the crest of the wooded ridge crouched Tricasse, bared sabre
+stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around
+him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in
+the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts,
+their sinewy fingers played continually with the rifle-hammers.
+
+Jack hesitated, his arm around Lorraine's body, his eyes fixed
+nervously on the bend in the road.
+
+Something was coming; there were cries, the trample of horses,
+the shuffle of footsteps. Suddenly an Uhlan rode cautiously
+around the bend, glanced right and left, looked back, signalled,
+and started on. Behind him crowded a dozen more Uhlans, lances
+glancing, pennants streaming in the wind.
+
+"They've got a woman!" whispered Lorraine.
+
+They had a man, too--a powerful, bearded peasant, with a great
+livid welt across his bloodless face. A rope hung around his
+neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle-bow of an
+Uhlan. But what made Jack's heart fairly leap into his mouth was
+to see Siurd von Steyr suddenly wheel in his saddle and lash the
+woman across the face with his doubled bridle.
+
+She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his
+stirrup.
+
+"Get out, damn you!" roared Von Steyr. "Here--I'll settle this
+now. Shoot that French dog!"
+
+"My husband, O God!" screamed the woman, struggling in the dust.
+In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred
+forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around
+his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and
+tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to
+pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt,
+another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a
+wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan's face, deeper,
+deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.
+
+"Fire!" shrieked Tricasse--"the woman's dead!"
+
+Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering,
+sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure passed like a flash
+through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew
+back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the
+franc-tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene
+was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were
+torn from their frantic horses until only one remained--Von
+Steyr--drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head.
+They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot
+eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat
+him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck
+him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad
+cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when
+they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated
+the rabid thing that ran among them.
+
+But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road
+galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with
+harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the
+franc-tireurs were surrounded.
+
+Then Tricasse raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the
+dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the
+dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and
+the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the
+road:
+
+    "'Ça ira! Ça ira!'"
+
+It was the horrible song of the Terror.
+
+
+    "'Que faut-il au Républicain?
+    Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!
+
+    "'Du fer pour travailler,
+    Du plomb pour nous venger,
+    Et du pain pour nos frères!'"
+
+
+And the fierce voices sang:
+
+
+    "'Dansons la Carmagnole!
+    Dansons la Carmagnole!
+      Ça ira! Ça ira!
+    Tous les cochons à la lanterne!
+      Ça ira! Ça ira!
+    Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!'"
+
+
+The road trembled under the advancing cavalry; they surged around
+the bend, a chaos of rearing horses and levelled lances; a ring
+of fire around the little group of franc-tireurs, a cry from the
+whirl of flame and smoke:
+
+"France!"
+
+So they died.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE BRACONNIER
+
+
+Lorraine had turned ghastly white; Jack's shocked face was
+colourless as he drew her away from the ridge with him into the
+forest. The appalling horror had stunned her; her knees gave way,
+she stumbled, but Jack held her up by main force, pushing the
+undergrowth aside and plunging straight on towards the thickest
+depths of the woods. He had not the faintest idea where he was;
+he only knew that for the moment it was absolutely necessary for
+them to get as far away as possible from the Uhlans and their
+butcher's work. Lorraine knew it, too; she tried to recover her
+coolness and her strength.
+
+"Here is another road," she said, faintly; "Jack--I--I am not
+strong--I am--a--little--faint--" Tears were running over her
+cheeks.
+
+Jack peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road.
+Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and
+he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.
+
+"Who are you?" came the summons again in French. Jack did not
+answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip,
+stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of
+the slope.
+
+"Hallo!" he called, softly.
+
+Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly
+and puzzled smile.
+
+"What do you want?" asked Jack, suspiciously.
+
+"Parbleu! what do you want yourself?" asked the peasant, and
+showed his teeth in a frank laugh.
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+The peasant's eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her
+blanched face half hidden under the masses of her hair. "Oho!" he
+said--"a woman!"
+
+Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and
+close up to Jack.
+
+"Thought you might be one of those German spies," he said. "Is
+the lady ill? CÅ“ur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has
+happened? I am Brocard--Jean Brocard; they know me here in the
+forest--"
+
+"Eh!" broke in Jack--"you say you are Brocard the poacher?"
+
+"Hey! That's it--Brocard, braconnier--at your service. And you
+are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the
+little châtelaine De Nesville! Cœur Dieu! Have the Prussians
+brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche--I know you and I
+know the little châtelaine--oh, I know!--I, who have watched you
+at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while
+I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must
+live! Yes, I am Brocard--I do not lie. I have taken enough game
+from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?"
+
+He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost
+impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told
+him the exact truth, word by word, slowly and without bitterness,
+his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.
+
+"CÅ“ur Dieu!" muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine;
+"I've half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in
+the hides of these Prussian swine!"
+
+He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When
+they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and
+badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech
+growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing
+before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.
+
+"I have a guest," he said; "you need not fear him. Come!"
+
+In a dozen steps they entered the low doorway, Brocard leading,
+Lorraine leaning heavily on Jack's shoulder.
+
+"Pst! There is a thick-headed Englishman in the next room; let
+him sleep in peace," murmured Brocard.
+
+He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace
+with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the
+little flames began to rustle and snap.
+
+Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms;
+Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from
+Lorraine to Brocard.
+
+The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and
+leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes
+fixed on the reviving fire.
+
+"Morteyn! Morteyn!" he repeated; "it exists no longer. There are
+many dead there--dead in the garden, in the court, on the
+lawn--dead floating in the pond, the river--dead rotting in the
+thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them--I, Brocard the
+poacher."
+
+After a moment he resumed:
+
+"There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the
+Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as
+they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I
+saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges;
+I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought
+to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game--boars,
+deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched
+one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds--I really
+cannot tell."
+
+He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the
+next moment, and he continued: "I heard the fusillade on the
+Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing
+themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when God
+permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Tricasse at last. Zut!
+C'est embêtant! And poor old Passerat, too--and Brun, and all the
+rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I--but, no--no! I am doing very well--I,
+Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way."
+
+An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth--that
+was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably
+already sent more than one Prussian to his account.
+
+"That's all very well," he said, slowly--he had little sympathy
+with guerilla assassination--"but I'd rather hear how you are
+going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian
+lines."
+
+"You take much for granted," laughed the poacher. "Now, did I
+offer to do any such thing?"
+
+"But you will," said Jack, "for the honour of the Province and
+the vicomte, whose game, it appears, has afforded you both
+pleasure and profit."
+
+"CÅ“ur Dieu!" cried Brocard, laughing until his bright eyes grew
+moist. "You have spoken the truth, Monsieur Marche. But you have
+not added what I place first of all; it is for the gracious
+châtelaine of the Château de Nesville that I, Jean Brocard, play
+at hazard with the Prussians, the stakes being my skin. I will
+bring you through the lines; leave it to me."
+
+Before Jack could speak again the door of the next room opened,
+and a man appeared, dressed in tweeds, booted and spurred, and
+carrying a travelling-satchel. There was a moment's astonished
+silence.
+
+"Marche!" cried Archibald Grahame; "what the deuce are you doing
+here?" They shook hands, looking questioningly at each other.
+
+"Times have changed since we breakfasted by candle-light at
+Morteyn," said Jack, trying to regain his coolness.
+
+"I know--I know," said Grahame, sympathetically. "It's devilish
+rough on you all--on Madame de Morteyn. I can never forget her
+charming welcome. Dear me, but this war is disgusting; isn't it
+now? And what the devil are you doing here? Heavens, man, you're
+a sight!"
+
+Lorraine sat up on the bed at the sound of the voices. When
+Grahame saw her, saw her plight--the worn shoes, the torn,
+stained bodice and skirt, the pale face and sad eyes--he was too
+much affected to speak. Jack told him their situation in a dozen
+words; the sight of Lorraine's face told the rest.
+
+"Now we'll arrange that," cried Grahame. "Don't worry, Marche.
+Pray do not alarm yourself, Mademoiselle de Nesville, for I have
+a species of post-chaise at the door and a pair of alleged
+horses, and the whole outfit is at your disposal; indeed it is,
+and so am I. Come now!--and so am I." He hesitated, and then
+continued: "I have passes and papers, and enough to get you
+through a dozen lines. Now, where do you wish to go?"
+
+"When are you to start?" replied Jack, gratefully.
+
+"Say in half an hour. Can Mademoiselle de Nesville stand it?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," said Lorraine, with a tired, quaint politeness
+that made them smile.
+
+"Then we wish to get as near to the French Army as we can," said
+Jack. "I have a mission of importance. If you could drive us to
+the Luxembourg frontier we would be all right--if we had any
+money."
+
+"You shall have everything," cried Grahame; "you shall be driven
+where you wish. I'm looking for a battle, but I can't seem to
+find one. I've been driving about this wreck of a country for the
+last three days; I missed Amonvillers on the 18th, and Rezonville
+two days before. I saw the battles of Reichshofen and Borney. The
+Germans lost three thousand five hundred men at Beaumont, and I
+was not there either. But there's a bigger thing on the carpet,
+somewhere near the Meuse, and I'm trying to find out where and
+when. I've wasted a lot of time loafing about Metz. I want to see
+something on a larger scale, not that the Metz business isn't
+large enough--two hundred thousand men, six hundred cannon--and
+the Red Prince--licking their chops and getting up an appetite
+for poor old Bazaine and his battered, diseased, starved,
+disheartened army, caged under the forts and citadel of a city
+scarcely provisioned for a regiment."
+
+Lorraine, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked at him silently,
+but her eyes were full of a horror and anguish that Grahame could
+not help seeing.
+
+"The Emperor is with the army yet," he said, cheerfully. "Who
+knows what may happen in the next twenty-four hours? Mademoiselle
+de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour
+of France."
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine.
+
+Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out
+into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young
+French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss
+plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg
+frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in
+the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.
+
+"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon;
+this cannot go on. We will find the Emperor and do our part.
+Don't look that way, Lorraine, my darling!" He took her in his
+arms. She put both arms around his neck, and hid her face.
+
+For a while he held her, watching the fire with troubled eyes.
+The room grew darker; a wind arose among the forest trees,
+stirring dried leaves on brittle stems; the ashes on the hearth
+drifted like gray snowflakes.
+
+Her stillness began to trouble him. He bent in the dusk to see
+her face. She was asleep. Terror, pity, anguish, the dreadful
+uncertainty, had strained her child's nerves to the utmost; after
+that came the deep fatigue that follows torture, and she lay in
+his arms, limp, pallid, exhausted. Her sleep was almost the
+unconsciousness of coma; she scarcely breathed.
+
+The fire on the hearth went out; the smoking embers glimmered
+under feathery ashes. Grahame entered, carrying a lantern.
+
+"Come," he whispered. "Poor little thing!--can't I help you,
+Marche? Wait; here's a rug. So--wrap it around her feet. Can you
+carry her? Then follow; here, touch my coat--I'm going to put out
+the light in my lantern. Now--gently. Here we are."
+
+Jack climbed into the post-chaise; Grahame, holding Lorraine in
+his arms, leaned in, and Jack took her again. She had not
+awakened.
+
+"Brocard and I are going to sit in front," whispered Grahame. "Is
+all right within?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Jack.
+
+The chaise moved on for a moment, then suddenly stopped with a
+jerk.
+
+Jack heard Grahame whisper, "Sit still, you fool! I've got
+passes; sit still!"
+
+"Let go!" murmured Brocard.
+
+"Sit still!" repeated Grahame, in an angry whisper; "it's all
+right, I tell you. Be silent!"
+
+There was a noiseless struggle, a curse half breathed, then a
+figure slipped from the chaise into the road.
+
+Grahame sank back. "Marche, that damned poacher will hang us all.
+What am I to do?"
+
+"What is it?" asked Jack, in a scarcely audible voice.
+
+"Can't you hear? There's an Uhlan in the road in front. That fool
+means to kill him."
+
+Jack strained his eyes in the darkness; the road ahead was black
+and silent.
+
+"You can't see him," whispered Grahame. "Brocard caught the
+distant rattle of his lance in the stirrup. He's gone to kill
+him, the bloodthirsty imbecile!"
+
+"To shoot him?" asked Jack, aghast.
+
+"No; he's got his broad wood-knife--that's the way these brutes
+kill. Hark! Good God!"
+
+A scream rang through the forest; something was coming towards
+them, too--a horse, galloping, galloping, pounding, thundering
+past--a frantic horse that tossed its head and tore on through
+the night, mane flying, bridle loose. And there, crouched on the
+saddle, two men swayed, locked in a death-clench--an Uhlan with
+ghostly face and bared teeth, and Brocard, the poacher, cramped
+and clinging like a panther to his prey, his broad knife flashing
+in the gloom.
+
+In a second they were gone; far away in the forest the hoof
+strokes echoed farther and farther, duller, duller, then ceased.
+
+"Drive on," muttered Jack, with lips that could barely form the
+words.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+THE MESSAGE OF THE FLAG
+
+
+It was dawn when Lorraine awoke, stifling a cry of dismay. At the
+same moment she saw Jack, asleep, huddled into a corner of the
+post-chaise, his bloodless, sunken face smeared with the fine red
+dust that drifted in from the creaking wheels. Grahame, driving
+on the front seat, heard her move.
+
+"Are you better?" he asked, cheerfully.
+
+"Yes, thank you; I am better. Where are we?"
+
+Grahame's face sobered.
+
+"I'll tell you the truth," he said; "I don't know, and I can't
+find out. One thing is certain--we've passed the last German
+post, that is all I know. We ought to be near the frontier."
+
+He looked back at Jack, smiled again, and lowered his voice:
+
+"It's fortunate we have passed the German lines, because that
+last cavalry outpost took all my papers and refused to return
+them. I haven't an idea what to do now, except to go on as far as
+we can. I wish we could find a village; the horses are not
+exhausted, but they need rest."
+
+Lorraine listened, scarcely conscious of what he said. She leaned
+over Jack, looking down into his face, brushing the dust from his
+brow with her finger-tips, smoothing his hair, with a timid,
+hesitating glance at Grahame, who understood and gravely turned
+his back.
+
+Jack slept. She nestled down, pressing her soft, cool cheek close
+to his; her eyes drooped; her lips parted. So they slept
+together, cheek to cheek.
+
+A mist drove across the meadows; from the plains, dotted with
+poplars, a damp wind blew in puffs, driving the fog before it
+until the blank vapour dulled the faint morning light and the
+dawn faded into a colourless twilight. Spectral poplars, rank on
+rank, loomed up in the mist, endless rows of them, fading from
+sight as the vapours crowded in, appearing again as the fog
+thinned in a current of cooler wind.
+
+Grahame, driving slowly, began to nod in the thickening fog. At
+moments he roused himself; the horses walked on and the wheels
+creaked in the red dust. Hour after hour passed, but it grew no
+lighter. Drowsy and listless-eyed the horses toiled up and down
+the little hills, and moved stiffly on along the interminable
+road, shrouded in a gray fog that hid the very road-side
+shrubbery from sight, choked thicket and grove, and blotted the
+grimy carriage windows.
+
+Jack was awakened with startling abruptness by Grahame, who shook
+his shoulders, leaning into the post-chaise from the driver's
+seat.
+
+"There's something in front, Marche," he said. "We've fallen in
+with a baggage convoy, I fancy. Listen! Don't you hear the
+camp-wagons? Confound this fog! I can't see a rod ahead."
+
+Lorraine, also now wide awake, leaned from the window. The blank
+vapour choked everything. Jack rubbed his eyes; his limbs ached;
+he could scarcely move. Somebody was running on the road in
+front--the sound of heavy boots in the dust came nearer and
+nearer.
+
+"Look out!" shouted Grahame, in French; "there's a team here in
+the road! Passez au large!"
+
+At the sound of his voice phantoms surged up in the mist around
+them; from every side faces looked into the carriage windows,
+passing, repassing, disappearing, only to appear again--ghostly,
+shadowy, spectral.
+
+"Soldiers!" muttered Jack.
+
+At the same instant Grahame seized the lines and wheeled his
+horses just in time to avoid collision with a big wagon in front.
+As the post-chaise passed, more wagons loomed up in the fog, one
+behind another; soldiers took form around them, voices came to
+their ears, dulled by the mist.
+
+Suddenly a pale shaft of light streamed through the fog above;
+the restless, shifting vapours glimmered; a dazzling blot grew
+from the mist. It was the sun. Little by little the landscape
+became more distinct; the pallid, watery sky lightened; a streak
+of blue cut the zenith. Everywhere in the road great, lumbering
+wagons stood, loaded with straw; the sickly morning light fell on
+silent files of infantry, lining the road on either hand.
+
+"It's a convoy of wounded," said Grahame. "We're in the middle of
+it. Shall we go back?"
+
+A wagon in front of them started on; at the first jolt a cry sounded
+from the straw, another, another--the deep sighs of the dying, the
+groans of the stricken, the muttered curses of teamsters--rose in
+one terrible plaint. Another wagon started--the wounded wailed;
+another started--another--another--and the long train creaked on, the
+air vibrating with the weak protestations of miserable, mangled
+creatures tossing their thin arms towards the sky. And now, too, the
+soldiers were moving out into the road-side bushes, unslinging rifles
+and fixing bayonets; a mounted officer galloped past, shouting
+something; other mounted officers followed; a bugle sounded
+persistently from the distant head of the column.
+
+Everywhere soldiers were running along the road now, grouping
+together under the poplar-trees, heads turned to the plain. Some
+teamsters pushed an empty wagon out beyond the line of trees and
+overturned it; others stood up in their wagons, reins gathered,
+long whips swinging. The wounded moaned incessantly; some sat up
+in the straw, heads turned also towards the dim, gray plain.
+
+"It's an attack," said Grahame, coolly. "Marche, we're in for it
+now!"
+
+After a moment, he added, "What did I tell you? Look there!"
+
+Out on the plain, where the mist was clearing along the edge of a
+belt of trees, something was moving.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lorraine, in a scarcely audible voice.
+
+Before Grahame could speak a tumult of cries and groans burst out
+along the line of wagons; a bugle clanged furiously; the
+teamsters shouted and pointed with their whips.
+
+Out of the shadow of the grove two glittering double lines of
+horsemen trotted, halted, formed, extended right and left, and
+trotted on again. To the right another darker and more compact
+square of horsemen broke into a gallop, swinging a thicket of
+lances above their heads, from which fluttered a mass of black
+and white pennons.
+
+"Cuirassiers and Uhlans!" muttered Grahame, under his breath. He
+stood up in his seat; Jack rose also, straining his eyes, but
+Lorraine hid her face in her hands and crouched in the chaise,
+her head buried in the cushions.
+
+The silence was enervating; even the horses turned their gentle
+eyes wonderingly to that line of steel and lances; even the
+wounded, tremulous, haggard, held their breath between clenched
+teeth and stiff, swollen lips.
+
+"Nom de Dieu! Serrez les rangs, tas de bleus!" yelled an officer,
+riding along the edge of the road, revolver in one hand, naked
+sabre flashing in the other.
+
+A dozen artillerymen were pushing a mitrailleuse up behind the
+overturned wagon. It stuck in the ditch.
+
+"À nous, la ligne!" they shouted, dragging at the wheels until a
+handful of fantassins ran out and pulled the little death machine
+into place.
+
+"Du calme! Du calme! Ne tirez pas trop vite, ménagez vos
+cartouches! Tenez ferme, mes enfants!" said an old officer,
+dismounting and walking coolly out beyond the line of trees.
+
+"Oui! oui! comptez sur nous! Vive le Colonel!" shouted the
+soldiers, shaking their chassepots in the air.
+
+On came the long lines, distinct now--the blue and yellow of the
+Uhlans, the white and scarlet of the cuirassiers, plain against
+the gray trees and grayer pastures. Suddenly a level sheet of
+flame played around the stalled wagons; the smoke gushed out
+over the dark ground; the air split with the crash of rifles. In
+the uproar bugles blew furiously and the harsh German cavalry
+trumpets, peal on peal, nearer, nearer, nearer, answered their
+clangour.
+
+"Hourra! Preussen!"
+
+The deep, thundering shout rose hoarsely through the rifles'
+roaring fusillade; horses reared; teamsters lashed and swore, and
+the rattle of harness and wheel broke out and was smothered in
+the sheeted crashing of the volleys and the shock of the coming
+charge.
+
+And now it burst like an ocean roller, smashing into the wagon
+lines, a turmoil of smoke and flashes, a chaos of maddened,
+plunging horses and bayonets, and the flashing downward strokes
+of heavy sabres. Grahame seized the reins, and lashed his horses;
+a cuirassier drove his bloody, foam-covered charger into the road
+in front and fell, butchered by a dozen bayonets.
+
+Three Uhlans followed, whirling their lances and crashing through
+the lines, their frantic horses crazed by blows and wounds. More
+cuirassiers galloped up; the crush became horrible. A horse and
+steel-clad rider were hurled bodily under the wagon-wheels--an
+Uhlan, transfixed by a bayonet, still clung to his shattered
+lance-butt, screaming, staggering in his stirrups. Suddenly the
+window of the post-chaise was smashed in and a horse and rider
+pitched under the wheels, almost overturning carriage and
+occupants.
+
+"Easy, Marche!" shouted Grahame. "Don't try to get out!"
+
+Jack heard him, but sprang into the road. For an instant he
+reeled about in the crush and smoke, then, stooping, he seized a
+prostrate man, lifted him, and with one tremendous effort pitched
+him into the chaise.
+
+Grahame, standing up in the driver's seat, watched him in
+amazement for a moment; but his horses demanded all his attention
+now, for they were backing under the pressure of the cart in
+front.
+
+As for Jack, once in the chaise again he pulled the unconscious
+man to the seat, calling Lorraine to hold him up. Then he tore
+the Uhlan's helmet from the stunned man's head and flung it out
+into the road; after it he threw sabre and revolver.
+
+"Give me that rug!" he cried to Lorraine, and he seized it and
+wrapped it around the Uhlan's legs.
+
+Grahame had managed to get clear of the other wagon now and was
+driving out into the pasture, almost obscured by rifle smoke.
+
+"Oh, Jack!" faltered Lorraine--"it is Rickerl!"
+
+It was Rickerl, stunned by the fall from his horse, lying back
+between them.
+
+"They'd kill him if they saw his uniform!" muttered Jack. "Hark!
+the French are cheering! They've repulsed the charge! Grahame, do
+you hear?--do you hear?"
+
+"I hear!" shouted Grahame. "These horses are crazy; I can't hold
+them."
+
+The troops around them, hidden in the smoke, began to cheer
+frantically; the mitrailleuse whirred and rolled out its hail of
+death.
+
+"Vive la France! Mort aux Prussiens!" howled the soldiers. A
+mounted officer, his cap on the point of his sabre, his face laid
+open by a lance-thrust, stood shouting, "Vive la Nation! Vive la
+Nation!" while a boyish bugler shook his brass bugle in the air,
+speechless with joy.
+
+Grahame drove the terrified horses along the line of wagons for a
+few paces, then, wheeling, let them gallop straight out into the
+pasture on the left of the road, where a double line of trees in
+the distance marked the course of a parallel road.
+
+The chaise lurched and jolted; Rickerl, unconscious still, fell
+in a limp heap, but Jack and Lorraine held him up and watched the
+horses, now galloping under slackened reins.
+
+"There are houses there! Look!" cried Grahame. "By Jove, there's
+a Luxembourg gendarme, too. I--I believe we're in Luxembourg,
+Marche! Upon my soul, we are! See! There is a frontier post!"
+
+He tried to stop the horses; two strange-looking soldiers,
+wearing glossy shakos and white-and-blue aiguillettes, began to
+bawl at him; a group of peasants before the cottages fled,
+screaming.
+
+Grahame threw all his strength into his arms and dragged the
+horses to a stand-still.
+
+"Are we in Luxembourg?" he called to the gendarmes, who ran up,
+gesticulating violently. "Are we? Good! Hold those horses, if you
+please, gentlemen. There's a wounded man here. Carry him to one
+of those houses. Marche, lift him, if you can. Hello! his arm is
+broken at the wrist. Go easy--you, I mean--Now!"
+
+Lorraine, aided by Jack, stepped from the post-chaise and stood
+shivering as two peasants came forward and lifted Rickerl. When
+they had taken him away to one of the stone houses she turned
+quietly to a gendarme and said: "Monsieur, can you tell me where
+the Emperor is?"
+
+"The Emperor?" repeated the gendarme. "The Emperor is with his
+army, below there along the Meuse. They are fighting--since four
+this morning--at Sedan."
+
+He pointed to the southeast.
+
+She looked out across the wide plain.
+
+"That convoy is going to Sedan," said the gendarme. "The army is
+near Sedan; there is a battle there."
+
+"Thank you," said Lorraine, quietly. "Jack, the Emperor is near
+Sedan."
+
+"Yes," he nodded; "we will go when you can stand it."
+
+"I am ready. Oh, we must not wait, Jack; did you not see how they
+even attacked the wounded?"
+
+He turned and looked into her eyes.
+
+"It is the first French cheer I have heard," she continued,
+feverishly. "They beat back those Prussians and cheered for
+France! Oh, Jack, there is time yet! France is rising now--France
+is resisting. We must do our part; we must not wait. Jack, I am
+ready!"
+
+"We can't walk," he muttered.
+
+"We will go with the convoy. They are on the way to Sedan, where
+the Emperor is. Jack, they are fighting at Sedan! Do you
+understand?"
+
+She came closer, looking up into his troubled eyes.
+
+"Show me the box," she whispered.
+
+He drew the flat steel box from his coat.
+
+After a moment she said, "Nothing must stop us now. I am ready!"
+
+"You are not ready," he replied, sullenly; "you need rest."
+
+"'Tiens ta Foy,' Jack."
+
+The colour dyed his pale cheeks and he straightened up. "Always,
+Lorraine."
+
+Grahame called to them from the cottage: "You can get a horse and
+wagon here! Come and eat something at once!"
+
+Slowly, with weary, drooping heads, they walked across the road,
+past a wretched custom-house, where two painted sentry-boxes
+leaned, past a squalid barnyard full of amber-coloured, unsavoury
+puddles and gaunt poultry, up to the thatched stone house where
+Grahame stood waiting. Over the door hung a withered branch of
+mistletoe, above this swung a sign:
+
+ESTAMINET.
+
+"Your Uhlan is in a bad way, I think," began Grahame; "he's got a
+broken arm and two broken ribs. This is a nasty little place to
+leave him in."
+
+"Grahame," said Jack, earnestly, "I've got to leave him. I am
+forced to go to Sedan as soon as we can swallow a bit of bread
+and wine. The Uhlan is my comrade and friend; he may be more than
+that some day. What on earth am I to do?"
+
+They followed Grahame into a room where a table stood covered by
+a moist, unpleasant cloth. The meal was simple--a half-bottle of
+sour red wine for each guest, a fragment of black bread, and a
+râgout made of something that had once been alive--possibly a
+chicken, possibly a sheep.
+
+Grahame finished his wine, bolted a morsel or two of bread and
+râgout, and leaned back in his chair with a whimsical glance at
+Lorraine.
+
+"Now, I'll tell you what I'll do, Marche," he said. "My horses
+need rest, so do I, so does our wounded Uhlan. I'll stay in this
+garden of Eden until noon, if you like, then I'll drive our
+wounded man to Diekirch, where the Hôtel des Ardennes is as good
+an inn as you can find in Luxembourg, or in Belgium either. Then
+I'll follow you to Sedan."
+
+They all rose from the table; Lorraine came and held out her
+hand, thanking Grahame for his kindness to them and to Rickerl.
+
+"Good-by," said Grahame, going with them to the door. "There's
+your dog-cart; it's paid for, and here's a little bag of French
+money--no thanks, my dear fellow; we can settle all that later.
+But what the deuce you two children are going to Sedan for is
+more than my old brains can comprehend."
+
+He stood, with handsome head bared, and bent gravely over
+Lorraine's hands--impulsive little hands, now trembling, as the
+tears of gratitude trembled on her lashes.
+
+And so they drove away in their dog-cart, down the flat,
+poplar-bordered road, silent, deeply moved, wondering what the
+end might be.
+
+The repeated shocks, the dreadful experiences and encounters, the
+indelible impressions of desolation and grief and suffering had
+deadened in Lorraine all sense of personal suffering or grief.
+For her land and her people her heart had bled, drop by drop--her
+sensitive soul lay crushed within her. Nothing of selfish despair
+came over her, because France still stood. She had suffered too
+much to remember herself. Even her love for Jack had become
+merely a detail. She loved as she breathed--involuntarily. There
+was nothing new or strange or sweet in it--nothing was left of
+its freshness, its grace, its delicacy. The bloom was gone.
+
+In her tired breast her heart beat faintly; its burden was the weary
+repetition of a prayer--an old, old prayer--a supplication--for
+mercy, for France, and for the salvation of its people. Where she
+had learned it she did not know; how she remembered it, why she
+repeated it, minute by minute, hour by hour, she could not tell.
+But it was always beating in her heart, this prayer--old, so
+old!--and half forgotten--
+
+    "'To Thee, Mary, exalted--
+    To Thee, Mary, exalted--'"
+
+Her tired heart took up the rhythm where her mind refused to
+follow, and she leaned on Jack's shoulder, looking out over the
+gray land with innocent, sorrowful eyes.
+
+Vaguely she remembered her lonely childhood, but did not grieve;
+vaguely she thought of her youth, passing away from a tear-drenched
+land through the smoke of battles. She did not grieve--the last sad
+tear for self had fallen and quenched the last smouldering spark of
+selfishness. The wasted hills of her province seemed to rise from
+their ashes and sear her eyes; the flames of a devastated land
+dazzled and pained her; every drop of French blood that drenched
+the mother-land seemed drawn from her own veins--every cry of
+terror, every groan, every gasp, seemed wrenched from her own
+slender body. The quiet, wide-eyed dead accused her, the stark
+skeletons of ravaged houses reproached her.
+
+She turned to the man she loved, but it was the voice of a dying
+land that answered, "Come!" and she responded with all a passion
+of surrender. What had she accomplished as yet? In the bitterness
+of her loneliness she answered, "Nothing." She had worked by the
+wayside as she passed--in the field, in the hospital, in the
+midst of beleaguered soldiers. But what was that? There was
+something else further on that called her--what she did not know,
+and yet she knew it was waiting somewhere for her. "Perhaps it is
+death," she mused, leaning on Jack's shoulder. "Perhaps it is
+_his_ death." That did not frighten her; if it was to be, it
+would be; but, through it, through the hideous turmoil of fire
+and blood and pounding guns and shouting--through death
+itself--somewhere, on the other side of the dreadful valley of
+terror, lay salvation for the mother-land. Thither they were
+bound--she and the man she loved.
+
+All around them lay the flat, colourless plains of Luxembourg; to
+the east, the wagon-train of wounded crawled across the landscape
+under a pallid sky. The road now bore towards the frontier again;
+Jack shook the reins listlessly; the horse loped on. Slowly they
+approached the border, where, on the French side, the convoy
+crept forward enveloped in ragged clouds of dust. Now they could
+distinguish the drivers, blue-bloused and tattered, swinging
+their long whips; now they saw the infantry, plodding on behind
+the wagons, stringing along on either flank, their officers
+riding with bent heads, the red legs of the fantassins blurred
+through the red dust.
+
+At the junction of the two roads stood a boundary post. A
+slovenly Luxembourg gendarme sat on a stone under it, smoking and
+balancing his rifle over both knees.
+
+"You can't pass," he said, looking up as Jack drew rein. A moment
+later he pocketed a gold piece that Jack offered, yawned,
+laughed, and yawned again.
+
+"You can buy contraband cigars at two sous each in the village
+below," he observed.
+
+"What news is there to tell?" demanded Jack.
+
+"News? The same as usual. They are shelling Strassbourg with
+mortars; the city is on fire. Six hundred women and children left
+the city; the International Aid Society demanded it."
+
+Presently he added: "A big battle was fought this morning along
+the Meuse. You can hear the guns yet."
+
+"I have heard them for an hour," replied Jack.
+
+They listened. Far to the south the steady intonation of the
+cannon vibrated, a vague sustained rumour, no louder, no lower,
+always the same monotonous measure, flowing like the harmony of
+flowing water, passionless, changeless, interminable.
+
+"Along the Meuse?" asked Jack, at last.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sedan?"
+
+"Yes, Sedan."
+
+The slow convoy was passing now; the creak of wheel and the harsh
+scrape of axle and spring grated in their ears; the wind changed;
+the murmur of the cannonade was blotted out in the trample of
+hoofs, the thud of marching infantry.
+
+Jack swung his horse's head and drove out across the boundary
+into the French road. On every side crowded the teams, where the
+low mutter of the wounded rose from the foul straw; on every side
+pressed the red-legged infantry, rifles _en bandoulière_,
+shrunken, faded caps pushed back from thin, sick faces.
+
+"My soldiers!" murmured Lorraine, sitting up straight. "Oh, the
+pity of it!--the pity!"
+
+An officer passed, followed by a bugler. He glanced vacantly at
+Jack, then at Lorraine. Another officer came by, leading his
+patient, bleeding horse, over which was flung the dusty body of a
+brother soldier.
+
+The long convoy was moving more swiftly now; the air trembled
+with the cries of the mangled or the hoarse groans of the dying.
+A Sister of Mercy--her frail arm in a sling--crept on her knees
+among the wounded lying in a straw-filled cart. Over all, louder,
+deeper, dominating the confusion of the horses and the tramp of
+men, rolled the cannonade. The pulsating air, deep-laden with the
+monstrous waves of sound, seemed to beat in Lorraine's face--the
+throbbing of her heart ceased for a moment. Louder, louder,
+nearer, more terrible sounded the thunder, breaking in long,
+majestic reverberations among the nearer hills; the earth began
+to shake, the sky struck back the iron-throated echoes--sounding,
+resounding, from horizon to horizon.
+
+And now the troops around them were firing as they advanced;
+sheeted mist lashed with lightning enveloped the convoy, through
+which rang the tremendous clang of the cannon. Once there came a
+momentary break in the smoke--a gleam of hills, and a valley
+black with men--a glimpse of a distant town, a river--then the
+stinging smoke rushed outward, the little flames leaped and sank
+and played through the fog. Broad, level bands of mist, fringed
+with flame, cut the pasture to the right; the earth rocked with
+the stupendous cannon shock, the ripping rifle crashes chimed a
+dreadful treble.
+
+There was a bridge there in the mist; an iron gate, a heavy wall
+of masonry, a glimpse of a moat below. The crowded wagons,
+groaning under their load of death, the dusty infantry, the
+officers, the startled horses, jammed the bridge to the parapets.
+Wheels splintered and cracked, long-lashed whips snapped and
+rose, horses strained, recoiled, leaped up, and fell scrambling
+and kicking.
+
+"Open the gates, for God's sake!" they were shouting.
+
+A great shell, moaning in its flight above the smoke, shrieked
+and plunged headlong among the wagons. There came a glare of
+blinding light, a velvety white cloud, a roar, and through the
+gates, no longer choked, rolled the wagon-train, a frantic
+stampede of men and horses. It caught the dog-cart and its
+occupants with it; it crushed the horse, seized the vehicle, and
+flung it inside the gates as a flood flings driftwood on the
+rocks.
+
+Jack clung to the reins; the wretched horse staggered out into
+the stony street, fell, and rolled over stone-dead.
+
+Jack turned and caught Lorraine in both arms, and jumped to a
+sidewalk crowded with soldiers, and at the same time the crush of
+wagons ground the dog-cart to splinters on the cobble-stones. The
+crowd choked every inch of the pavement--women, children,
+soldiers, shouting out something that seemed to move the masses
+to delirium. Jack, his arm around Lorraine, beat his way forward
+through the throng, murmuring anxiously, "Are you hurt, Lorraine?
+Are you hurt?" And she replied, faintly, "No, Jack. Oh, what is
+it? What is it?"
+
+Soldiers blocked his way now, but he pushed between them towards
+a cleared space on a slope of grass. Up the slope he staggered
+and out on to a stone terrace above the crush of the street. An
+officer stood alone on the terrace, pulling at some ropes around
+a pole on the parapet.
+
+"What--what is that?" stammered Lorraine, as a white flag shot up
+along the flag-staff and fluttered drearily over the wall.
+
+"Lorraine!" cried Jack; but she sprang to the pole and tore the
+ropes free. The white flag fell to the ground.
+
+The officer turned to her, his face whiter than the flag. The
+crowd in the street below roared.
+
+"Monsieur," gasped Lorraine, "France is not conquered! That flag
+is the flag of dishonour!"
+
+They stared at each other in silence, then the officer stepped to
+the flag-pole and picked up the ropes.
+
+"Not that!--not that!" cried Lorraine, shuddering.
+
+"It is the Emperor's orders."
+
+The officer drew the rope tight--the white flag crawled slowly up
+the staff, fluttered, and stopped.
+
+Lorraine covered her eyes with her hands; the roar of the crowd
+below was in her ears.
+
+"O God!--O God!" she whispered.
+
+"Lorraine!" whispered Jack, both arms around her.
+
+Her head fell forward on her breast.
+
+Overhead the white flag caught the breeze again, and floated out
+over the ramparts of Sedan.
+
+"By the Emperor's orders," said the officer, coming close to
+Jack.
+
+Then for the first time Jack saw that it was Georges Carrière who
+stood there, ghastly pale, his eyes fixed on Lorraine.
+
+"She has fainted," muttered Jack, lifting her. "Georges, is it
+all over?"
+
+"Yes," said Georges, and he walked over to the flag-pole, and
+stood there looking up at the white badge of dishonour.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
+
+
+Daylight was fading in the room where Lorraine lay in a stupor so
+deep that at moments the Sister of Mercy and the young military
+surgeon could scarcely believe her alive there on the pillows.
+
+Jack, his head on his arms, stood by the window, staring out
+vacantly at the streak of light in the west, against which, on
+the straight, gray ramparts, the white flag flapped black against
+the dying sun.
+
+Under the window, in the muddy, black streets, the packed throngs
+swayed and staggered and trampled through the filth, amid a crush
+of camp-wagons, artillery, ambulances, and crowding squadrons of
+cavalry. Riotous line soldiers cried out "Treason!" and hissed
+their generals or cursed their Emperor; the tall cuirassiers
+surged by in silence, sombre faces turned towards the west, where
+the white flag flew on the ramparts. Heavier, denser, more
+suffocating grew the crush; an ambulance broke down, a caisson
+smashed into a lamp-post, a cuirassier's horse slipped in the
+greasy depths of the filth, pitching its steel-clad rider to the
+pavement. Through the Place d'Alsace-Lorraine, through the Avenue
+du Collège and the Place d'Armes, passed the turbulent torrent of
+men and horses and cannon. The Grande Rue was choked from the
+church to the bronze statue in the Place Turenne; the Porte de
+Paris was piled with dead, the Porte de Balan tottered a mass of
+ruins.
+
+The cannonade still shook the hills to the south in spite of the
+white flag on the citadel. There were white flags, too, on the
+ramparts, on the Port des Capucins, and at the Gate of Paris. An
+officer, followed by a lancer, who carried a white pennon on his
+lance-point, entered the street from the north. A dozen soldiers
+and officers hacked it off with their sabres, crying, "No
+surrender! no surrender!" Shells continued to fall into the
+packed streets, blowing horrible gaps in the masses of struggling
+men. The sun set in a crimson blaze, reflecting on window and
+roof and the bloody waters of the river. When at last it sank
+behind the smoky hills, the blackness in the city was lighted by
+lurid flames from burning houses and the swift crimson glare of
+Prussian shells, still plunging into the town. Through the crash
+of crumbling walls, the hiss and explosion of falling shells, the
+awful clamour and din in the streets, the town clock struck
+solemnly six times. As if at a signal the firing died away; a
+desolate silence fell over the city--a silence full of rumours,
+of strange movements--a stillness pulsating with the death gasps
+of a nation.
+
+Out on the heights of La Moncelle, of Daigny, and Givonne
+lanterns glimmered where the good Sisters of Mercy and the
+ambulance corps passed among the dead and dying--the thirty-five
+thousand dead and dying! The plateau of Illy, where the cavalry
+had charged again and again, was twinkling with thousands of
+lanterns; on the heights of Frénois Prussian torches swung,
+signalling victory.
+
+But the spectacle in the interior of the town--a town of nineteen
+thousand people, into which now were crushed seventy thousand
+frantic soldiers, was dreadful beyond description. Horror
+multiplied on horror. The two bridges and the streets were so
+jammed with horses and artillery trains that it seemed impossible
+for any human being to move another inch. In the glare of the
+flames from the houses on fire, in the middle of the smoke,
+horses, cannon, fourgons, charrettes, ambulances, piles of dead
+and dying, formed a sickening pell-mell. In this chaos starving
+soldiers, holding lighted lanterns, tore strips of flesh from
+dead horses lying in the mud, killed by the shells. Arms, broken
+and foul with blood and mud--rifles, pistols, sabres, lances,
+casques, mitrailleuses--covered the pavements.
+
+The gates of the town were closed; the water in the fortification
+moats reflected the red light from the flames. The glacis of the
+ramparts was covered by black masses of soldiers, watching the
+placing of a cordon of German sentinels around the walls.
+
+All public buildings, all the churches, were choked with wounded;
+their blood covered everything. On the steps of the churches poor
+wretches sat bandaging their torn limbs with strips of bloody
+muslin.
+
+Strange sounds came from the stone walls along the street, where
+zouaves, turcos, and line soldiers, cursing and weeping with
+rage, were smashing their rifles to pieces rather than surrender
+them. Artillerymen were spiking their guns, some ran them into
+the river, some hammered the mitrailleuses out of shape with
+pickaxes. The cavalry flung their sabres into the river, the
+cuirassiers threw away revolvers and helmets. Everywhere
+officers were breaking their swords and cursing the surrender.
+The officers of the 74th of the Line threw their sabres and even
+their decorations into the Meuse. Everywhere, too, regiments were
+burning their colours and destroying their eagles; the colonel of
+the 52d of the Line himself burned his colours in the presence of
+all the officers of the regiment, in the centre of the street.
+The 88th and 30th, the 68th, the 78th, and 74th regiments
+followed this example. "Mort aux Vaches!" howled a herd of
+half-crazed reservists, bursting into the crush. "Mort aux
+Prussiens! À la lanterne, Badinguet! Vive la République!"
+
+Jack turned away from the window. The tall Sister of Mercy stood
+beside the bed where Lorraine lay.
+
+Jack made a sign.
+
+"She is asleep," murmured the Sister; "you may come nearer now.
+Close the window."
+
+Before he could reach the bed the door was opened violently from
+without, and an officer entered swinging a lantern. He did not
+see Lorraine at first, but held the door open, saying to Jack:
+"Pardon, monsieur; this house is reserved. I am very sorry to
+trouble you."
+
+Another officer entered, an old man, covered to the eyes by his
+crimson gold-brocaded cap. Two more followed.
+
+"There is a sick person here," said Jack. "You cannot have the
+intention of turning her out! It is inhuman--"
+
+He stopped short, stupefied at the sight of the old officer, who
+now stood bareheaded in the lantern-light, looking at the bed
+where Lorraine lay. It was the Emperor!--her father.
+
+Slowly the Emperor advanced to the bed, his dreary eyes fixed on
+Lorraine's pale cheeks.
+
+In the silence the cries from the street outside rose clear and
+distinct:
+
+"Vive la République! À bas l'Empereur!"
+
+The Emperor spoke, looking straight at Lorraine: "Gentlemen, we
+cannot disturb a woman. Pray find another house."
+
+After a moment the officers began to back out, one by one,
+through the doorway. The Emperor still stood by the bed, his
+vague, inscrutable eyes fixed on Lorraine.
+
+Jack moved towards the bed, trembling. The Emperor raised his
+colourless face.
+
+"Monsieur--your sister? No--your wife?"
+
+"My promised wife, sire," muttered Jack, cold with fear.
+
+"A child," said the Emperor, softly.
+
+With a vague gesture he stepped nearer, smoothed the coverlet,
+bent closer, and touched the sleeping girl's forehead with his
+lips. Then he stood up, gray-faced, impassive.
+
+"I am an old man," he said, as though to himself. He looked at
+Jack, who now came close to him, holding out something in one
+hand. It was the steel box.
+
+"For me, monsieur?" asked the Emperor.
+
+Jack nodded. He could not speak.
+
+The Emperor took the box, still looking at Jack.
+
+There was a moment's silence, then Jack spoke: "It may be too
+late. It is a plan of a balloon--we brought it to you from
+Lorraine--"
+
+The uproar in the streets drowned his voice--"Mort à l'Empereur!
+À bas l'Empire!"
+
+A staff-officer opened the door and peered in; the Emperor
+stepped to the threshold.
+
+"I thank you--I thank you both, my children," he said. His eyes
+wandered again towards the bed; the cries in the street rang out
+furiously.
+
+"Mort à l'Empereur!"
+
+The Sister of Mercy was kneeling by the bed; Jack shivered, and
+dropped his head.
+
+When he looked up the Emperor had gone.
+
+All night long he watched at the bedside, leaning on his elbow,
+one hand shading his eyes from the candle-flame. The Sister of
+Mercy, white and worn with the duties of that terrible day, slept
+upright in an arm-chair.
+
+Dawn brought the sad notes of Prussian trumpets from the ramparts
+pealing through the devastated city; at sunrise the pavements
+rang and shook with the trample of the White Cuirassiers. A Saxon
+infantry band burst into the "Wacht am Rhine" at the Paris Gate;
+the Place Turenne vomited Uhlans. Jack sank down by the bed,
+burying his face in the sheets.
+
+The Sister of Mercy rubbed her eyes and started up. She touched
+Jack on the shoulder.
+
+"I am going to be very ill," he said, raising a face burning with
+fever. "Never mind me, but stay with her."
+
+"I understand," said the Sister, gently. "You must lie in the
+room beyond."
+
+The fever seized Jack with a swiftness incredible.
+
+"Then--swear it--by the--by the Saviour there--there on your
+crucifix!" he muttered.
+
+"I swear," she answered, softly.
+
+His mind wandered a little, but he set his teeth and rose,
+staggering to the table. He wrote something on a bit of paper
+with shaking fingers.
+
+"Send for them," he said. "You can telegraph now. They are in
+Brussels--my sister--my family--"
+
+Then, blinded by the raging fever, he made his way uncertainly to
+the bed, groped for Lorraine's hand, pressed it, and lay down at
+her feet.
+
+"Call the surgeon!" he gasped.
+
+And it was very many days before he said anything else with as
+much sense in it.
+
+"God help them!" cried the Sister of Mercy, tearfully, her thin
+hands clasped to her lips. Alone she guided Jack into the room
+beyond.
+
+Outside the Prussian bands were playing. The sun flung a long,
+golden beam through the window straight across Lorraine's breast.
+
+She stirred, and murmured in her sleep, "Jack! Jack! 'Tiens ta
+Foy!'"
+
+But Jack was past hearing now; and when, at sundown, the young
+surgeon came into his room he was nearly past all aid.
+
+"Typhoid?" asked the Sister.
+
+"The Pest!" said the surgeon, gravely.
+
+The Sister started a little.
+
+"I will stay," she murmured. "Send this despatch when you go out.
+Can he live?"
+
+They whispered together a moment, stepping softly to the door of
+the room where Lorraine lay.
+
+"It can't be helped now," said the surgeon, looking at Lorraine;
+"she'll be well enough by to-morrow; she must stay with you. The
+chances are that he will die."
+
+The trample of the White Cuirassiers in the street outside filled
+the room; the serried squadrons thundered past, steel ringing on
+steel, horses neighing, trumpets sounding the "Royal March."
+Lorraine's eyes unclosed.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+The surgeon whispered to the Sister of Mercy: "Don't forget to
+hang out the pest flag."
+
+"Jack! Jack!" wailed Lorraine, sitting up in bed. Through the
+tangled masses of her heavy hair, gilded by the morning sunshine,
+her eyes, bright with fever, roamed around the room, startled,
+despairing. Under the window the White Cuirassiers were singing
+as they rode:
+
+    "Flieg', Adler, flieg'! Wir stürmen nach,
+    Ein einig Volk in Waffen,
+    Wir stürmen nach ob tausendfach
+    Des Todes Pforten Klaffen!
+    Und fallen wir, flieg', Adler, flieg'!
+    Aus unserm Blute mächst der Sieg!
+        Vorwärts!
+      Flieg', Adler, flieg'!
+        Victoria!
+        Victoria!
+      Mit uns ist Gott!"
+
+Terrified, turning her head from side to side, Lorraine stretched
+out her hands. She tried to speak, but her ears were filled with
+the deep voices shouting the splendid battle-hymn--
+
+    "Fly, Eagle! fly!
+    With us is God!"
+
+She crept out of bed, her bare feet white with cold, her bare
+arms flushed and burning. Blinded by the blaze of the rising sun,
+she felt her way around the room, calling, "Jack! Jack!" The
+window was open; she crept to it. The street was a surging,
+scintillating torrent of steel.
+
+    "God with us!"
+
+The White Cuirassiers shook their glittering sabres; the
+melancholy trumpet's blast swept skyward; the standards flapped.
+Suddenly the stony street trembled with the outcrash of drums;
+the cuirassiers halted, the steel-mailed squadrons parted right
+and left; a carriage drove at a gallop through the opened ranks.
+Lorraine leaned from the window; the officer in the carriage
+looked up.
+
+As the fallen Emperor's eyes met Lorraine's, she stretched out
+both little bare arms and cried: "Vive la France!"--and he was
+gone to his captivity, the White Cuirassiers galloping on every
+side.
+
+The Sister of Mercy opened the door behind, calling her.
+
+"He is dying," she said. "He is in here. Come quickly!"
+
+Lorraine turned her head. Her eyes were sweet and serene, her
+whole pale face transfigured.
+
+"He will live," she said. "I am here."
+
+"It is the pest!" muttered the Sister.
+
+Lorraine glided into the hall and unclosed the door of the silent
+room.
+
+He opened his eyes.
+
+"There is no death!" she whispered, her face against his. "There
+is neither death nor sorrow nor dying."
+
+The clamour in the street died out; the wind was still; the pest
+flag under the window hung motionless.
+
+He sighed; his eyes closed.
+
+She stretched out beside him, her body against his, her bare arms
+around his neck.
+
+His heart fluttered; stopped; fluttered; was silent; moved once
+again; ceased.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+Again his heart stirred--or was it her own?
+
+When the morning sun broke over the ramparts of Sedan she fell
+asleep in his arms, lulled by the pulsations of his heart.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE PROPHECY OF LORRAINE
+
+
+When the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn arrived in Sedan from
+Brussels the last of the French prisoners had been gone a week;
+the foul city was swept clean; the corpse-choked river no longer
+flung its dead across the shallows of the island of Glaires; the
+canal was untroubled by the ghastly freight of death that had
+collected like logs on a boom below the village of Iges.
+
+All day the tramp of Prussian patrols echoed along the stony
+streets; all day the sinister outburst of the hoarse Bavarian
+bugles woke the echoes behind the ramparts. Red Cross flags
+drooped in the sunshine from churches, from banks, from every
+barrack, every depot, every public building. The pest flags waved
+gaily over the Asylum and the little Museum. A few appeared along
+the Avenue Philippoteaux, others still fluttered on the Gothic
+church and the convent across the Viaduc de Torcy. Three miles
+away the ruins of the village of Bazeilles lay in the bright
+September sunshine. Bavarian soldiers in greasy corvée lumbered
+among the charred chaos searching for their dead.
+
+The plain of Illy, the heights of La Moncelle, Daigny, Givonne,
+and Frénois were vast cemeteries. Dredging was going on along the
+river, whither the curious small boys of Sedan betook themselves
+and stayed from morning till night watching the recovering of
+rusty sabres, bayonets, rifles, cannon, and often more grewsome
+flotsam. It was probably the latter that drew the small boys like
+flies; neither the one nor the other are easily glutted with
+horrors.
+
+The silver trumpets of the Saxon Riders were chorusing the noon
+call from the Porte de Paris when a long train crept into the
+Sedan station and pulled up in the sunshine, surrounded by a
+cordon of Hanover Riflemen. One by one the passengers passed into
+the station, where passports were shown and apathetic commissaires
+took charge of the baggage.
+
+There were no hacks, no conveyances of any kind, so the tall,
+white-bearded gentleman in black, who stood waiting anxiously for
+his passport, gave his arm to an old lady, heavily veiled, and
+bowed down with the sudden age that great grief brings. Beside
+her walked a young girl, also in deep mourning.
+
+A man on crutches directed them to the Place Turenne, hobbling
+after them to murmur his thanks for the piece of silver the girl
+slipped into his hands.
+
+"The number on the house is 31," he repeated; "the pest flag is
+no longer outside."
+
+"The pest?" murmured the old man under his breath.
+
+At that moment a young girl came out of the crowded station,
+looking around her anxiously.
+
+"Lorraine!" cried the white-haired man.
+
+She was in his arms before he could move. Madame de Morteyn clung
+to her, too, sobbing convulsively; Dorothy hid her face in her
+black-edged handkerchief.
+
+After a moment Lorraine stepped back, drying her sweet eyes.
+Dorothy kissed her again and again.
+
+"I--I don't see why we should cry," said Lorraine, while the
+tears ran down her flushed cheeks. "If he had died it would have
+been different."
+
+After a silence she said again:
+
+"You will see. We are not unhappy--Jack and I. Monsieur Grahame
+came yesterday with Rickerl, who is doing very well."
+
+"Rickerl here, too?" whispered Dorothy.
+
+Lorraine slipped an arm through hers, looking back at the old
+people.
+
+"Come," she said, serenely, "Jack is able to sit up." Then in
+Dorothy's ear she whispered, "I dare not tell them--you must."
+
+"Dare not tell them--"
+
+"That--that I married Jack--this morning."
+
+The girls' arms pressed each other.
+
+German officers passed and repassed, rigid, supercilious, staring
+at the young girls with that half-sneering, half-impudent,
+near-sighted gaze peculiar to the breed. Their insolent eyes,
+however, dropped before the clear, mild glance of the old
+vicomte.
+
+His face was furrowed by care and grief, but he held his white
+head high and stepped with an elasticity that he had not known in
+years. Defeat, disaster, sorrow, could not weaken him; he was of
+the old stock, the real beau-sabreur, a relic of the old régime,
+that grew young in the face of defeat, that died of a broken
+heart at the breath of dishonour. There had been no dishonour, as
+he understood it--there had been defeat, bitter defeat. That was
+part of his trade, to face defeat nobly, courteously, chivalrously;
+to bow with a smile on his lips to the more skilful adversary who
+had disarmed him.
+
+Bitterness he knew, when the stiff Prussian officers clanked past
+along the sidewalk of this French city; despair he never dreamed
+of. As for dishonour--that is the cry of the pack, the refuge of
+the snarling mob yelping at the bombastic vociferations of some
+mean-souled demagogue; and in Paris there were many, and the pack
+howled in the Republic at the crack of the lash.
+
+"Lady Hesketh is here, too," said Lorraine. "She appears to be a
+little reconciled to her loss. Dorothy, it breaks my heart to see
+Rickerl. He lies in his room all day, silent, ghastly white. He
+does not believe that Alixe--did what she did--and died there at
+Morteyn. Oh, I am glad you are here. Jack says you must tell
+Rickerl nothing about Sir Thorald; nobody is to know that--now
+all is ended."
+
+"Yes," said Dorothy.
+
+When they came to the house, Archibald Grahame and Lady Hesketh
+met them at the door. Molly Hesketh had wept a great deal at
+first. She wept still, but more moderately.
+
+"My angel child!" she said, taking Dorothy to her bosom. Grahame
+took off his hat.
+
+The old people hurried to Jack's room above; Dorothy, guided by
+Lorraine, hastened to Rickerl; Archibald Grahame looked genially
+at Molly and said:
+
+"Now don't, Lady Hesketh--I beg you won't. Try to be cheerful. We
+must find something to divert you."
+
+"I don't wish to," said Molly.
+
+"There is a band concert this afternoon in the Place Turenne,"
+suggested Grahame.
+
+"I'll never go," said Molly; "I haven't anything fit to wear."
+
+In the room above, Madame de Morteyn sat with Jack's hand in
+hers, smiling through her tears. The old vicomte stood beside
+her, one arm clasping Lorraine's slender waist.
+
+"Children! children! wicked ones!" he repeated, "how dare you
+marry each other like two little heathen?"
+
+"It comes, my dear, from your having married an American wife,"
+said Madame de Morteyn, brushing away the tears; "they do those
+things in America."
+
+"America!" grumbled the vicomte, perfectly delighted--"a nice
+country for young savages. Lorraine, you at least should have
+known better."
+
+"I did," said Lorraine; "I ought to have married Jack long ago."
+
+The vicomte was speechless; Jack laughed and pressed his aunt's
+hands.
+
+They spoke of Morteyn, of their hope that one day they might
+rebuild it. They spoke, too, of Paris, cuirassed with steel,
+flinging defiance to the German floods that rolled towards the
+walls from north, south, west, and east.
+
+"There is no death," said Lorraine; "the years renew their life.
+We shall all live. France will be reborn."
+
+"There is no death," repeated the old man, and kissed her on the
+brow.
+
+So they stood there in the sunlight, tearless, serene, moved by the
+prophecy of their child Lorraine. And Lorraine sat beside her husband,
+her fathomless blue eyes dreaming in the sunlight--dreaming of her
+Province of Lorraine, of the Honour of France, of the Justice of
+God--dreaming of love and the sweetness of her youth, unfolding like
+a fresh rose at dawn, there on her husband's breast.
+
+
+ THE END
+
+
+
+
+ BOOKS BY
+    ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    LORRAINE. Post 8vo                             $1.25
+
+    THE CONSPIRATORS. Ill'd. Post 8vo               1.50
+
+    A YOUNG MAN IN A HURRY. Ill'd. Post 8vo         1.50
+
+    CARDIGAN. Illustrated. Post 8vo                 1.50
+
+    THE MAID-AT-ARMS. Illustrated. Post 8vo         1.50
+
+    THE KING IN YELLOW. Post 8vo                    1.50
+
+    THE MAIDS OF PARADISE. Ill'd. Post 8vo          1.50
+
+    IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN. Ill'd. Post 8vo       1.50
+
+    OUTDOORLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net      1.50
+
+    ORCHARDLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net      1.50
+
+    RIVERLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net        1.50
+
+    THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE. 16mo                     1.25
+
+    HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 24181-0.txt or 24181-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/8/24181/
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/24181-8.txt b/24181-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1de7687
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24181-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12034 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lorraine
+       A romance
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: January 6, 2008 [EBook #24181]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    LORRAINE
+
+    A ROMANCE
+
+    By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    Author of "Cardigan,"
+    "The Maid at Arms,"
+    "The Maids of Paradise,"
+    "The Fighting Chance," etc.
+
+
+    A. L. BURT COMPANY
+    Publishers New York
+
+    Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers
+
+    Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers.
+
+    All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    MY FATHER
+
+
+
+
+    LORRAINE!
+
+    _When Yesterday shall dawn again,
+    And the long line athwart the hill
+    Shall quicken with the bugle's thrill,
+    Thine own shall come to thee, Lorraine!_
+
+    _Then in each vineyard, vale, and plain,
+    The quiet dead shall stir the earth
+    And rise, reborn, in thy new birth--
+    Thou holy martyr-maid, Lorraine!_
+
+    _Is it in vain thy sweet tears stain
+    Thy mother's breast? Her castled crest
+    Is lifted now! God guide her quest!
+    She seeks thine own for thee, Lorraine!_
+
+    _So Yesterday shall live again,
+    And the steel line along the Rhine
+    Shall cuirass thee and all that's thine.
+    France lives--thy France--divine Lorraine!_
+
+    R. W. C.
+
+
+
+
+    ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+    The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the
+    valuable volumes of Messrs. Victor Duruy, Archibald Forbes,
+    Sir William Fraser, Dr. J. von Pflugk-Harttung, G.
+    Tissandier, Comdt. Grandin, and "Un Officier de Marine,"
+    concerning (wholly or in part) the events of 1870-1871.
+
+    Occasionally the author has deemed it best to change the
+    names of villages, officers, and regiments or battalions.
+
+    The author believes that the romance separated from the
+    facts should leave the historical basis virtually accurate.
+
+    R. W. C.
+
+    New York, September, 1897.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+    CHAPTER                                      PAGE
+
+         I. A Maker of Maps                         1
+
+        II. Telegrams for Two                      11
+
+       III. Summer Thunder                         20
+
+        IV. The Farandole                          30
+
+         V. Cowards and Their Courage              39
+
+        VI. Trains East and West                   51
+
+       VII. The Road To Paradise                   59
+
+      VIII. Under the Yoke                         63
+
+        IX. Saarbrück                              79
+
+         X. An Unexpected Encounter                95
+
+        XI. "Keep Thy Faith"                      102
+
+       XII. From the Frontier                     116
+
+      XIII. Aide-de-camp                          131
+
+       XIV. The Marquis Makes Himself Agreeable   139
+
+        XV. The Invasion of Lorraine              157
+
+       XVI. "In the Hollow of Thy Hand"           171
+
+      XVII. The Keepers of the House              179
+
+     XVIII. The Stretching of Necks               190
+
+       XIX. Rickerl's Sabre                       205
+
+        XX. Sir Thorald Is Silent                 213
+
+       XXI. The White Cross                       226
+
+      XXII. A Door Is Locked                      239
+
+     XXIII. Lorraine Sleeps                       250
+
+      XXIV. Lorraine Awakes                       258
+
+       XXV. Princess Imperial                     270
+
+      XXVI. The Shadow of Pomp                    278
+
+     XXVII. Ça Ira!                               285
+
+    XXVIII. The Braconnier                        297
+
+      XXIX. The Message of the Flag               306
+
+       XXX. The Valley of the Shadow              324
+
+      XXXI. The Prophecy of Lorraine              334
+
+
+
+
+LORRAINE
+
+I
+
+A MAKER OF MAPS
+
+
+There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a
+soft foot-fall on the dead leaves.
+
+Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened.
+
+Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near,
+now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence,
+the silence that startles.
+
+He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly,
+striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a
+moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels,
+and listened again, pipe tightly clutched between his white
+teeth.
+
+All around lay the beautiful Lorraine forests, dim and sweet,
+dusky as velvet in their leafy depths. A single sunbeam, striking
+obliquely through the brush tangle, powdered the forest mould
+with gold.
+
+He heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing, where green
+branches swept its placid surface with a thousand new-born
+leaves; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind.
+
+Suddenly, far ahead, something gray shambled loosely across the
+path, leaped a brush heap, slunk under a fallen tree, and loped
+on again.
+
+For a moment Marche refused to believe his own eyes. A wolf in
+Lorraine!--a big, gray timber-wolf, here, within a mile of the
+Château Morteyn! He could see it yet, passing like a shadow along
+the trees. Before he knew it he was following, running noiselessly
+over the soft, mossy path, holding his little shot-gun tightly. As
+he ran, his eyes fixed on the spot where the wolf had disappeared,
+he began to doubt his senses again, he began to believe that the
+thing he saw was some shaggy sheep-dog from the Moselle, astray in
+the Lorraine forests. But he held his pace, his pipe griped in his
+teeth, his gun swinging at his side. Presently, as he turned into
+a grass-grown carrefour, a mere waste of wild-flowers and tangled
+briers, he caught his ankle in a strand of ivy and fell headlong.
+Sprawling there on the moss and dead leaves, the sound of human
+voices struck his ear, and he sat up, scowling and rubbing his
+knees.
+
+The voices came nearer; two people were approaching the carrefour.
+Jack Marche, angry and dirty, looked through the bushes, stanching
+a long scratch on his wrist with his pocket-handkerchief. The people
+were in sight now--a man, tall, square-shouldered, striding swiftly
+through the woods, followed by a young girl. Twice she sprang
+forward and seized him by the arm, but he shook her off roughly
+and hastened on. As they entered the carrefour, the girl ran in
+front of him and pushed him back with all her strength.
+
+"Come, now," said the man, recovering his balance, "you had
+better stop this before I lose patience. Go back!"
+
+The girl barred his way with slender arms out-stretched.
+
+"What are you doing in my woods?" she demanded. "Answer me! I
+will know, this time!"
+
+"Let me pass!" sneered the man. He held a roll of papers in one
+hand; in the other, steel compasses that glittered in the sun.
+
+"I shall not let you pass!" she said, desperately; "you shall not
+pass! I wish to know what it means, why you and the others come
+into my woods and make maps of every path, of every brook, of
+every bridge--yes, of every wall and tree and rock! I have seen
+you before--you and the others. You are strangers in my country!"
+
+"Get out of my path," said the man, sullenly.
+
+"Then give me that map you have made! I know what you are! You
+come from across the Rhine!"
+
+The man scowled and stepped towards her.
+
+"You are a German spy!" she cried, passionately.
+
+"You little fool!" he snarled, seizing her arm. He shook her
+brutally; the scarlet skirts fluttered, a little rent came in the
+velvet bodice, the heavy, shining hair tumbled down over her
+eyes.
+
+In a moment Marche had the man by the throat. He held him there,
+striking him again and again in the face. Twice the man tried to
+stab him with the steel compasses, but Marche dragged them out of
+his fist and hammered him until he choked and spluttered and
+collapsed on the ground, only to stagger to his feet again and
+lurch into the thicket of second growth. There he tripped and
+fell as Marche had fallen on the ivy, but, unlike Marche, he
+wriggled under the bushes and ran on, stooping low, never
+glancing back.
+
+The impulse that comes to men to shoot when anything is running
+for safety came over Marche for an instant. Instinctively he
+raised his gun, hesitated, lowered it, still watching the running
+man with cold, bright eyes.
+
+"Well," he said, turning to the girl behind him, "he's gone now.
+Ought I to have fired? Ma foi! I'm sorry I didn't! He has torn
+your bodice and your skirt!"
+
+The girl stood breathless, cheeks aflame, burnished tangled hair
+shadowing her eyes.
+
+"We have the map," she said, with a little gasp.
+
+Marche picked up a crumpled roll of paper from the ground and
+opened it. It contained a rough topographical sketch of the
+surrounding country, a detail of a dozen small forest paths, a
+map of the whole course of the river Lisse from its source to its
+junction with the Moselle, and a beautiful plan of the Château de
+Nesville.
+
+"That is my house!" said the girl; "he has a map of my house! How
+dare he!"
+
+"The Château de Nesville?" asked Marche, astonished; "are you
+Lorraine?"
+
+"Yes! I'm Lorraine. Didn't you know it?"
+
+"Lorraine de Nesville?" he repeated, curiously.
+
+"Yes! How dares that German to come into my woods and make maps and
+carry them back across the Rhine! I have seen him before--twice--drawing
+and measuring along the park wall. I told my father, but he thinks only
+of his balloons. I have seen others, too--other strange men in the
+chase--always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do
+Germans want of maps of France? I thought of it all day--every day; I
+watched, I listened in the forest. And do you know what I think?"
+
+"What?" asked Marche.
+
+She pushed back her splendid hair and faced him.
+
+"War!" she said, in a low voice.
+
+"War?" he repeated, stupidly. She stretched out an arm towards
+the east; then, with a passionate gesture, she stepped to his
+side.
+
+"War! Yes! War! War! War! I cannot tell you how I know it--I ask
+myself how--and to myself I answer: 'It is coming! I, Lorraine,
+know it!'"
+
+A fierce light flashed from her eyes, blue as corn-flowers in
+July.
+
+"It is in dreams I see and hear now--in dreams; and I see the
+vineyards black with helmets, and the Moselle redder than the
+setting sun, and over all the land of France I see bayonets,
+moving, moving, like the Rhine in flood!"
+
+The light in her eyes died out; she straightened up; her lithe
+young body trembled.
+
+"I have never before told this to any one," she said, faintly;
+"my father does not listen when I speak. You are Jack Marche, are
+you not?"
+
+He did not answer, but stood awkwardly, folding and unfolding the
+crumpled maps.
+
+"You are the vicomte's nephew--a guest at the Château Morteyn?"
+she asked.
+
+"Yes," said Marche.
+
+"Then you are Monsieur Jack Marche?"
+
+He took off his shooting-cap and laughed frankly. "You find me
+carrying a gun on your grounds," he said; "I'm sure you take me
+for a poacher."
+
+She glanced at his leggings.
+
+"Now," he began, "I ask permission to explain; I am afraid that
+you will be inclined to doubt my explanation. I almost doubt it
+myself, but here it is. Do you know that there are wolves in
+these woods?"
+
+"Wolves?" she repeated, horrified.
+
+"I saw one; I followed it to this carrefour."
+
+She leaned against a tree; her hands fell to her sides.
+
+There was a silence; then she said, "You will not believe what I
+am going to say--you will call it superstition--perhaps
+stupidity. But do you know that wolves have never appeared along
+the Moselle except before a battle? Seventy years ago they were
+seen before the battle of Colmar. That was the last time. And now
+they appear again."
+
+"I may have been mistaken," he said, hastily; "those shaggy
+sheep-dogs from the Moselle are very much like timber-wolves in
+colour. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Nesville, why should you believe
+that we are going to have a war? Two weeks ago the Emperor spoke
+of the perfect tranquillity of Europe." He smiled and added,
+"France seeks no quarrels. Because a brute of a German comes
+sneaking into these woods to satisfy his national thirst for
+prying, I don't see why war should result."
+
+"War did result," she said, smiling also, and glancing at his
+torn shooting-coat; "I haven't even thanked you yet, Monsieur
+Marche--for your victory."
+
+With a sudden gesture, proud, yet half shy, she held out one
+hand, and he took it in his own hands, bronzed and brier
+scratched.
+
+"I thought," she said, withdrawing her fingers, "that I ought to
+give you an American 'shake hands.' I suppose you are wondering
+why we haven't met before. There are reasons."
+
+She looked down at her scarlet skirt, touched a triangular tear
+in it, and, partly turning her head, raised her arms and twisted
+the tangled hair into a heavy burnished knot at her neck.
+
+"You wear the costume of Lorraine," he ventured.
+
+"Is it not pretty? I love it. Alone in the house I always wear
+it, the scarlet skirts banded with black, the velvet bodice and
+silver chains--oh! he has broken my chain, too!"
+
+He leaned on his gun, watching her, fascinated with the grace of
+her white fingers twisting her hair.
+
+"To think that you should have first seen me so! What will they
+say at the Château Morteyn?"
+
+"But I shall tell nobody," laughed Marche.
+
+"Then you are very honourable, and I thank you. Mon Dieu, they
+talk enough about me--you have heard them--do not deny it,
+Monsieur Marche. It is always, 'Lorraine did this, Lorraine did
+that, Lorraine is shocking, Lorraine is silly, Lorraine--' O
+Dieu! que sais'je! Poor Lorraine!"
+
+"Poor Lorraine!" he repeated, solemnly. They both laughed
+outright.
+
+"I know all about the house-party at the Château Morteyn," she
+resumed, mending a tear in her velvet bodice with a hair-pin. "I
+was invited, as you probably know, Monsieur Marche; but I did not
+go, and doubtless the old vicomte is saying, 'I wonder why
+Lorraine does not come?' and Madame de Morteyn replies, 'Lorraine
+is a very uncertain quantity, my dear'--oh, I am sure that they
+are saying these things."
+
+"I think I heard some such dialogue yesterday," said Marche, much
+amused. Lorraine raised her head and looked at him.
+
+"You think I am a crazy child in tatters, neglected and wild as a
+falcon from the Vosges. I know you do. Everybody says so, and
+everybody pities me and my father. Why? Parbleu! he makes
+experiments with air-ships that they don't understand. Voilà! As
+for me, I am more than happy. I have my forest and my fields; I
+have my horses and my books. I dress as I choose; I go where I
+choose. Am I not happy, Monsieur Marche?"
+
+"I should say," he admitted, "that you are."
+
+"You see," she continued, with a pretty, confidential nod, "I can
+talk to you because you are the vicomte's American nephew, and I
+have heard all about you and your lovely sister, and it is all
+right--isn't it?"
+
+"It is," said Marche, fervently.
+
+"Of course. Now I shall tell you why I did not go to the Château
+and meet your sister and the others. Perhaps you will not
+comprehend. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"I'll try to comprehend," said Marche, laughing.
+
+"Well, then, would you believe it? I--Lorraine de Nesville--have
+outgrown my clothes, monsieur, and my beautiful new gowns are
+coming from Paris this week, and then--"
+
+"Then!" repeated Marche.
+
+"Then you shall see," said Lorraine, gravely.
+
+Jack, bewildered, fascinated, stood leaning on his gun, watching
+every movement of the lithe figure before him.
+
+"Until your gowns arrive, I shall not see you again?" he asked.
+
+She looked up quickly.
+
+"Do you wish to?"
+
+"Very much!" he blurted out, and then, aware of the undue fervor
+he had shown, repeated: "Very much--if you don't mind," in a
+subdued but anxious voice.
+
+Again she raised her eyes to his, doubtfully, perhaps a little
+wistfully.
+
+"It wouldn't be right, would it--until you are presented?"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"Still," she said, looking up into the sky, "I often come to the
+river below, usually after luncheon."
+
+"I wonder if there are any gudgeon there?" he said; "I could
+bring a rod--"
+
+"Oh, but are you coming? Is that right? I think there are fish
+there," she added, innocently, "and I usually come after
+luncheon."
+
+"And when your gowns arrive from Paris--"
+
+"Then! Then you shall see! Oh! I shall be a very different
+person; I shall be timid and silent and stupid and awkward, and I
+shall answer, 'Oui, monsieur;' 'Non, monsieur,' and you will
+behold in me the jeune fille of the romances."
+
+"Don't!" he protested.
+
+"I shall!" she cried, shaking out her scarlet skirts full
+breadth. "Good-by!"
+
+In a second she had gone, straight away through the forest,
+leaving in his ears the music of her voice, on his finger-tips
+the touch of her warm hand.
+
+He stood, leaning on his gun--a minute, an hour?--he did not
+know.
+
+Presently earthly sounds began to come back to drown the
+delicious voice in his ears; he heard the little river Lisse,
+flowing, flowing under green branches; he heard a throstle
+singing in the summer wind; he heard, far in the deeper forest,
+something passing--patter, patter, patter--over the dead leaves.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+TELEGRAMS FOR TWO
+
+
+Jack Marche tucked his gun under his arm and turned away along
+the overgrown wood-road that stretched from the De Nesville
+forests to the more open woods of Morteyn.
+
+He walked slowly, puffing his pipe, pondering over his encounter with
+the châtelaine of the Château de Nesville. He thought, too, of the old
+Vicomte de Morteyn and his gentle wife, of the little house-party of
+which he and his sister Dorothy made two, of Sir Thorald and Lady
+Hesketh, their youthful and totally irresponsible chaperons on the
+journey from Paris to Morteyn.
+
+"They're lunching on the Lisse," he thought. "I'll not get a bite
+if Ricky is there."
+
+When Madame de Morteyn wrote to Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh on
+the first of July, she asked them to chaperon her two nieces and
+some other pretty girls in the American colony whom they might
+wish to bring, for a month, to Morteyn.
+
+"The devil!" said Sir Thorald when he read the letter; "am I to
+pick out the girls, Molly?"
+
+"Betty and I will select the men," said Lady Hesketh, sweetly;
+"you may do as you please."
+
+He did. He suggested a great many, and wrote a list for his wife.
+That prudent young woman carefully crossed out every name, saying,
+"Thorald! I am ashamed of you!" and substituted another list. She
+had chosen, besides Dorothy Marche and Betty Castlemaine, the two
+nieces in question, Barbara Lisle and her inseparable little German
+friend, Alixe von Elster; also the latter's brother, Rickerl, or
+Ricky, as he was called in diplomatic circles. She closed the list
+with Cecil Page, because she knew that Betty Castlemaine, Madame
+de Morteyn's younger niece, looked kindly, at times, upon this
+blond giant.
+
+And so it happened that the whole party invaded three first-class
+compartments of an east-bound train at the Gare de l'Est, and
+twenty-two hours later were trooping up the terrace steps of the
+Château Morteyn, here in the forests and fragrant meadows of
+Lorraine.
+
+Madame de Morteyn kissed all the girls on both cheeks, and the
+old vicomte embraced his nieces, Betty Castlemaine and Dorothy
+Marche, and threatened to kiss the others, including Molly
+Hesketh. He desisted, he assured them, only because he feared Sir
+Thorald might feel bound to follow his example; to which Lady
+Hesketh replied that she didn't care and smiled at the vicomte.
+
+The days had flown very swiftly for all: Jack Marche taught
+Barbara Lisle to fish for gudgeon; Betty Castlemaine tormented
+Cecil Page to his infinitely miserable delight; Ricky von Elster
+made tender eyes at Dorothy Marche and rowed her up and down the
+Lisse; and his sister Alixe read sentimental verses under the
+beech-trees and sighed for the sweet mysteries that young German
+girls sigh for--heart-friendships, lovers, _Ewigkeit_--God knows
+what!--something or other that turns the heart to tears until
+everything slops over and the very heavens sob.
+
+They were happy enough together in the Château and out-of-doors.
+Little incidents occurred that might as well not have occurred,
+but apparently no scars were left nor any incurable pang. True,
+Molly Hesketh made eyes at Ricky von Elster; but she reproved him
+bitterly when he kissed her hand in the orangery one evening;
+true also that Sir Thorald whispered airy nothings into the
+shell-like ear of Alixe von Elster until that German maiden could
+not have repeated her German alphabet. But, except for the
+chaperons, the unmarried people did well enough, as unmarried
+people usually do when let alone.
+
+So, on that cloudless day of July, 1870, Rickerl von Elster sat
+in the green row-boat and tugged at the oars while Sir Thorald
+smoked a cigar placidly and Lady Hesketh trailed her pointed
+fingers over the surface of the water.
+
+"Ricky, my son," said Sir Thorald, "you probably gallop better
+than you row. Who ever heard of an Uhlan in a boat? Molly, take
+his oars away."
+
+"Ricky shall row me if he wishes," replied Molly Hesketh; "and
+you do, don't you, Ricky? Thorald will set you on shore if you
+want."
+
+"I have no confidence in Uhlan officers," said her spouse,
+darkly.
+
+Rickerl looked pleased; perspiration stood on his blond eyebrows
+and his broad face glowed.
+
+"As an officer of cavalry in the Prussian army," he said, "and as
+an attaché of the German Embassy in Paris, I suggest that we
+return to first principles and rejoin our base of supplies."
+
+"He's thirsty," said Molly, gravely. "The base of supplies, so
+long cut loose from, is there under the willows, and I see six
+feet two of Cecil Page carrying a case of bottles."
+
+"Row, Ricky!" urged Sir Thorald; "they will leave nothing for
+Uhlan foragers!"
+
+The boat rubbed its nose against the mossy bank; Lady Hesketh
+placed her fair hands in Ricky's chubby ones and sprang to the
+shore.
+
+"Cecil Page," she said, "I am thirsty. Where are the others?"
+
+Betty and Dorothy looked out from their seat in the tall grass.
+
+"Charles brought the hamper; there it is," said Cecil.
+
+Barbara Lisle and sentimental little Alixe von Elster strolled up
+and looked lovingly upon the sandwiches.
+
+Cecil Page stood and sulked, until Dorothy took pity and made
+room on the moss beside her.
+
+"Can't you have a little mercy, Betty?" she whispered; "Cecil
+moons like a wounded elephant."
+
+So Betty smiled at him and asked for more salad, and Cecil
+brought it and basked in her smiles.
+
+"Where is Jack Marche?" asked Molly Hesketh. "Dorothy, your
+brother went into the chase with a gun, and where is he?"
+
+"What does he want to shoot in July? It's too late for rooks,"
+said Sir Thorald, pouring out champagne-cup for Barbara Lisle.
+
+"I don't know where Jack went," said Dorothy. "He heard one of
+the keepers complain of the hawks, so, I suppose, he took a gun.
+I wonder why that strange Lorraine de Nesville doesn't come to
+call. I am simply dying to see her."
+
+"I saw her once," observed Sir Thorald.
+
+"You generally do," added his wife.
+
+"What?"
+
+"See what others don't."
+
+Sir Thorald, a trifle disconcerted, applied himself to caviare
+and, later, to a bottle of Moselle.
+
+"She's a beauty, they say--" began Ricky, and might have
+continued had he not caught the danger-signal in Molly Hesketh's
+black eyes.
+
+"Lorraine de Nesville," said Lady Hesketh, "is only a child of
+seventeen. Her father makes balloons."
+
+"Not the little, red, squeaky kind," added Sir Thorald; "Molly,
+he is an amateur aeronaut."
+
+"He'd much better take care of Lorraine. The poor child runs wild
+all over the country. They say she rides like a witch on a
+broom--"
+
+"Astride?" cried Sir Thorald.
+
+"For shame!" said his wife; "I--I--upon my word, I have heard
+that she has done that, too. Ricky! what do you mean by yawning?"
+
+Ricky had been listening, mouth open. He shut it hurriedly and
+grew pink to the roots of his colourless hair.
+
+Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil, and Dorothy Marche laughed.
+
+"What of it?" she said; "there is nobody here who would dare to!"
+
+"Oh, shocking!" said little Alixe, and tried to look as though
+she meant it.
+
+At that moment Sir Thorald caught sight of Jack Marche, strolling
+up through the trees, gun tucked under his left arm.
+
+"No luncheon, no salad, no champagne-cup, no cigarette!" he
+called; "all gone! all gone! Molly's smoked my last--"
+
+"Jack Marche, where have you been?" demanded Molly Hesketh. "No,
+you needn't dodge my accusing finger! Barbara, look at him!"
+
+"It's a pretty finger--if Sir Thorald will permit me to say so,"
+said Jack, laughing and setting his gun up against a tree.
+"Dorrie, didn't you save any salad? Ricky, you devouring scourge,
+there's not a bit of caviare! I'm hungry--Oh, thanks, Betty, you
+did think of the prodigal, didn't you?"
+
+"It was Cecil," she said, slyly; "I was saving it for him. What
+did you shoot, Jack?"
+
+"Now you people listen and I'll tell you what I didn't shoot."
+
+"A poor little hawk?" asked Betty.
+
+"No--a poor little wolf!"
+
+In the midst of cries of astonishment and exclamations Sir
+Thorald arose, waving a napkin.
+
+"I knew it!" he said--"I knew I saw a wolf in the woods day
+before yesterday, but I didn't dare tell Molly; she never
+believes me."
+
+"And you deliberately chose to expose us to the danger of being eaten
+alive?" said Lady Hesketh, in an awful voice. "Ricky, I'm going to
+get into that boat at once; Dorothy--Betty Castlemaine--bring Alixe
+and Barbara Lisle. We are going to embark at once."
+
+"Ricky and his boat-load of beauty," laughed Sir Thorald.
+"Really, Molly, I hesitated to tell you because--I was afraid--"
+
+"What, you horrid thing?--afraid he'd bite me?"
+
+"Afraid you'd bite the wolf, my dear," he whispered so that
+nobody but she heard it; "I say, Ricky, we ought to have a wolf
+drive! What do you think?"
+
+The subject started, all chimed in with enthusiasm except Alixe
+von Elster, who sat with big, soulful eyes fixed on Sir Thorald
+and trembled for that bad young man's precious skin.
+
+"We have two weeks to stay yet," said Cecil, glancing
+involuntarily at Betty Castlemaine; "we can get up a drive in a
+week."
+
+"You are not going, Cecil," said Betty, in a low voice, partly to
+practise controlling him, partly to see him blush.
+
+Lady Hesketh, however, took enough interest in the sport to
+insist, and Jack Marche promised to see the head-keeper at once.
+
+"I think I see him now," said Sir Thorald--"no, it's Bosquet's
+boy from the post-office. Those are telegrams he's got."
+
+The little postman's son came trotting across the meadow, waving
+two blue envelopes.
+
+"Monsieur le Capitaine Rickerl von Elster and Monsieur Jack
+Marche--two telegrams this instant from Paris, messieurs! I
+salute you." And he took off his peaked cap, adding, as he saw
+the others, "Messieurs, mesdames," and nodded his curly, blond
+head and smiled.
+
+"Don't apologize--read your telegrams!" said Lady Hesketh; "dear
+me! dear me! if they take you two away and leave Thorald, I
+shall--I shall yawn!"
+
+Ricky's broad face changed as he read his despatch; and Molly
+Hesketh, shamelessly peeping over his shoulder, exclaimed, "It's
+cipher! How stupid! Can you understand it, Ricky?"
+
+Yes, Rickerl von Elster understood it well enough. He paled a
+little, thrust the crumpled telegram into his pocket, and looked
+vaguely at the circle of faces. After a moment he said, standing
+very straight, "I must leave to-morrow morning."
+
+"Recalled? Confound your ambassador, Ricky!" said Sir Thorald.
+"Recalled to Paris in midsummer! Well, I'm--"
+
+"Not to Paris," said Rickerl, with a curious catch in his
+voice--"to Berlin. I join my regiment at once."
+
+Jack Marche, who had been studying his telegram with puzzled
+eyes, held it out to Sir Thorald.
+
+"Can't make head or tail of it; can you?" he demanded.
+
+Sir Thorald took it and read aloud: "New York _Herald_ offers you
+your own price and all expenses. Cable, if accepted."
+
+"'Cable, if accepted,'" repeated Betty Castlemaine; "accept
+what?"
+
+"Exactly! What?" said Jack. "Do they want a story? What do
+'expenses' mean? I'm not going to Africa again if I know it."
+
+"It sounds as though the _Herald_ wanted you for some expedition;
+it sounds as if everybody knew about the expedition, except you.
+Nobody ever hears any news at Morteyn," said Molly Hesketh,
+dejectedly. "Are you going, Jack?"
+
+"Going? Where?"
+
+"Does your telegram throw any light on Jack's, Ricky?" asked Sir
+Thorald.
+
+But Rickerl von Elster turned away without answering.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUMMER THUNDER
+
+
+When the old vicomte was well enough to entertain anybody at all,
+which was not very often, he did it skilfully. So when he filled
+the Château with young people and told them to amuse themselves
+and not bother him, the house-party was necessarily a success.
+
+He himself sat all day in the sunshine, studying the week's Paris
+newspapers with dim, kindly eyes, or played interminable chess
+games with his wife on the flower terrace.
+
+She was sixty; he had passed threescore and ten. They never
+strayed far from each other. It had always been so from the
+first, and the first was when Helen Bruce, of New York City,
+married Georges Vicomte de Morteyn. That was long ago.
+
+The chess-table stood on the terrace in the shadow of the
+flower-crowned parapets; the old vicomte sat opposite his wife,
+one hand touching the black knight, one foot propped up on a pile
+of cushions. He pushed the knight slowly from square to square
+and twisted his white imperial with stiff fingers.
+
+"Helen," he asked, mildly, "are you bored?"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+Madame de Morteyn smiled at her husband and lifted a pawn in her
+thin, blue-veined hand; but the vicomte had not finished, and she
+replaced the pawn and leaned back in her chair, moving the two
+little coffee-cups aside so that she could see what her husband
+was doing with the knight.
+
+From the lawn below came the chatter and laughter of girls. On
+the edge of the lawn the little river Lisse glided noiselessly
+towards the beech woods, whose depths, saturated with sunshine,
+rang with the mellow notes of nesting thrushes.
+
+The middle of July had found the leaves as fresh and tender as
+when they opened in May, the willow's silver green cooled the
+richer verdure of beach and sycamore; the round poplar leaves,
+pale yellow and orange in the sunlight, hung brilliant as lighted
+lanterns where the sun burned through.
+
+"Helen?"
+
+"Dear?"
+
+"I am not at all certain what to do with my queen's knight. May I
+have another cup of coffee?"
+
+Madame de Morteyn poured the coffee from the little silver
+coffee-pot.
+
+"It is hot; be careful, dear."
+
+The vicomte sipped his coffee, looking at her with faded eyes.
+She knew what he was going to say; it was always the same, and
+her answer was always the same. And always, as at that first
+breakfast--their wedding-breakfast--her pale cheeks bloomed again
+with a subtle colour, the ghost of roses long dead.
+
+"Helen, are you thinking of that morning?"
+
+"Yes, Georges."
+
+"Of our wedding-breakfast--here--at this same table?"
+
+"Yes, Georges."
+
+The vicomte set his cup back in the saucer and, trembling, poured
+a pale, golden liquid from a decanter into two tiny glasses.
+
+"A glass of wine?--I have the honour, my dear--"
+
+The colour touched her cheeks as their glasses met; the still air
+tinkled with the melody of crystal touching crystal; a golden
+drop fell from the brimming glasses. The young people on the lawn
+below were very noisy.
+
+She placed her empty glass on the table; the delicate glow in her
+cheeks faded as skies fade at twilight. He, with grave head
+leaning on his hand, looked vaguely at the chess-board, and saw,
+mirrored on every onyx square, the eyes of his wife.
+
+"Will you have the journals, dear?" she asked presently. She
+handed him the _Gaulois_, and he thanked her and opened it,
+peering closely at the black print.
+
+After a moment he read: "M. Ollivier declared, in the Corps
+Législatif, that 'at no time in the history of France has the
+maintenance of peace been more assured than to-day.' Oh, that
+journal is two weeks' old, Helen.
+
+"The treaty of Paris in 1856 assured peace in the Orient, and the
+treaty of Prague in 1866 assures peace in Germany," continued the
+vicomte; "I don't see why it should be necessary for Monsieur
+Ollivier to insist."
+
+He dropped the paper on the stones and touched his white
+mustache.
+
+"You are thinking of General Chanzy," said his wife,
+laughing--"you always twist your mustache like that when you're
+thinking of Chanzy."
+
+He smiled, for he was thinking of Chanzy, his sword-brother; and
+the hot plains of Oran and the dusty columns of cavalry passed
+before his eyes--moving, moving across a world of desert into the
+flaming disk of the setting sun.
+
+"Is to-day the 16th of July, Helen?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Then Chanzy is coming back from Oran. I know you dread it. We
+shall talk of nothing but Abd-el-Kader and Spahis and Turcos, and
+how we lost our Kabyle tobacco at Bou-Youb."
+
+She had heard all about it, too; she knew every étape of the 48th
+of the Line--from the camp at Sathonay to Sidi-Bel-Abbès, and
+from Daya to Djebel-Mikaidon. Not that she cared for sabres and
+red trousers, but nothing that concerned her husband was
+indifferent to her.
+
+"I hope General Chanzy will come," she said, "and tell you all
+about those poor Kabyles and the Legion and that horrid 2d
+Zouaves that you and he laugh over. Are you tired, dear?"
+
+"No. Shall we play? I believe it was my move. How warm it is in
+the sun--no, don't stir, dear--I like it, and my gout is better
+for it. What do you suppose all those young people are doing?
+Hear Betty Castlemaine laugh! It is very fortunate for them,
+Helen, that I married an American with an American's disregard of
+French conventionalities."
+
+"I am very strict," said his wife, smiling; "I can survey them en
+chaperone."
+
+"If you turn around. But you don't."
+
+"I do when it is necessary," said Madame de Morteyn, indignantly;
+"Molly Hesketh is there."
+
+The vicomte laughed and picked up the knight again.
+
+"You see," he said, waving it in the air, "that I also have
+become a very good American. I think no evil until it comes, and
+when it comes I say, 'Shocking!'"
+
+"Georges!"
+
+"That's what I say, my dear--"
+
+"Georges!"
+
+"There, dear, I won't tease. Hark! What is that?"
+
+Madame de Morteyn leaned over the parapet.
+
+"It is Jean Bosquet. Shall I speak to him?"
+
+"Perhaps he has the Paris papers."
+
+"Jean!" she called; and presently the little postman came
+trotting up the long stone steps from the drive. Had he anything?
+Nothing for Monsieur le Vicomte except a bundle of the week's
+journals from Paris. So Madame de Morteyn took the papers, and
+the little postman doffed his cap again and trotted away, blue
+blouse fluttering and sabots echoing along the terrace pavement.
+
+"I am tired of chess," said the old vicomte; "would you mind
+reading the _Gaulois_?"
+
+"The politics, dear?"
+
+"Yes, the weekly summary--if it won't bore you."
+
+"Tais toi! Écoute. This is dated July 3d. Shall I begin?"
+
+"Yes, Helen."
+
+She held the paper nearer and read: "'A Paris journal publishes a
+despatch through l'agence Havas which declares that a deputation
+from the Spanish Government has left Madrid for Berlin to offer
+the crown of Spain to Leopold von Hohenzollern.'"
+
+"What!" cried the vicomte, angrily. Two chessmen tipped over and
+rolled among the others.
+
+"It's what it says, mon ami; look--see--it is exactly as I read
+it."
+
+"Are those Spaniards crazy?" muttered the vicomte, tugging at his
+imperial. "Look, Helen, read what the next day's journal says."
+
+His wife unfolded the paper dated the 4th of July and found the
+column and read: "'The press of Paris unanimously accuses the
+Imperial Government of allowing Prim and Bismarck to intrigue
+against the interests of France. The French ambassador, Count
+Benedetti, interviewed the King of Prussia at Ems and requested
+him to prevent Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern's acceptance. It
+is rumoured that the King of Prussia declined to interfere.'"
+
+Madame de Morteyn tossed the journal on to the terrace and opened
+another.
+
+"'On the 12th of July the Spanish ambassador to Paris informed
+the Duc de Gramont, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the Prince
+von Hohenzollern renounces his candidacy to the Spanish throne.'"
+
+"À la bonheur!" said the vicomte, with a sigh of relief; "that
+settles the Hohenzollern matter. My dear, can you imagine France
+permitting a German prince to mount the throne of Spain? It was
+more than a menace--it was almost an insult. Do you remember
+Count Bismarck when he was ambassador to France? He is a man who
+fascinates me. How he used to watch the Emperor! I can see him
+yet--those puffy, pale eyes! You saw him also, dear--you
+remember, at Saint-Cloud?"
+
+"Yes; I thought him brusque and malicious."
+
+"I know he is at the bottom of this. I'm glad it is over. Did you
+finish the telegraphic news?"
+
+"Almost all. It says--dear me, Georges!--it says that the Duc de
+Gramont refuses to accept any pledge from the Spanish ambassador
+unless that old Von Werther--the German ambassador, you
+know--guarantees that Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern will never
+again attempt to mount the Spanish throne!"
+
+There was a silence. The old vicomte stirred restlessly and
+knocked over some more chessmen.
+
+"Sufficient unto the day--" he said, at last; "the Duc de Gramont
+is making a mistake to press the matter. The word of the Spanish
+ambassador is enough--until he breaks it. General Leboeuf might
+occupy himself in the interim--profitably, I think."
+
+"General Leboeuf is minister of war. What do you mean, Georges?"
+
+"Yes, dear, Leboeuf is minister of war."
+
+"And you think this German prince may some time again--"
+
+"I think France should be ready if he does. Is she ready? Not if
+Chanzy and I know a Turco from a Kabyle. Perhaps Count Bismarck
+wants us to press his king for guarantees. I don't trust him. If
+he does, we should not oblige him. Gramont is making a grave
+mistake. Suppose the King of Prussia should refuse and say it is
+not his affair? Then we would be obliged to accept that answer,
+or--"
+
+"Or what, Georges?"
+
+"Or--well, my dear--or fight. But Gramont is not wicked enough,
+nor is France crazy enough, to wish to go to war over a
+contingency--a possibility that might never happen. I foresee a
+snub for our ambassador at Ems, but that is all. Do you care to
+play any more? I tipped over my king and his castles."
+
+"Perhaps it is an omen--the King of Prussia, you know, and his
+fortresses. I feel superstitious, Georges!"
+
+The vicomte smiled and set the pieces up on their proper squares.
+
+"It is settled; the Spanish ambassador pledges his word that
+Prince Hohenzollern will not be King of Spain. France should be
+satisfied. It is my move, I believe, and I move so--check to you,
+my dear!"
+
+"I resign, dearest. Listen! Here come the children up the terrace
+steps."
+
+"But--but--Helen, you must not resign so soon. Why should you?"
+
+"Because you are already beaten," she laughed, gently--"your king
+and his castles and all his men! How headstrong you Chasseurs
+d'Afrique are!"
+
+"I'm not beaten!" said the old man, stoutly, and leaned closer
+over the board. Then he also laughed, and said, "Tiens! tiens!
+tiens!" and his wife rose and gave him her arm. Two pretty girls
+came running up the terrace, and the old vicomte stood up,
+crying: "Children! Naughty ones! I see you coming! Madame de
+Morteyn has beaten me at chess. Laugh if you dare! Betty
+Castlemaine, I see you smiling!"
+
+"I?" laughed that young lady, turning her flushed face from her
+aunt to her uncle.
+
+"Yes, you did," repeated the vicomte, "and you are not the niece
+that I love any more. Where have you been? And you, Dorothy
+Marche?--your hair is very much tangled."
+
+"We have been lunching by the Lisse," said Dorothy, "and Jack
+caught a gudgeon; here it is."
+
+"Pooh!" said the old vicomte; "I must show them how to fish.
+Helen, I shall go fishing--"
+
+"Some time," said his wife, gently. "Betty, where are the men?"
+
+"Jack and Barbara Lisle are fishing; Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh
+are in the green boat, and Ricky is rowing them. The others are
+somewhere. Ricky got a telegram, and must go to Berlin."
+
+"Tell Rickerl von Elster that his king is making mischief,"
+laughed the vicomte, "and he may go back to Berlin when he
+chooses." Then, smiling at the young, flushed faces, he leaned on
+his wife's arm and passed slowly along the terrace towards the
+house.
+
+"I wonder why Lorraine has not come?" he said to his wife. "Won't
+she come to-night for the dance?"
+
+"Lorraine is a very sweet but a very uncertain girl," replied
+Madame de Morteyn. She led him through the great bay-window
+opening on the terrace, drew his easy-chair before his desk,
+placed the journals before him, and, stooping, kissed him.
+
+"If you want me, send Charles. I really ought to be with the
+young people a moment. I wonder why Ricky must leave?"
+
+"How far away are you going, Helen?"
+
+"Only to the Lisse."
+
+"Then I shall read about Monsieur Bismarck and his Spanish
+friends until you come. The day is long without you."
+
+They smiled at each other, and she sat down by the window.
+
+"Read," she said; "I can see my children from here. I wonder why
+Ricky is leaving?"
+
+Suddenly, in the silence of the summer noon, far in the east, a
+dull sound shook the stillness. Again they heard it--again, and
+again--a deep boom, muttering, reverberating like summer thunder.
+
+"Why should they fire cannon to-day, Helen?" asked the old man,
+querulously. "Why should they fire cannon beyond the Rhine?"
+
+"It is thunder," she said, gently; "it will storm before long."
+
+"I am tired," said the vicomte. "Helen, I shall sleep. Sit by
+me--so--no--nearer yet! Are the children happy?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"When the cannon cease, I shall fall asleep. Listen! what is
+that?"
+
+"A blackbird singing in the pear-tree."
+
+"And what is that--that sound of galloping? Look out and see,
+Helen."
+
+"It is a gendarme riding fast towards the Rhine."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FARANDOLE
+
+
+That evening Dorothy Marche stood on the terrace in the moonlight
+waving her plumed fan and listening to the orchestra from the
+hamlet of Saint-Lys. The orchestra--two violins, a reed-pipe, a
+biniou, and a harp--were playing away with might and main.
+Through the bay-window she could see the crystal chandeliers
+glittering with prismatic light, the slender gilded chairs, the
+cabinets and canapés, golden, backed with tapestry; and
+everywhere massed banks of ferns and lilies. They were dancing in
+there; she saw Lady Hesketh floating in the determined grip of
+Cecil Page, she saw Sir Thorald proudly prancing to the air of
+the farandole; Betty Castlemaine, Jack, Alixe, Barbara Lisle
+passed the window only to re-pass and pass again in a whirl of
+gauze and filmy colour; and the swish! swish! swish! of silken
+petticoats, and the rub of little feet on the polished floor grew
+into a rhythmic, monotonous cadence, beating, beating the measure
+of the farandole.
+
+Dorothy waved her fan and looked at Rickerl, standing in the
+moonlight beside her.
+
+"Why won't you dance, Ricky?" she asked; "it is your last
+evening, if you are determined to leave to-morrow." He turned to
+her with an abrupt gesture; she thought he was going to speak,
+but he did not, and after a moment she said: "Do you know what
+that despatch from the New York _Herald_ to my brother means?"
+
+"Yes," he said. His voice was dull, almost indifferent.
+
+"Will you tell me?"
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"Is--is it anything dangerous that they want him to do?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ricky--tell me, then! You frighten me."
+
+"To-morrow--perhaps to-night."
+
+"Perhaps to-night?"
+
+"If I receive another telegram. I expect to."
+
+"Then, if you receive another despatch, we shall all know?"
+
+Rickerl von Elster bent his head and laid a gloved hand lightly
+on her own.
+
+"I am very unhappy," he said, simply. "May we not speak of other
+things?"
+
+"Yes, Ricky," she said, faintly. He looked almost handsome there
+in the moonlight, but under his evening dress the square build of
+the Prussian trooper, the rigid back, and sturdy limbs were
+perhaps too apparent for ideal civilian elegance. Dorothy looked
+into his serious young face. He touched his blond mustache, felt
+unconsciously for the sabre that was not dangling from his left
+hip, remembered, coloured, and stood up even straighter.
+
+"We are thinking of the same thing," said Dorothy; "I was trying
+to recall that last time we met--do you remember? In Paris?"
+
+He nodded; eyes fixed on hers.
+
+"At the Diplomatic Ball?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you were in uniform, and your sabre was very beautiful,
+but--do you remember how it clashed and banged on the marble
+stairway, and how the other attachés teased you until you tucked
+it under your left arm? Dear me! I was fascinated by your
+patent-leather sabre-tache, and your little spurs, that rang like
+tiny chimes when you walked. What sentimental creatures young
+girls are! Ne c'est pas, Ricky?"
+
+"I have never forgotten that evening," he said, in a voice so low
+that she leaned involuntarily nearer.
+
+"We were very young then," she said, waving her fan.
+
+"It was not a year ago."
+
+"We were young," she repeated, coldly.
+
+"Yet I shall never forget, Dorothy."
+
+She closed her fan and began to examine the fluffy plumes. Her
+cheeks were red, and she bit her lips continually.
+
+"Do you particularly admire Molly Hesketh's hand?" she asked,
+indifferently.
+
+He turned crimson. How could she know of the episode in the
+orangery? Know? There was no mystery in that; Molly Hesketh had
+told her. But Rickerl von Elster, loyal in little things, saw but
+one explanation--Dorothy must have seen him.
+
+"Yes--I kissed her hand," he said. He did not add that Molly had
+dared him.
+
+Dorothy raised her head with an icy smile.
+
+"Is it honourable to confess such a thing?" she asked, in steady
+tones.
+
+"But--but you knew it, for you saw me--" he stammered.
+
+"I did not!" she flashed out, and walked straight into the house.
+
+"Dorrie!" cried her brother as she swept by him, "what do you
+think? Lorraine de Nesville is coming this evening!"
+
+"Lorraine?" said his sister--"dear me, I am dying to see her."
+
+"Then turn around," whispered Betty Castlemaine, leaning across
+from Cecil's arm. "Oh, Dorrie! what a beauty!"
+
+At the same moment the old vicomte rose from his gilded chair and
+stepped forward to the threshold, saying, "Lorraine! Lorraine!
+Then you have come at last, little bad one?" And he kissed her
+white hands and led her to his wife, murmuring, "Helen, what
+shall we do with the little bad one who never comes to bid two
+old people good-day?"
+
+"Ah, Lorraine!" said Madame de Morteyn; "kiss me, my child."
+
+There she stood, her cheeks faintly touched with colour, her
+splendid eyes shining like azure stars, the candle-light setting
+her heavy hair aglow till it glistened and burned as molten ore
+flashes in a crucible. They pressed around her; she saw, through
+the flare of yellow light, a sea of rosy faces; a vague mist of
+lace set with jewels; and she smiled at them while the colour
+deepened in her cheeks. There was music in her ears and music in
+her heart, and she was dancing now--dancing with a tall, bronzed
+young fellow who held her strong and safe, and whose eyes
+continually sought her own.
+
+"You see," she said, demurely, "that my gowns came to-day from
+Paris."
+
+"It is a dream--this one," he said, smiling back into her eyes,
+"but I shall never forget the scarlet skirt and little bodice of
+velvet, and the silver chains, and your hair--"
+
+"My hair? It is still on my head."
+
+"It was tangled across your face--then."
+
+"Taisez-vous, Monsieur Marche!"
+
+"And you seem to have grown taller--"
+
+"It is my ball-gown."
+
+"And you do not cast down your eyes and say, 'Oui, monsieur,'
+'Non, monsieur'--"
+
+"Non, monsieur."
+
+Again they laughed, looking into each other's eyes, and there was
+music in the room and music in their hearts.
+
+Presently the candle-light gave place to moonlight, and they
+found themselves on the terrace, seated, listening to the voice
+of the wind in the forest; and they heard the little river Lisse
+among the rushes and the murmur of leaves on the eaves.
+
+When they became aware of their own silence they turned to each
+other with the gentle haste born of confusion, for each feared
+that the other might not understand. Then, smiling, half fearful,
+they reassured each other with their silence.
+
+She was the first to break the stillness, hesitating as one who
+breaks the seal of a letter long expected, half dreaded: "I came
+late because my father was restless, and I thought he might need
+me. Did you hear cannon along the Rhine?"
+
+"Yes. Some German fête. I thought at first it might be thunder.
+Give me your fan."
+
+"You do not hold it right--there--"
+
+"Do you feel the breeze? Your fan is perfumed--or is it the
+lilies on the terrace? They are dancing again; must we go back?"
+
+She looked out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a
+nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat
+darted by, turned, rose, dipped, and vanished.
+
+"They are dancing," she repeated.
+
+"Must we go?"
+
+"No."
+
+In the stillness the nightingale grew bolder; the woods seemed
+saturated with song.
+
+"My father is restless; I must return soon," she said, with a
+little sigh. "I shall go in presently and make my adieux. I wish
+you might know my father. Will you? He would like you. He speaks
+to few people except me. I know all that he thinks, all that he
+dreams of. I know also all that he has done, all that he is
+doing, all that he will do--God willing. Why is it I tell you
+this? Ma foi, I do not know. And I am going to tell you more.
+Have you heard that my father has made a balloon?"
+
+"Yes--everybody speaks of it," he answered, gravely.
+
+"But--ah, this is the wonderful part!--he has made a balloon that
+can be inflated in five seconds! Think! All other balloons
+require a long, long while, and many tubes; and one must take
+them to a usine de gaz. My father's balloon needs no gas--that
+is, it needs no common illuminating gas."
+
+"A montgolfier?" asked Marche, curiously.
+
+"Oh, pooh! The idea! No, it is like other balloons, except
+that--well--there is needed merely a handful of silvery dust--to
+which you touch a drop of water--piff! puff! c'est fini! The
+balloon is filled."
+
+"And what is this silvery dust?" he asked, laughing.
+
+"Voilà! Do you not wish you knew? I--Lorraine de Nesville--I know!
+It is a secret. If the time ever should come--in case of war, for
+instance--my father will give the secret to France--freely--without
+recompense--a secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy!
+Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"
+
+"And you know?"
+
+"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.
+
+"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations
+get wind of this they might kidnap you."
+
+"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain,
+Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my father--as though he
+bought and sold the welfare of his country!"
+
+"And that map-making fellow this morning--do you suppose he might
+have been hanging about after that sort of thing--trying to pry
+and pick up some scrap of information?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, quietly; "I only saw him making maps.
+Listen! there are two secrets that my father possesses, and they
+are both in writing. I do not know where he keeps them, but I
+know what they are. Shall I tell you? Then listen--I shall
+whisper. One is the chemical formula for the silvery dust, the
+gas of which can fill a balloon in five seconds. The other
+is--you will be astonished--the plan for a navigable balloon!"
+
+"Has he tried it?"
+
+"A dozen times. I went up twice. It steers like a ship."
+
+"Do people know this, too?"
+
+"Germany does. Once we sailed, papa and I, up over our forest and
+across the country to the German frontier. We were not very high;
+we could see the soldiers at the custom-house, and they saw us,
+and--would you believe it?--they fired their horrid guns at
+us--pop! pop! pop! But we were too quick; we simply sailed back
+again against the very air-currents that brought us. One bullet
+made a hole in the silk, but we didn't come down. Papa says a
+dozen bullets cannot bring a balloon down, even when they pierce
+the silk, because the air-pressure is great enough to keep the
+gas in. But he says that if they fire a shell, that is what is to
+be dreaded, for the gas, once aflame!--that ends all. Dear me! we
+talk a great deal of war--you and I. It is time for me to go."
+
+They rose in the moonlight; he gave her back her fan. For a full
+minute they stood silent, facing each other. She broke a lily
+from its stem, and drew it out of the cluster at her breast. She
+did not offer it, but he knew it was his, and he took it.
+
+"Symbol of France," she whispered.
+
+"Symbol of Lorraine," he said, aloud.
+
+A deep boom, sullen as summer thunder, shook the echoes awake
+among the shrouded hills, rolling, reverberating, resounding,
+until the echoes carried it on from valley to valley, off into
+the world of shadows.
+
+The utter silence that followed was broken by a call, a gallop of
+hoofs on the gravel drive, the clink of stirrups, the snorting of
+hard-run horses.
+
+Somebody cried, "A telegram for you, Ricky!" There was a patter
+of feet on the terrace, a chorus of voices: "What is it, Ricky?"
+"Must you go at once?" "Whatever is the matter?"
+
+The young German soldier, very pale, turned to the circle of
+lamp-lit faces.
+
+"France and Germany--I--I--"
+
+"What?" cried Sir Thorald, violently.
+
+"War was declared at noon to-day!"
+
+Lorraine gave a gasp and reached out one hand. Jack Marche took
+it in both of his.
+
+Inside the ballroom the orchestra was still playing the
+farandole.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+COWARDS AND THEIR COURAGE
+
+
+Rickerl took the old vicomte's withered hand; he could not speak;
+his sister Alixe was crying.
+
+"War? War? Allons donc!" muttered the old man. "Helen! Ricky says
+we are to have war. Helen, do you hear? War!"
+
+Then Rickerl hurried away to dress, for he was to ride to the
+Rhine, nor spare whip nor spur; and Barbara Lisle comforted
+little Alixe, who wept as she watched the maids throwing
+everything pell-mell into their trunks; for they, too, were to
+leave at daylight on the Moselle Express for Cologne.
+
+Below, a boy appeared, leading Rickerl's horse from the stables;
+there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures
+passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the
+messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a
+sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the
+rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War
+was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!"
+And always the burden of the busy voices was the same, menacing,
+incredulous, half-whispered, but always the same--"War! war!
+war!"
+
+Booted and spurred, square-shouldered and muscular in his corded
+riding-suit, Rickerl passed the terrace again after the last
+adieux. The last? No, for as his heavy horse stamped out across
+the drive a voice murmured his name, a hand fell on his arm.
+
+"Dorothy," he whispered, bending from his saddle.
+
+"I love you, Ricky," she gasped.
+
+And they say women are cowards!
+
+He lifted her to his breast, held her crushed and panting; she
+put both hands before her eyes.
+
+"There has never been any one but you; do you believe it?" he
+stammered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you are mine!"
+
+"Yes. May God spare you!"
+
+And Rickerl, loyal in little things, swung her gently to the
+ground again, unkissed.
+
+There was a flurry of gravel, a glimpse of a horse rearing,
+plunging, springing into the darkness--that was all. And she
+crept back to the terrace with hot, tearless lids, that burned
+till all her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She
+passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel
+drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian
+pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little
+biniou man from the Côte-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating
+at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone
+was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence
+that her little slippered feet echoed along the gravel--War! war!
+
+At the foot of the steps which skirted the terrace she met her
+brother and Lorraine watching the groom rubbing down the
+messengers' horses. A lantern, glimmering on the ground, shed a
+sickly light under their eyes.
+
+"Dorrie," said Jack, "Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh think that we all
+should start for Paris by the early train. They have already sent
+some of our trunks to Saint-Lys; Mademoiselle de Nesville"--he
+turned with a gesture almost caressing to Lorraine--"Mademoiselle
+de Nesville has generously offered her carriage to help transport
+the luggage, and she is going to wait until it returns."
+
+"And uncle--and our aunt De Morteyn?"
+
+"I shall stay at Morteyn until they decide whether to close the
+house and go to Paris or to stay until October. Dorrie, dear, we
+are very near the frontier here."
+
+"There will be no invasion," said Lorraine, faintly.
+
+"The Rhine is very near," repeated Dorothy. She was thinking of
+Rickerl.
+
+"So you and Betty and Cecil," continued Jack, "are to go with the
+Heskeths to Paris. Poor little Alixe is crying her eyes out
+up-stairs. She and Barbara Lisle are going to Cologne, where
+Ricky will either find them or have his father meet them."
+
+After a moment he added, "It seems incredible, this news. They
+say, in the village, that the King of Prussia insulted the French
+ambassador, Count Benedetti, on the public promenade of Ems. It's
+all about that Hohenzollern business and the Spanish succession.
+Everybody thought it was settled, of course, because the Spanish
+ambassador said so, and Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern withdrew
+his claim. I can't understand it; I can scarcely believe it."
+
+Dorothy stood a moment, looking at the stars in the midnight
+sky. Then she turned with a sigh to Lorraine.
+
+"Good-night," she said, and they kissed each other, these two
+young girls who an hour before had been strangers.
+
+"Shall I see you again? We leave by the early train," whispered
+Dorothy.
+
+"No--I must return when my carriage comes back from the village.
+Good-by, dear--good-by, dear Dorothy."
+
+A moment later, Dorothy, flinging her short ermine-edged cloak
+from her shoulders, entered the empty ballroom and threw herself
+upon the gilded canapé.
+
+One by one the candles spluttered, glimmered, flashed up, and
+went out, leaving a trail of smoke in the still air. Up-stairs
+little Alixe was sobbing herself to sleep in Barbara's arms; in
+his own chamber the old vicomte paced to and fro, and to and fro,
+and his sweet-faced wife watched him in silence, her thin hand
+shading her eyes in the lamplight. In the next room Sir Thorald
+and Lady Hesketh sat close together, whispering. Only Betty
+Castlemaine and Cecil Page had lost little of their cheerfulness,
+perhaps because neither were French, and Cecil was not going to
+the war, and--after all, war promised to be an exciting thing,
+and well worth the absorbed attention of two very young lovers.
+Arm in arm, they promenaded the empty halls and galleries,
+meeting no one save here and there a pale-faced maid or scared
+flunky; and at length they entered the gilded ballroom where
+Dorothy lay, flung full length on the canapé.
+
+She submitted to Betty's caresses, and went away to bed with her,
+saying good-night to Cecil in a tear-choked voice; and a moment
+later Cecil sought his own chamber, lighted a pipe, and gave
+himself up to delightful visions of Betty, protected from several
+Prussian army-corps by the single might of his strong right arm.
+
+At the foot of the terrace, Lorraine de Nesville stood with Jack,
+watching the dark drive for the lamps of the returning carriage.
+Her maid loitered near, exchanging whispered gossip with the
+groom, who now stood undecided, holding both horses and waiting
+for orders. Presently Jack asked him where the messengers were,
+and he said he didn't know, but that they had perhaps gone to the
+kitchens for refreshments.
+
+"Go and find them, then; here, give me the bridles," said Jack;
+"if they are eating, let them finish; I'll hold their horses. Why
+doesn't Mademoiselle de Nesville's carriage come back from
+Saint-Lys? When you leave the kitchens, go down the road and look
+for it. Tell them to hurry."
+
+The groom touched his cap and hastened away.
+
+"I wish the carriage would come--I wish the carriage would
+hurry," repeated Lorraine, at intervals. "My father is alone; I
+am nervous, I don't know why. What are you reading?"
+
+"My telegram from the New York _Herald_," he answered,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"It is easy to understand now," she said.
+
+"Yes, easy to understand. They want me for war correspondent."
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I don't know--" He hesitated, trying to see her eyes in the
+darkness. "I don't know; shall you stay here in the Moselle
+Valley?"
+
+"Yes--I suppose so."
+
+"You are very near the Rhine."
+
+"There will be--there shall be no invasion," she said,
+feverishly. "France also ends at the Rhine; let them look to
+their own!"
+
+She moved impatiently, stepped from the stones to the damp
+gravel, and walked slowly across the misty lawn. He followed,
+leading the horses behind him and holding his telegram open in
+his right hand. Presently she looked back over her shoulder, saw
+him following, and waited.
+
+"Why, will you go as war correspondent?" she asked when he came
+up, leading the saddled horses.
+
+"I don't know; I was on the _Herald_ staff in New York; they gave
+me a roving commission, which I enjoyed so much that I resigned
+and stayed in Paris. I had not dreamed that I should ever be
+needed--I did not think of anything like this."
+
+"Have you never seen war?"
+
+"Nothing to speak of. I was the _Herald's_ representative at
+Sadowa, and before that I saw some Kabyles shot in Oran. Where
+are you going?"
+
+"To the river. We can hear the carriage when it comes, and I want
+to see the lights of the Château de Nesville."
+
+"From the river? Can you?"
+
+"Yes--the trees are cut away north of the boat-house. Look! I
+told you so. My father is there alone."
+
+Far away in the night the lights of the Château de Nesville
+glimmered between the trees, smaller, paler, yellower than the
+splendid stars that crowned the black vault above the forest.
+
+After a silence she reached out her hand abruptly and took the
+telegram from between his fingers. In the starlight she read it,
+once, twice; then raised her head and smiled at him.
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I don't know. Yes."
+
+"No," she said, and tore the telegram into bits.
+
+One by one she tossed the pieces on to the bosom of the placid
+Lisse, where they sailed away towards the Moselle like dim, blue
+blossoms floating idly with the current.
+
+"Are you angry?" she whispered.
+
+He saw that she was trembling, and that her face had grown very
+pale.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked, amazed.
+
+"The matter--the matter is this: I--I--Lorraine de Nesville--am
+afraid! I am afraid! It is fear--it is fear!"
+
+"Fear?" he asked, gently.
+
+"Yes!" she cried. "Yes, it is fear! I cannot help it--I never
+before knew it--that I--I could be afraid. Don't--don't leave
+us--my father and me!" she cried, passionately. "We are so alone
+there in the house--I fear the forest--I fear--"
+
+She trembled violently; a wolf howled on the distant hill.
+
+"I shall gallop back to the Château de Nesville with you," he said;
+"I shall be close beside you, riding by your carriage-window. Don't
+tremble so--Mademoiselle de Nesville."
+
+"It is terrible," she stammered; "I never knew I was a coward."
+
+"You are anxious for your father," he said, quietly; "you are no
+coward!"
+
+"I am--I tremble--see! I shiver."
+
+"It was the wolf--"
+
+"Ah, yes--the wolf that warned us of war! and the men--that one who
+made maps; I never could do again what I did! Then I was afraid of
+nothing; now I fear everything--the howl of that beast on the hill,
+the wind in the trees, the ripple of the Lisse--C'est plus fort que
+moi--I am a coward. Listen! Can you hear the carriage?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Listen--ah, listen!"
+
+"It is the noise of the river."
+
+"The river? How black it is! Hark!"
+
+"The wind."
+
+"Hark!"
+
+"The wind again--"
+
+"Look!" She seized his arm frantically. "Look! Oh, what--what was
+that?"
+
+The report of a gun, faint but clear, came to their ears.
+Something flashed from the lighted windows of the Château de
+Nesville--another flash broke out--another--then three dull
+reports sounded, and the night wind spread the echoes broadcast
+among the wooded hills.
+
+For a second she stood beside him, white, rigid, speechless; then
+her little hand crushed his arm and she pushed him violently
+towards the horses.
+
+"Mount!" she cried; "ride! ride!"
+
+Scarcely conscious of what he did, he backed one of the horses,
+seized the gathered bridle and mane, and flung himself astride.
+The horse reared, backed again, and stood stamping. At the same
+instant he swung about in his saddle and cried, "Go back to the
+house!"
+
+But she was already in the saddle, guiding the other horse, her
+silken skirts crushed, her hair flying, sawing at the bridle-bit
+with gloved fingers. The wind lifted the cloak on her shoulders,
+her little satin slipper sought one stirrup.
+
+"Ride!" she gasped, and lashed her horse.
+
+He saw her pass him in a whirl of silken draperies streaming in
+the wind; the swan's-down cloak hid her body like a cloud. In a
+second he was galloping at her bridle-rein; and both horses, nose
+to nose and neck to neck, pounded across the gravel drive,
+wheeled, leaped forward, and plunged down the soft wood road,
+straight into the heart of the forest. The lace from her corsage
+fluttered in the air; the lilies at her breast fell one by one,
+strewing the road with white blossoms. The wind loosened her
+heavy hair to the neck, seized it, twisted it, and flung it out
+on the wind. Under the clusters of ribbon on her shoulders there
+was a gleam of ivory; her long gloves slipped to the wrists; her
+hair whipped the rounded arms, bare and white below the riotous
+ribbons, snapping and fluttering on her shoulders; her cloak
+unclasped at the throat and whirled to the ground, trampled into
+the forest mould.
+
+They struck a man in the darkness; they heard him shriek; the
+horses staggered an instant, that was all, except a gasp from the
+girl, bending with whitened cheeks close to her horse's mane.
+
+"Look out! A lantern!--close ahead!" panted Marche.
+
+The sharp crack of a revolver cut him short, his horse leaped
+forward, the blood spurting from its neck.
+
+"Are you hit?" he cried.
+
+"No! no! Ride!"
+
+Again and again, but fainter and fainter, came the crack! crack!
+of the revolver, like a long whip snapped in the wind.
+
+"Are you hit?" he asked again.
+
+"Yes, it is nothing! Ride!"
+
+In the darkness and confusion of the plunging horses he managed
+to lean over to her where she bent in her saddle; and, on one
+white, round shoulder, he saw the crimson welt of a bullet, from
+which the blood was welling up out of the satin skin.
+
+And now, in the gloom, the park wall loomed up along the river,
+and he shouted for the lodge-keeper, rising in his stirrups; but
+the iron gate swung wide, and the broad, empty avenue stretched
+up to the Château.
+
+They galloped up to the door; he slipped from his horse, swung
+Lorraine to the ground, and sprang up the low steps. The door was
+open, the long hall brilliantly lighted.
+
+"It is I--Lorraine!" cried the girl. A tall, bearded man burst in
+from a room on the left, clutching a fowling-piece.
+
+"Lorraine! They've got the box! The balloon secret was in it!" he
+groaned; "they are in the house yet--" He stared wildly at Marche,
+then at his daughter. His face was discoloured with bruises, his
+thick, blond hair fell in disorder across steel-blue eyes that
+gleamed with fury.
+
+Almost at the same moment there came a crash of glass, a heavy
+fall from the porch, and then a shot.
+
+In an instant Marche was at the door; he saw a game-keeper raise
+his gun and aim at him, and he shrank back as the report roared
+in his ears.
+
+"You fool!" he shouted; "don't shoot at me! drop your gun and
+follow!" He jumped to the ground and started across the garden
+where a dark figure was clutching the wall and trying to climb to
+the top. He was too late--the man was over; but he followed,
+jumped, caught the tiled top, and hurled himself headlong into
+the bushes below.
+
+Close to him a man started from the thicket, and ran down the wet
+road--splash! splash! slop! slop! through the puddles; but Marche
+caught him and dragged him down into the mud, where they rolled
+and thrashed and spattered and struck each other. Twice the man
+tore away and struggled to his feet, and twice Marche fastened to
+his knees until the huge, lumbering body swayed and fell again.
+It might have gone hard with Jack, for the man suddenly dropped
+the steel box he was clutching to his breast and fell upon the
+young fellow with a sullen roar. His knotted, wiry fingers had
+already found Jack's throat; he lifted the young fellow's head
+and strove to break his neck. Then, in a flash, he leaped back
+and lifted a heavy stone from the wall; at the same instant
+somebody fired at him from the wall; he wheeled and sprang into
+the woods.
+
+That was all Jack Marche knew until a lantern flared in his
+eyes, and he saw Lorraine's father, bright-eyed, feverish,
+dishevelled, beside him.
+
+"Raise him!" said a voice that he knew was Lorraine's.
+
+They lifted Jack to his knees; he stumbled to his feet, torn,
+bloody, filthy with mud, but in his arms, clasped tight, was the
+steel box, intact.
+
+"Lorraine!--my box!--look!" cried her father, and the lantern
+shook in his hands as he clutched the casket.
+
+But Lorraine stepped forward and flung both arms around Jack
+Marche's neck.
+
+Her face was deadly pale; the blood oozed from the wounded
+shoulder. For the first time her father saw that she had been
+shot. He stared at her, clutching the steel box in his nervous
+hands.
+
+With all the strength she had left she crushed Jack to her and
+kissed him. Then, weak with the loss of blood, she leaned on her
+father.
+
+"I am going to faint," she whispered; "help me, father."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+TRAINS EAST AND WEST
+
+
+It was dawn when Jack Marche galloped into the court-yard of the
+Château Morteyn and wearily dismounted. People were already
+moving about the upper floors; servants stared at him as he
+climbed the steps to the terrace; his face was scratched, his
+clothes smeared with caked mud and blood.
+
+He went straight to his chamber, tore off his clothes, took a
+hasty plunge in a cold tub, and rubbed his aching limbs until
+they glowed. Then he dressed rapidly, donned his riding breeches
+and boots, slipped a revolver into his pocket, and went
+down-stairs, where he could already hear the others at breakfast.
+
+Very quietly and modestly he told his story between sips of
+café-au-lait.
+
+"You see," he ended, "that the country is full of spies, who
+hesitate at nothing. There were three or four of them who tried
+to rob the Château; they seem perfectly possessed to get at the
+secrets of the Marquis de Nesville's balloons. There is no doubt
+but that for months past they have been making maps of the whole
+region in most minute detail; they have evidently been expecting
+this war for a long time. Incidentally, now that war is declared,
+they have opened hostilities on their own account."
+
+"You did for some of them?" asked Sir Thorald, who had been
+fidgeting and staring at Jack through a gold-edged monocle.
+
+"No--I--we rode down and trampled a man in the dark; I should
+think it would have been enough to brain him, but when I galloped
+back just now he was gone, and I don't know how badly he was
+hit."
+
+"But the fellow that started to smash you with a
+paving-stone--the Marquis de Nesville fired at him, didn't he?"
+insisted Sir Thorald.
+
+"Yes, I think he hit him, but it was a long shot. Lorraine was
+superb--"
+
+He stopped, colouring up a little.
+
+"She did it all," he resumed--"she rode through the woods like a
+whirlwind! Good heavens! I never saw such a cyclone incarnate!
+And her pluck when she was hit!--and then very quietly she went
+to her father and fainted in his arms."
+
+Jack had not told all that had happened. The part that he had not
+told was the part that he thought of most--Lorraine's white arms
+around his neck and the touch of her innocent lips on his
+forehead. In silent consternation the young people listened;
+Dorothy slipped out of her chair and came and rested her hands on
+her brother's shoulder; Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil with
+large, questioning eyes that asked, "Would you do something
+heroic for me?" and Cecil's eyes replied, "Oh, for a chance to
+annihilate a couple of regiments!" This pleased Betty, and she
+ate a muffin with appreciation. The old vicomte leaned heavily on
+his elbow and looked at his wife, who sat opposite, pallid and
+eating nothing. He had decided to remain at Morteyn, but this
+episode disquieted him--not on his own account.
+
+"Helen," he said, "Jack and I will stay, but you must go with the
+children. There is no danger--there can be no invasion, for our
+troops will be passing here by night; I only wish to be sure
+that--that in case--in case things should go dreadfully wrong,
+you would not be compelled to witness anything unpleasant."
+
+Madame de Morteyn shook her head gently.
+
+"Why speak of it?" she said; "you know I will not go."
+
+"I'll stay, too," said Sir Thorald, eagerly; "Cecil and Molly can
+take the children to Paris; Madame de Morteyn, you really should
+go also."
+
+She leaned back and shook her head decisively.
+
+"Then you will both come, you and Madame de Morteyn?" urged Lady
+Hesketh of the vicomte.
+
+The old man hesitated. His wife smiled. She knew he could not
+leave in the face of the enemy; she had been the wife of this old
+African campaigner for thirty years, and she knew what she knew.
+
+"Helen--" he began.
+
+"Yes, dear, we will both stay; the city is too hot in July," she
+said; "Sir Thorald, some coffee? No more? Betty, you want another
+muffin?--they are there by Cecil. Children, I think I hear the
+carriages coming; you must not make Lady Hesketh wait."
+
+"I have half a mind to stay," said Molly Hesketh. Sir Thorald
+said she might if she wanted to enlist, and they all tried to
+smile, but the sickly gray of early morning, sombre, threatening,
+fell on faces haggard with foreboding--young faces, too, lighted
+by the pale flames of the candles.
+
+Alixe von Elster and Barbara Lisle went first; there were tears
+and embraces, and au revoirs and aufwiedersehens.
+
+Little Alixe blanched and trembled when Sir Thorald bent over
+her, not entirely unconscious of the havoc his drooping mustache
+and cynical eyes had made in her credulous German bosom. Molly
+Hesketh kissed her, wishing that she could pinch her; and so they
+left, tearful, anxious, to be driven to Courtenay, and whirled
+from there across the Rhine to Cologne.
+
+Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh lingered on the terrace after the
+others had returned to the breakfast-room.
+
+"Thorald," she said, "you are a brute!"
+
+"Eh?" cried Sir Thorald.
+
+"You're a brute!"
+
+"Molly, what the deuce is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing--if you ever see her again, I'll tell Ricky."
+
+"I might say the same thing in regard to Ricky, my dear," said
+Sir Thorald, mildly.
+
+"It is not true," she said; "I did no damage to him; and you
+know--you know down in the depths of your fickle soul that--that--"
+
+"What, my dear?"
+
+"Never mind!" said Molly, sharply; but she crimsoned when he
+kissed her, and held tightly to his sleeve.
+
+"Good ged!" thought Sir Thorald; "what a devil I am with women!"
+
+But now the carriages drove up--coupés, dog-carts, and a
+victoria.
+
+"They say we ought not to miss this train," said Cecil, coming
+from the stables and flourishing a whip; "they say the line may
+be seized for government use exclusively in a few hours."
+
+The old house-keeper, Madame Paillard, nodded and pointed to her
+son, the under-keeper.
+
+"François says, Monsieur Page, that six trains loaded with troops
+passed through Saint-Lys between midnight and dawn; dis,
+François, c'est le Sieur Bosz qui t'a renseigné--pas?"
+
+"Oui, mamam!"
+
+"Then hurry," said Lady Hesketh. "Thorald, call the others."
+
+"I," said Cecil, "am going to drive Betty in the dog-cart."
+
+"She'll probably take the reins," said Sir Thorald, cynically.
+
+Cecil brandished his whip and looked determined; but it was Betty
+who drove him to Saint-Lys station, after all.
+
+The adieux were said, even more tearfully this time. Jack kissed
+his sister tenderly, and she wept a little on his shoulder--thinking
+of Rickerl.
+
+One by one the vehicles rolled away down the gravel drive; and
+last of all came Molly Hesketh in the coupé with Jack Marche.
+
+Molly was sad and a trifle distraite. Those periodical mental
+illuminations during which she discovered for the thousandth and odd
+time that she loved her husband usually left her fairly innocuous.
+But she was a born flirt; the virus was bred in the bone, and after
+the first half-mile she opened her batteries--her eyes--as a matter
+of course on Jack.
+
+What she got for her pains was a little sermon ending, "See here,
+Molly--three years ago you played the devil with me until I
+kissed you, and then you were furious and threatened to tell Sir
+Thorald. The truth is, you're in love with him, and there is no
+more harm in you than there is in a china kitten."
+
+"Jack!" she gasped.
+
+"And," he resumed, "you live in Paris, and you see lots of things
+and you hear lots of things that you don't hear and see in
+Lincolnshire. But you're British, Molly, and you are domestic,
+although you hate the idea, and there will never be a desolated
+hearth in the Hesketh household as long as you speak your
+mother-tongue and read Anthony Trollope."
+
+The rest of the road was traversed in silence. They rattled over
+the stones in the single street of Saint-Lys, rolled into the
+gravel oval behind the Gare, and drew up amid a hubbub of
+restless teams, market-wagons, and station-trucks.
+
+"See the soldiers!" said Jack, lifting Lady Hesketh to the
+platform, where the others were already gathered in a circle. A
+train was just gliding out of the station, bound eastward, and
+from every window red caps projected and sunburned, boyish faces
+expanded into grins as they saw Lady Hesketh and her charges.
+
+"Vive l'Angleterre!" they cried. "Vive Madame la Reine! Vive
+Johnbull et son rosbif!" the latter observation aimed at Sir
+Thorald.
+
+Sir Thorald waved his eye-glass to them condescendingly; faster
+and faster moved the train; the red caps and fresh, tanned
+faces, the laughing eyes became a blur and then a streak; and far
+down the glistening track the faint cheers died away and were
+drowned in the roar of the wheels--little whirling wheels that
+were bearing them merrily to their graves at Wissembourg.
+
+"Here comes our train," said Cecil. "Jack, my boy, you'll
+probably see some fun; take care of your hide, old chap!" He
+didn't mean to be patronizing, but he had Betty demurely leaning
+on his arm, and--dear me!--how could he help patronizing the
+other poor devils in the world who had not Betty, and who never
+could have Betty?
+
+"Montez, madame, s'il vous plait!--Montez, messieurs!" cried the
+Chef de Gare; "last train for Paris until Wednesday! All aboard!"
+and he slammed and locked the doors, while the engineer, leaning
+impatiently from his cab, looked back along the line of cars and
+blew his whistle warningly.
+
+"Good-by, Dorrie!" cried Jack.
+
+"Good-by, my darling Jack! Be careful; you will, won't you?" But
+she was still thinking of Rickerl, bless her little heart!
+
+Lady Hesketh waved him a demure adieu from the open window,
+relented, and gave his hand a hasty squeeze with her gloved
+fingers.
+
+"Take care of Lorraine," she said, solemnly; then laughed at his
+telltale eyes, and leaned back on her husband's shoulder, still
+laughing.
+
+The cars were gliding more swiftly past the platform now; he
+caught a glimpse of Betty kissing her hand to him, of Cecil
+bestowing a gracious adieu, of Sir Thorald's eye-glass--then they
+were gone; and far up the tracks the diminishing end of the last
+car dwindled to a dark square, a spot, a dot, and was ingulfed in
+a flurry of dust. As he turned away and passed along the platform
+to the dog-cart, there came a roar, a shriek of a locomotive, a
+rush, and a train swept by towards the east, leaving a blear of
+scarlet in his eyes, and his ears ringing with the soldiers'
+cheers: "Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! À Berlin! À Berlin! À
+Berlin!" A furtive-eyed young peasant beside him shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Bismarck has called for the menu; his cannon are hungry," he
+sneered; "there goes the bill of fare."
+
+"That's very funny," said a fierce little man with a gray
+mustache, "but the bill of fare isn't complete--the class of '71
+has just been called out!" and he pointed to a placard freshly
+pasted on the side of the station.
+
+"The--the class of '71?" muttered the furtive-eyed peasant,
+turning livid.
+
+"Exactly--the bill of fare needs the hors d'oeuvres; you'll go as
+an olive, and probably come back a sardine--in a box."
+
+And the fierce little man grinned, lighted a cigarette, and
+sauntered away, still grinning.
+
+What did he care? He was a pompier and exempt.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE ROAD TO PARADISE
+
+
+The road between Saint-Lys and Morteyn was not a military road,
+but it was firm and smooth, and Jack drove back again towards the
+Château at a smart trot, flicking at leaves and twigs with
+Cecil's whip.
+
+The sun had brushed the veil of rain from the horizon; the
+leaves, fresh and tender, stirred and sparkled with dew in the
+morning breeze, and all the air was sweet-scented. In the
+stillness of the fields, where wheat stretched along the road
+like a green river tinged with gold, there was something that
+troubled him. Silence is oppressive to sinners and prophets. He
+concluded he was the former, and sighed restlessly, looking out
+across the fields, where, deep in the stalks of the wheat,
+blood-red poppies opened like raw wounds. At other times he had
+compared them to little fairy camp-fires; but his mood was
+pessimistic, and he saw, in the furrows that the plough had
+raised, the scars on the breast of a tortured earth; and he read
+sermons in bundles of fresh-cut fagots; and death was written
+where a sickle lay beside a pile of grass, crisping to hay in the
+splendid sun of Lorraine.
+
+What he did not see were the corn-flowers peeping at him with
+dewy blue eyes; the vineyards, where the fruit hung faintly
+touched with bloom; the field birds, the rosy-breasted finches,
+the thrush, as speckled as her own eggs--no, nor did he hear
+them; for the silence that weighed on his heart came from his
+heart. Yet all the summer wind was athrill with harmony.
+Thousands of feathered throats swelled and bubbled melody, from
+the clouds to the feathery heath, from the scintillating azure in
+the zenith to the roots of the glittering wheat where the
+corn-flowers lay like bits of blue sky fallen to the earth.
+
+As he drove he thought of Lorraine, of her love for her father
+and her goodness. He already recognized that dominant passion in
+her, her unselfish adoration of her father--a father who sat all
+day behind bolted doors trifling with metals and gases and little
+spinning, noiseless wheels. The selfish to the unselfish, the
+dead to the living, the dwarf to the giant, and the sinner to the
+saint--this is the world and they that dwell therein.
+
+He thought of her as he had seen her last, smiling up into the
+handsome, bearded face that questioned her. No, the wound was
+nothing--a little blood lost--enough to make her faint at his
+feet--that was all. But his precious box was safe--and she had
+flung her loyal arms about the man who saved it and had kissed
+him before her father, because he had secured what was dearer to
+her than life--her father's happiness--a little metal box full of
+it.
+
+Her father was very grateful and very solicitous about her
+wounded shoulder; but he opened his box before he thought about
+bandages. Everything was intact, except the conservatory window
+and his daughter's shoulder. Both could be mended--but his box!
+ah, that, if lost, could never be replaced.
+
+Jack's throat was hard and dry. A lump came into it, and he
+swallowed with a shrug, and flicked at a fly on the headstall. A
+vision of Sir Thorald, bending over little Alixe, came before his
+eyes. "Pah!" he muttered, in disgust. Sir Thorald was one of
+those men who cease to care for a woman when she begins to care
+for them. Jack knew it; that was why he had been so gentle with
+Molly Hesketh, who had turned his head when he was a boy and
+given him his first emotions--passion, hate--and then knowledge;
+for of all the deep emotions that a man shall know before he dies
+the first consciousness of knowledge is the most profound; it
+sounds the depths of heaven and hell in the space of time that
+the heart beats twice.
+
+He was passing through the woods now, the lovely oak and beech
+woods of Lorraine. An ancient dame, bending her crooked back
+beneath a load of fagots, gave him "God bless you!" and he drew
+rein and returned the gift--but his was in silver, with the head
+of his imperial majesty stamped on one side.
+
+As he drove, rabbits ran back into the woods, hoisting their
+white signals of conciliation. "Peace and good will" they seemed
+to read, "but a wise rabbit takes to the woods." Pheasants, too,
+stepped daintily from under the filbert bushes, twisting their
+gorgeous necks curiously as he passed. Once, in the hollow of a
+gorge where a little stream trickled under layers of wet leaves,
+he saw a wild-boar standing hock-deep in the ooze, rooting under
+mosses and rotten branches, absorbed in his rooting. Twice deer
+leaped from the young growth on the edge of the fields and
+bounded lazily into denser cover, only to stop when half
+concealed and stare back at him with gentle, curious eyes. The
+horse pricked up his ears at such times and introduced a few
+waltz steps into his steady if monotonous repertoire, but Jack
+let him have his fling, thinking that the deer were as tame as
+the horse, and both were tamer than man.
+
+Excepting the black panther, man has learned his lesson slowest
+of all, the lesson of acquiescence in the inevitable.
+
+"I'll never learn it," said Jack, aloud. His voice startled
+him--it was trembling.
+
+Lorraine! Lorraine! Life has begun for a very young man. Teach
+him to see and bring him to accept existence in the innocence of
+your knowledge; for, if he and the world collide, he fears the
+result to the world.
+
+A few moments later he drove into Paradise, which is known to
+some as the Château de Nesville.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+UNDER THE YOKE
+
+
+During the next two weeks Jack Marche drove into Paradise
+fourteen times, and fourteen times he drove out of Paradise, back
+to the Château Morteyn. Heaven is nearer than people suppose; it
+was three miles from the road shrine at Morteyn.
+
+Our Lady of Morteyn, sculptured in the cold stone above the
+shrine, had looked with her wide stone eyes on many lovers, and
+had known they were lovers because their piety was as sudden as
+it was fervid.
+
+Twice a day Jack's riding-cap was reverently doffed as he drew
+bridle before the shrine, going and coming from Paradise.
+
+At evening, too, when the old vicomte slept on his pillow and the
+last light went out in the stables, Our Lady of Morteyn saw a
+very young man sitting, with his head in his hands, at her feet;
+and he took no harm from the cold stones, because Our Lady of
+Morteyn is gentle and gracious, and the summer nights were hot in
+the province of Lorraine.
+
+There had been little stir or excitement in Morteyn. Even in
+Saint-Lys, where all day and all night the troop-trains rushed
+by, the cheers of the war-bound soldiers leaning from the flying
+cars were becoming monotonous in the ears of the sober villagers.
+When the long, flat cars, piled with cannon, passed, the people
+stared at the slender guns, mute, canvas-covered, tilted skyward.
+They stared, too, at the barred cars, rolling past in interminable
+trains, loaded with horses and canvas-jacketed troopers who peered
+between the slats and shouted to the women in the street. Other
+trains came and went, trains weighted with bellowing cattle or
+huddled sheep, trains choked with small square boxes marked
+"Cartouches" or "Obus--7^me"; trains piled high with grain or
+clothing, or folded tents packed between varnished poles and piles
+of tin basins. Once a little excitement came to Saint-Lys when a
+battalion of red-legged infantry tramped into the village square
+and stacked rifles and jeered at the mayor and drank many bottles
+of red wine to the health of the shy-eyed girls peeping at them
+from every lattice. But they were only waiting for the next train,
+and when it came their bugles echoed from the bridge to the square,
+and they went away--went where the others had gone--laughing,
+singing, cheering from the car-windows, where the sun beat down
+on their red caps, and set their buttons glittering like a million
+swarming fire-flies.
+
+The village life, the daily duties, the dull routine from the
+vineyard to the grain-field, and from the étang to the forest had
+not changed in Saint-Lys.
+
+There might be war somewhere; it would never come to Saint-Lys.
+There might be death, yonder towards the Rhine--probably beyond
+it, far beyond it. What of it? Death comes to all, but it comes
+slowly in Saint-Lys; and the days are long, and one must eat to
+live, and there is much to be done between the rising and the
+setting of a peasant's sun.
+
+There, below in Paris, were wise heads and many soldiers. They,
+in Paris, knew what to do, and the war might begin and end with
+nothing but a soiled newspaper in the Café Saint-Lys to show for
+it--as far as the people of Saint-Lys knew.
+
+True, at the summons of the mayor, the National Guard of
+Saint-Lys mustered in the square, seven strong and a bugler. This
+was merely a display of force--it meant nothing--but let those
+across the Rhine beware!
+
+The fierce little man with the gray mustache, who was named
+Tricasse, and who commanded the Saint-Lys Pompiers, spoke gravely
+of Francs-corps, and drank too much eau-de-vie every evening. But
+these warlike ebullitions simmered away peacefully in the
+sunshine, and the tranquil current of life flowed as smoothly
+through Saint-Lys as the river Lisse itself, limpid, noiseless,
+under the village bridge.
+
+Only one man had left the village, and that was Brun, the
+furtive-eyed young peasant, the sole representative in Saint-Lys
+of the conscript class of 1871. And he would never have gone had
+not a gendarme pulled him from under his mother's bed and hustled
+him on to the first Paris-bound train, which happened to be a
+cattle train, where Brun mingled his lamentations with the
+bleating of sheep and the desolate bellow of thirsty cows.
+
+Jack Marche heard of these things but saw little of them. The
+great war wave rolling through the provinces towards the Rhine
+skirted them at Saint-Lys, and scarcely disturbed them. They
+heard that Douay was marching through the country somewhere, some
+said towards Wissembourg, some said towards Saarbrück. But these
+towns were names to the peasants of Saint-Lys--tant pis for the
+two towns! And General Douay--who was he? Probably a fat man in
+red breeches and polished boots, wearing a cocked-hat and a cross
+on his breast. Anyway, they would chase the Prussians and kill a
+few, as they had chased the Russians in the Crimea, and the
+Italians in Rome, and the Kabyles in Oran. The result? Nothing
+but a few new colours for the ribbons in their sweethearts'
+hair--like that pretty Magenta and Solferino and Sebastopol gray.
+"Fichtre! Faut-il gaspiller tout de même! mais, à la guerre comme
+à la guerre!" which meant nothing in Saint-Lys.
+
+It meant more to Jack Marche, riding one sultry afternoon through
+the woods, idly drumming on his spurred boots with a battered
+riding-crop.
+
+It was his daily afternoon ride to the Château de Nesville; the
+shy wood creatures were beginning to know him, even the younger
+rabbits of the most recent generation sat up and mumbled their
+prehensile lips, watching him with large, moist eyes. As for the
+red squirrels in the chestnut-trees, and the dappled deer in the
+carrefours, and the sulky boars that bristled at him from the
+overgrown sentiers, they accepted him on condition that he kept
+to the road. And he did, head bent, thoughtful eyes fixed on his
+saddle-bow, drumming absently with his riding-crop on his spurred
+boots, his bridle loose on his horse's neck.
+
+There was little to break the monotony of the ride; a sudden gush
+of song from a spotted thrush, the rustle of a pheasant in the
+brake, perhaps the modest greeting of a rare keeper patrolling
+his beat--nothing more. He went armed; he carried a long Colt's
+six-shooter in his holster, not because he feared for his own
+skin, but he thought it just as well to be ready in case of
+trouble at the Château de Nesville. However, he did not fear
+trouble again; the French armies were moving everywhere on the
+frontier, and the spies, of course, had long ago betaken
+themselves and their projects to the other bank of the Rhine.
+
+The Marquis de Nesville himself felt perfectly secure, now that
+the attempt had been made and had failed.
+
+He told Jack so on the few occasions when he descended from his
+room during the young fellow's visits. He made not the slightest
+objections to Jack's seeing Lorraine when and where he pleased,
+and this very un-Gallic behaviour puzzled Jack until he began to
+comprehend the depths of the man's selfish absorption in his
+balloons. It was more than absorption, it was mania pure and
+simple, an absolute inability to see or hear or think or
+understand anything except his own devices in the little bolted
+chamber above.
+
+He did care for Lorraine to the extent of providing for her every
+want--he did remember her existence when he wanted something
+himself. Also it was true that he would not have permitted a
+Frenchman to visit Lorraine as Jack did. He hated two persons;
+one of these was Jack's uncle, the Vicomte de Morteyn. On the
+other hand, he admired him, too, because the vicomte, like
+himself, was a royalist and shunned the Tuileries as the devil
+shuns holy water. Therefore he was his equal, and he liked him
+because he could hate him without loss of self-respect. The
+reason he hated him was this--the Vicomte de Morteyn had
+pooh-poohed the balloons. That occurred years ago, but he never
+forgot it, and had never seen the old vicomte since. Whether or
+not Lorraine visited the old people at Morteyn, he had neither
+time nor inclination to inquire.
+
+This was the man, tall, gentle, clean-cut of limb and feature,
+and bearded like Jove--this was the man to whom Lorraine devoted
+her whole existence. Every heart-beat was for him, every thought,
+every prayer. And she was very devout.
+
+This also was why she came to Jack so confidently and laid her
+white hands in his when he sprang from his saddle, his heart in
+flames of adoration.
+
+He knew this, he knew that her undisguised pleasure in his
+company was, for her, only another link that welded her closer to
+her father. At night, often, when he had ridden back again, he
+thought of it, and paled with resentment. At times he almost
+hated her father. He could have borne it easier if the Marquis de
+Nesville had been a loving father, even a tyrannically solicitous
+father; but to see such love thrown before a marble-faced man,
+whose expression never changed except when speaking of his
+imbecile machines! "How can he! How can he!" muttered Jack,
+riding through the woods. His face was sombre, almost stern; and
+always he beat the devil's tattoo on his boot with the battered
+riding-crop.
+
+But now he came to the park gate, and the keeper touched his cap
+and smiled, and dragged the heavy grille back till it creaked on
+its hinges.
+
+Lorraine came down the path to meet him; she had never before
+done that, and he brightened and sprang to the ground, radiant
+with happiness.
+
+She had brought some sugar for the horse; the beautiful creature
+followed her, thrusting its soft, satin muzzle into her hand,
+ears pricked forward, wise eyes fixed on her.
+
+"None for me?" asked Jack.
+
+"Sugar?"
+
+With a sudden gesture she held a lump out to him in the centre of
+her pink palm.
+
+Before she could withdraw the hand he had touched it with his
+lips, and, a little gravely, she withdrew it and walked on in
+silence by his side.
+
+Her shoulder had healed, and she no longer wore the silken
+support for her arm. She was dressed in black--the effect of her
+glistening hair and blond skin was dazzling. His eyes wandered
+from the white wrist, dainty and rounded, to the full curved
+neck--to the delicate throat and proud little head. Her body,
+supple as perfect Greek sculpture; her grace and gentle dignity;
+her innocence, sweet as the light in her blue eyes, set him
+dreaming again as he walked at her side, preoccupied, almost
+saddened, a little afraid that such happiness as was his should
+provoke the gods to end it.
+
+He need not have taken thought for the gods, for the gods take
+thought for themselves; and they were already busy at Saarbrück.
+Their mills are not always slow in grinding; nor, on the other
+hand, are they always sure. They may have been ages ago, but now
+the gods are so out of date that saints and sinners have a chance
+about equally.
+
+They traversed the lawn, skirted the tall wall of solid masonry
+that separated the chase from the park, and, passing a gate at
+the hedge, came to a little stone bridge, beneath which the Lisse
+ran dimpling. They watched the horse pursuing his own way
+tranquilly towards the stables, and, when they saw a groom come
+out and lead him in, they turned to each other, ready to begin
+another day of perfect contentment.
+
+First of all he asked about her shoulder, and she told him
+truthfully that it was well. Then she inquired about the old
+vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, and intrusted pretty little
+messages to him for them, which he, unlike most young men,
+usually remembered to deliver.
+
+"My father," she said, "has not been to breakfast or dinner since
+the day before yesterday. I should have been alarmed, but I
+listened at the door and heard him moving about with his
+machinery. I sent him some very nice things to eat; I don't know
+if he liked them, for he sent no message back. Do you suppose he
+is hungry?"
+
+"No," said Jack; "if he were he would say so." He was careful not
+to speak bitterly, and she noticed nothing.
+
+"I believe," she said, "that he is about to make another
+ascension. He often stays a long time in his room, alone, before
+he is ready. Will it not be delightful? I shall perhaps be
+permitted to go up with him. Don't you wish you might go with
+us?"
+
+"Yes," said Jack, with a little more earnestness than he
+intended.
+
+"Oh! you do? If you are very good, perhaps--perhaps--but I dare
+not promise. If it were my balloon I would take you."
+
+"Would you--really?"
+
+"Of course--you know it. But it isn't my balloon, you know."
+After a moment she went on: "I have been thinking all day how
+noble and good it is of my father to consecrate his life to a
+purpose that shall be of use to France. He has not said so, but I
+know that, if the next ascension proves that his discovery is
+beyond the chance of failure, he will notify the government and
+place his invention at their disposal. Monsieur Marche, when I
+think of his unselfish nobleness, the tears come--I cannot help
+it."
+
+"You, too, are noble," said Jack, resentfully.
+
+"I? Oh, if you knew! I--I am actually wicked! Would you believe
+it, I sometimes think and think and wish that my father could
+spend more time with me--with me!--a most silly and thoughtless
+girl who would sacrifice the welfare of France to her own
+caprice. Think of it! I pray--very often--that I may learn to be
+unselfish; but I must be very bad, for I often cry myself to
+sleep. Is it not wicked?"
+
+"Very," said Jack, but his smile faded and there was a catch in
+his voice.
+
+"You see," she said, with a gesture of despair, "even you feel
+it, too!"
+
+"Do you really wish to know what I do think--of you?" he asked,
+in a low voice.
+
+It was on the tip of her tongue to say "Yes." She checked
+herself, lips apart, and her eyes became troubled.
+
+There was something about Jack Marche that she had not been able
+to understand. It occupied her--it took up a good share of her
+attention, but she did not know where to begin to philosophize,
+nor yet where to end. He was different from other men--that she
+understood. But where was that difference?--in his clear, brown
+eyes, sunny as brown streams in October?--in his serious young
+face?--in his mouth, clean cut and slightly smiling under his
+short, crisp mustache, burned blond by the sun? Where was the
+difference?--in his voice?--in his gestures?--in the turn of his
+head?
+
+Lorraine did not know, but as often as she gave the riddle up she
+recommenced it, idly sometimes, sometimes piqued that the
+solution seemed no nearer. Once, the evening she had met him
+after their first encounter in the forest carrefour--that evening
+on the terrace when she stood looking out into the dazzling
+Lorraine moonlight--she felt that the solution of the riddle had
+been very near. But now, two weeks later, it seemed further off
+than ever. And yet this problem, that occupied her so, must
+surely be worth the solving. What was it, then, in Jack Marche
+that made him what he was?--gentle, sweet-tempered, a delightful
+companion--yes, a companion that she would not now know how to do
+without.
+
+And yet, at times, there came into his eyes and into his voice
+something that troubled her--she could not tell why--something
+that mystified and checked her, and set her thinking again on the
+old, old problem that had seemed so near solution that evening on
+the moonlit terrace.
+
+That was why she started to say "Yes" to his question, and did
+not, but stood with lips half parted and blue eyes troubled.
+
+He looked at her in silence for a moment, then, with a
+half-impatient gesture, turned to the river.
+
+"Shall we sit down on the moss?" she asked, vaguely conscious
+that his sympathies had, for a moment, lost touch with hers.
+
+He followed her down the trodden foot-path to the bank of the
+stream, and, when she had seated herself at the foot of a
+linden-tree, he threw himself at her feet.
+
+They were silent. He picked up a faded bunch of blue corn-flowers
+which they had left there, forgotten, the day before. One by one
+he broke the blossoms from the stalks and tossed them into the
+water.
+
+She, watching them floating away under the bridge, thought of the
+blue bits of paper--the telegram--that she had torn up and tossed
+upon the water two weeks before. He was thinking of the same
+thing, for, when she said, abruptly: "I should not have done
+that!" he knew what she meant, and replied: "Such things are
+always your right--if you care to use it."
+
+She laughed. "Then you believe still in the feudal system? I do
+not; I am a good republican."
+
+"It is easy," he said, also laughing, "for a young lady with
+generations of counts and vicomtes behind her to be a republican.
+It is easier still for a man with generations of republicans
+behind him to turn royalist. It is the way of the world,
+mademoiselle."
+
+"Then you shall say: 'Long live the king!'" she said; "say it
+this instant!"
+
+"Long live--your king!"
+
+"My king?"
+
+"I'm his subject if you are; I'll shout for no other king."
+
+"Now, whatever is he talking about?" thought Lorraine, and the
+suspicion of a cloud gathered in her clear eyes again, but was
+dissipated at once when he said: "I have answered the _Herald's_
+telegram."
+
+"What did you say?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"I accepted--"
+
+"What!"
+
+There was resentment in her voice. She felt that he had done
+something which was tacitly understood to be against her wishes.
+True, what difference did it make to her? None; she would lose a
+delightful companion. Suddenly, something of the significance of
+such a loss came to her. It was not a revelation, scarcely an
+illumination, but she understood that if he went she should be
+lonely--yes, even unhappy. Then, too, unconsciously, she had
+assumed a mental attitude of interest in his movements--of
+partial proprietorship in his thoughts. She felt vaguely that she
+had been overlooked in the decision he had made; that even if she
+had not been consulted, at least he might have told her what he
+intended to do. Lorraine was at a loss to understand herself. But
+she was easily understood. For two weeks her attitude had been
+that of every innocent, lovable girl when in the presence of the
+man whom she frankly cares for; and that attitude was one of
+mental proprietorship. Now, suddenly finding that his sympathies
+and ideas moved independently of her sympathies--that her mental
+influence, which existed until now unconsciously, was in reality
+no influence at all, she awoke to the fact that she perhaps
+counted for nothing with him. Therefore resentment appeared in
+the faintest of straight lines between her eyes.
+
+"Do you care?" he asked, carelessly.
+
+"I? Why, no."
+
+If she had smiled at him and said "Yes," he would have despaired;
+but she frowned a trifle and said "No," and Jack's heart began to
+beat.
+
+"I cabled them two words: 'Accept--provisionally,'" he said.
+
+"Oh, what did you mean?"
+
+"Provisionally meant--with your consent."
+
+"My--my consent?"
+
+"Yes--if it is your pleasure."
+
+Pleasure! Her sweet eyes answered what her lips withheld. Her
+little heart beat high. So then she did influence this cool young
+man, with his brown eyes faintly smiling, and his indolent limbs
+crossed on the moss at her feet. At the same moment her instinct
+told her to tighten her hold. This was so perfectly feminine, so
+instinctively human, that she had done it before she herself was
+aware of it. "I shall think it over," she said, looking at him,
+gravely; "I may permit you to accept."
+
+So was accomplished the admitted subjugation of Jack Marche--a
+stroke of diplomacy on his part; and he passed under the yoke in
+such a manner that even the blindest of maids could see that he
+was not vaulting over it instead.
+
+Having openly and admittedly established her sovereignty, she was
+happy--so happy that she began to feel that perhaps the victory
+was not unshared by him.
+
+"I shall think it over very seriously," she repeated, watching
+his laughing eyes; "I am not sure that I shall permit you to go."
+
+"I only wish to go as a special, not a regular correspondent. I
+wish to be at liberty to roam about and sketch or write what I
+please. I think my material will always be found in your
+vicinity."
+
+Her heart fluttered a little; this surprised her so much that her
+cheeks grew suddenly warm and pink. A little confused, she said
+what she had not dreamed of saying: "You won't go very far away,
+will you?" And before she could modify her speech he had
+answered, impetuously: "Never, until you send me away!"
+
+A mottled thrush on the top of the linden-tree surveyed the scene
+curiously. She had never beheld such a pitiably embarrassed young
+couple in all her life. It was so different in Thrushdom.
+
+Lorraine's first impulse was to go away and close several doors
+and sit down, very still, and think. Her next impulse was to stay
+and see what Jack would do. He seemed to be embarrassed, too--he
+fidgeted and tossed twigs and pebbles into the river. She felt
+that she, who already admittedly was arbiter of his goings and
+comings, should do something to relieve this uneasy and strained
+situation. So she folded her hands on her black dress and said:
+"There is something I have been wishing to tell you for two
+weeks, but I did not because I was not sure that I was right, and
+I did not wish to trouble you unnecessarily. Now, perhaps, you
+would be willing to share the trouble with me. Would you?"
+
+Before the eager answer came to his lips she continued, hastily: "The
+man who made maps--the man whom you struck in the carrefour--is the
+same man who ran away with the box; I know it!"
+
+"That spy?--that tall, square-shouldered fellow with the pink
+skin and little, pale, pinkish eyes?"
+
+"Yes. I know his name, too."
+
+Jack sat up on the moss and listened anxiously.
+
+"His name is Von Steyr--Siurd von Steyr. It was written in pencil
+on the back of one map. The morning after the assault on the
+house, when they thought I was ill in bed, I got up and dressed
+and went down to examine the road where you caught the man and
+saved my father's little steel box. There I found a strip of
+cloth torn from your evening coat, and--oh, Monsieur Marche!--I
+found the great, flat stone with which he tried to crush you,
+just as my father fired from the wall!"
+
+The sudden memory, the thought of what might have happened, came
+to her in a flash for the first time. She looked at him--her
+hands were in his before she could understand why.
+
+"Go on," he whispered.
+
+Her eyes met his half fearfully--she withdrew her fingers with a
+nervous movement and sat silent.
+
+"Tell me," he urged, and took one of her hands again. She did not
+withdraw it--she seemed confused; and presently he dropped her
+hand and sat waiting for her to speak, his heart beating
+furiously.
+
+"There is not much more to tell," she said at last, in a voice
+that seemed not quite under control. "I followed the broken
+bushes and his footmarks along the river until I came to a stone
+where I think he sat down. He was bleeding, too--my father shot
+him--and he tore bits of paper and cloth to cover the wound--he
+even tore up another map. I found part of it, with his name on
+the back again--not all of it, though, but enough. Here it is."
+
+She handed him a bit of paper. On one side were the fragments of
+a map in water-colour; on the other, written in German script, he
+read "Siurd von Steyr."
+
+"It's enough," said Jack; "what a plucky girl you are, anyway!"
+
+"I? You don't think so!--do you?"
+
+"You are the bravest, sweetest--"
+
+"Dear me! You must not say that! You are sadly uneducated, and I
+see I must take you under my control at once. Man is born to
+obey! I have decided about your answer to the _Herald's_
+telegram."
+
+"May I know the result?" he asked, laughingly.
+
+"To-morrow. There is a brook-lily on the border of the sedge-grass.
+You may bring it to me."
+
+So began the education of Jack Marche--under the yoke. And
+Lorraine's education began, too--but she was sublimely unconscious
+of that fact.
+
+This also is a law in the world.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SAARBRÜCK
+
+
+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 had more 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 position of special, or rather
+occasional, war correspondent for the New York _Herald_ if 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 idle curiosity, 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 tender and 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 even in 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 old
+_Herald_? Nom d'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--_what_
+do 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 with infantry,
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
+
+
+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-necked general, 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 the cracking 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 London _Times_.
+
+"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, and he 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
+    men killed--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--"
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+"KEEP THY FAITH"
+
+
+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 the woods 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 in the 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 shoulder where 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 the end. 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 perfumed by 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 into Germany 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.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+FROM THE FRONTIER
+
+
+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 and urge 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 he turned 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.
+
+At the porch she left him to change her gown, and slipped away
+up-stairs, while he found old Pierre and was dusted and fussed
+over until he couldn't stand it another moment. Luckily he heard
+Lorraine calling her maid on the porch, and he went to her at
+once.
+
+"Papa says you may lunch here--I spoke to him through the
+key-hole. It is all ready; will you come?"
+
+A serious-minded maid served them with salad and thin
+bread-and-butter.
+
+"Tea!" exclaimed Jack.
+
+"Isn't that very American?" asked Lorraine, timidly. "I thought
+you might like it; I understood that all Americans drank tea."
+
+"They do," he said, gravely; "it is a terrible habit--a national
+vice--but they do."
+
+"Now you are laughing at me!" she cried. "Marianne, please to
+remove that tea! No, no, I won't leave it--and you can suffer if
+you wish. And to think that I--"
+
+They were both laughing so that the maid's face grew more
+serious, and she removed the teapot as though she were bearing
+some strange and poisonous creature to a deserved doom.
+
+As they sat opposite each other, smiling, a little flurried at
+finding themselves alone at table together, but eating with the
+appetites of very young lovers, the warm summer wind, blowing
+through the open windows, bore to their ears the songs of forest
+birds. It bore another sound, too; Jack had heard it for the last
+two hours, or had imagined he heard it--a low, monotonous
+vibration, now almost distinct, now lost, now again discernible,
+but too vague, too indefinite to be anything but that faint
+summer harmony which comes from distant breezes, distant
+movements, mingling with the stir of drowsy field insects, half
+torpid in the heat of noon.
+
+Still it was always there; and now, turning his ear to the
+window, he laid down knife and fork to listen.
+
+"I have also noticed it," said Lorraine, answering his unasked
+question.
+
+"Do you hear it now?"
+
+"Yes--more distinctly now."
+
+A few moments later Jack leaned back in his chair and listened
+again.
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine, "it seems to come nearer. What is it?"
+
+"It comes from the southeast. I don't know," he answered.
+
+They rose and walked to the window. She was so near that he
+breathed the subtle fragrance of her hair, the fresh sweetness of
+her white gown, that rustled beside him.
+
+"Hark!" whispered Lorraine; "I can almost hear voices in the
+breezes--the murmur of voices, as if millions of tiny people were
+calling us from the ends and outer edges of the earth."
+
+"There is a throbbing, too. Do you notice it?"
+
+"Yes--like one's heart at night. Ah, now it comes nearer--oh,
+nearer! nearer! Oh, what can it be?"
+
+He knew now; he knew that indefinable battle--rumour that steals
+into the senses long before it is really audible. It is not a
+sound--not even a vibration; it is an immense foreboding that
+weights the air with prophecy.
+
+"From the south and east," he repeated; "from the Landesgrenze."
+
+"The frontier?"
+
+"Yes. Hark!"
+
+"I hear."
+
+"From the frontier," he said again. "From the river Lauter and
+from Wissembourg."
+
+"What is it?" she whispered, close beside him.
+
+"Cannon!"
+
+Yes, it was cannon--they knew it now--cannon throbbing,
+throbbing, throbbing along the horizon where the crags of the
+Geisberg echoed the dull thunder and shook it far out across the
+vineyards of Wissembourg, where the heights of Kapsweyer,
+resounding, hurled back the echoes to the mountains in the north.
+
+"Why--why does it seem to come nearer?" asked Lorraine.
+
+"Nearer?" He knew it had come nearer, but how could he tell her
+what that meant?
+
+"It is a battle--is it not?" she asked again.
+
+"Yes, a battle."
+
+She said nothing more, but stood leaning along the wall, her white
+forehead pressed against the edge of the raised window-sash. Outside,
+the little birds had grown suddenly silent; there was a stillness
+that comes before a rain; the leaves on the shrubbery scarcely moved.
+
+And now, nearer and nearer swelled the rumour of battle,
+undulating, quavering over forest and hill, and the muttering of
+the cannon grew to a rumble that jarred the air.
+
+As currents in the upper atmosphere shift and settle north,
+south, east, west, so the tide of sound wavered and drifted, and
+set westward, flowing nearer and nearer and louder and louder,
+until the hoarse, crashing tumult, still vague and distant, was
+cut by the sharper notes of single cannon that spoke out,
+suddenly impetuous, in the dull din.
+
+The whole Château was awake now; maids, grooms, valets,
+gardeners, and keepers were gathering outside the iron grille of
+the park, whispering together and looking out across the fields.
+
+There was nothing to see except pastures and woods, and
+low-rounded hills crowned with vineyards. Nothing more except a
+single strangely shaped cloud, sombre, slender at the base, but
+spreading at the top like a palm.
+
+"I am going up to speak to your father," said Jack, carelessly;
+"may I?"
+
+Interrupt her father! Lorraine fairly gasped.
+
+"Stay here," he added, with the faintest touch of authority in
+his tone; and, before she could protest, he had sped away up the
+staircase and round and round the long circular stairs that led
+to the single turret.
+
+A little out of breath, he knocked at the door which faced the
+top step. There was no answer. He rapped again, impatiently. A
+voice startled him: "Lorraine, I am busy!"
+
+"Open," called Jack; "I must see you!"
+
+"I am busy!" replied the marquis. Irritation and surprise were in
+his tones.
+
+"Open!" called Jack again; "there is no time to lose!"
+
+Suddenly the door was jerked back and the marquis appeared, pale,
+handsome, his eyes cold and blue as icebergs.
+
+"Monsieur Marche--" he began, almost discourteously.
+
+"Pardon," interrupted Jack; "I am going into your room. I wish to
+look out of that turret window. Come also--you must know what to
+expect."
+
+Astonished, almost angry, the Marquis de Nesville followed him to
+the turret window.
+
+"Oh," said Jack, softly, staring out into the sunshine, "it is
+time, is it not, that we knew what was going on along the
+frontier? Look there!"
+
+On the horizon vast shapeless clouds lay piled, gigantic coils
+and masses of vapour, dark, ominous, illuminated by faint, pallid
+lights that played under them incessantly; and over all towered
+one tall column of smoke, spreading above like an enormous
+palm-tree. But this was not all. The vast panorama of hill and
+valley and plain, cut by roads that undulated like narrow satin
+ribbons on a brocaded surface, was covered with moving objects,
+swarming, inundating the landscape. To the south a green hill
+grew black with the human tide, to the north long lines and
+oblongs and squares moved across the land, slowly, almost
+imperceptibly--but they were moving, always moving east.
+
+"It is an army coming," said the marquis.
+
+"It is a rout," said Jack, quietly.
+
+The marquis moved suddenly, as though to avoid a blow.
+
+"What troops are those?" he asked, after a silence.
+
+"It is the French army," replied Jack. "Have you not heard the
+cannonade?"
+
+"No--my machines make some noise when I'm working. I hear it now.
+What is that cloud--a fire?"
+
+"It is the battle cloud."
+
+"And the smoke on the horizon?"
+
+"The smoke from the guns. They are fighting beyond
+Saarbrück--yes, beyond Pfalzburg and Wörth; they are fighting
+beyond the Lauter."
+
+"Wissembourg?"
+
+"I think so. They are nearer now. Monsieur de Nesville, the
+battle has gone against the French."
+
+"How do you know?" demanded the marquis, harshly.
+
+"I have seen battles. One need only listen and look at the army
+yonder. They will pass Morteyn; I think they will pass for miles
+through the country. It looks to me like a retreat towards Metz,
+but I am not sure. The throngs of troops below are fugitives, not
+the regular geometrical figures that you see to the north. Those
+are regiments and divisions moving towards the west in good
+order."
+
+The two men stepped back into the room and faced each other.
+
+"After the rain the flood, after the rout the invasion," said
+Jack, firmly. "You cannot know it too quickly. You know it now,
+and you can make your plans."
+
+He was thinking of Lorraine's safety when he spoke, but the
+marquis turned instinctively to a mass of machinery and chemical
+paraphernalia behind him.
+
+"You will have your hands full," said Jack, repressing an angry
+sneer; "if you wish, my aunt De Morteyn will charge herself with
+Mademoiselle de Nesville's safety."
+
+"True, Lorraine might go to Morteyn," murmured the marquis,
+absently, examining a smoky retort half filled with a silvery
+heap of dust.
+
+"Then, may I drive her over after dinner?"
+
+"Yes," replied the other, indifferently.
+
+Jack started towards the stairs, hesitated, and turned around.
+
+"Your inventions are not safe, of course, if the German army
+comes. Do you need my help?"
+
+"My inventions are my own affair," said the marquis, angrily.
+
+Jack flushed scarlet, swung on his heels, and marched out of the
+room and down the stairs. On the lower steps he met Lorraine's
+maid, and told her briefly to pack her mistress's trunks for a
+visit to Morteyn.
+
+Lorraine was waiting for him at the window where he had left her,
+a scared, uncertain little maid in truth.
+
+"The battle is very near, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+"No, miles away yet."
+
+"Did you speak to papa? Did he send word to me? Does he want me?"
+
+He found it hard to tell her what message her father had sent,
+but he did.
+
+"I am to go to Morteyn? Oh, I cannot! I cannot! Papa will be
+alone here!" she said, aghast.
+
+"Perhaps you had better see him," he said, almost bitterly.
+
+She hurried away up the stairs; he heard her little eager feet on
+the stone steps that led to the turret; climbing up, up, up,
+until the sound was lost in the upper stories of the house. He
+went out to the stables and ordered the dog-cart and a wagon for
+her trunks. He did not fear that this order might be premature,
+for he thought he had not misjudged the Marquis de Nesville. And
+he had not, for, before the cart was ready, Lorraine, silent,
+pale, tearless, came noiselessly down the stairs holding her
+little cloak over one arm.
+
+"I am to stay a week," she said; "he does not want me." She
+added, hastily, "He is so busy and worried, and there is much to
+be done, and if the Prussians should come he must hide the
+balloon and the box of plans and formula--"
+
+"I know," said Jack, tenderly; "it will lift a weight from his
+mind when he knows you are safe with my aunt."
+
+"He is so good, he thinks only of my safety," faltered Lorraine.
+
+"Come," said Jack, in a voice that sounded husky; "the horse is
+waiting; I am to drive you. Your maid will follow with the trunks
+this evening. Are you ready? Give me your cloak. There--now, are
+you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He aided her to mount the dog-cart--her light touch was on his
+arm. He turned to the groom at the horse's head, sprang to the
+seat, and nodded. Lorraine leaned back and looked up at the
+turret where her father was.
+
+"Allons! En route!" cried Jack, cheerily, snapping his
+ribbon-decked whip.
+
+At the same instant a horseless cavalryman, gray with dust and
+dripping with blood and sweat, staggered out on the road from
+among the trees. He turned a deathly face to theirs, stopped,
+tottered, and called out--"Jack!"
+
+"Georges!" cried Jack, amazed.
+
+"Give me a horse, for God's sake!" he gasped. "I've just killed
+mine. I--I must get to Metz by midnight--"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+AIDE-DE-CAMP
+
+
+Lorraine and Jack sprang to the road from opposite sides of the
+vehicle; Georges' drawn face was stretched into an attempt at a
+smile which was ghastly, for the stiff, black blood that had
+caked in a dripping ridge from his forehead to his chin cracked
+and grew moist and scarlet, and his hollow cheeks whitened under
+the coat of dust. But he drew himself up by an effort and saluted
+Lorraine with a punctilious deference that still had a touch of
+jauntiness to it--the jauntiness of a youthful cavalry officer in
+the presence of a pretty woman.
+
+Old Pierre, who had witnessed the episode from the butler's
+window, came limping down the path, holding a glass and a carafe
+of brandy.
+
+"You are right, Pierre," said Jack. "Georges, drink it up, old
+fellow. There, now you can stand on those pins of yours. What's
+that--a sabre cut?"
+
+"No, a scratch from an Uhlan's lance-tip. Cut like a razor,
+didn't it? I've just killed my horse, trying to get over a ditch.
+Can you give me a mount, Jack?"
+
+"There isn't a horse in the stable that can carry you to Metz,"
+said Lorraine, quietly; "Diable is lame and Porthos is not shod.
+I can give you my pony."
+
+"Can't you get a train?" asked Jack, astonished.
+
+"No, the Uhlans are in our rear, everywhere. The railroad is torn
+up, the viaducts smashed, the wires cut, and general deuce to
+pay. I ran into an Uhlan or two--you notice it perhaps," he
+added, with a grim smile. "Could you drive me to Morteyn? Do you
+think the vicomte would lend me a horse?"
+
+"Of course he would," said Jack; "come, then--there is room for
+three," with an anxious glance at Lorraine.
+
+"Indeed, there is always room for a soldier of France!" cried
+Lorraine. At the same moment she instinctively laid one hand
+lightly on Jack's arm. Their eyes spoke for an instant--the
+generous appeal that shone in hers was met and answered by a
+response that brought the delicate colour into her cheeks.
+
+"Let me hang on behind," pleaded Georges--"I'm so dirty, you
+know." But they bundled him into the seat between them, and Jack
+touched his beribboned whip to the horse's ears, and away they
+went speeding over the soft forest road in the cool of the fading
+day; old Pierre, bottle and glass in hand, gaping after them and
+shaking his gray head.
+
+Jack began to fire volleys of questions at the young hussar as
+soon as they entered the forest, and poor Georges replied as best
+he could.
+
+"I don't know very much about it; I was detached yesterday and
+taken on General Douay's staff. We were at Wissembourg--you know
+that little town on the Lauter where the vineyards cover
+everything and the mountains are pretty steep to the north and
+west. All I know is this: about six o'clock this morning our
+outposts on the hills to the south began banging way in a great
+panic. They had been attacked, it seems, by the 4th Bavarian
+Division, Count Bothmer's, I believe. Our posts fell back to the
+town, where the 1st Turcos reinforced them at the railroad
+station. The artillery were at it on our left, too, and there was
+a most infernal racket. The next thing I saw was those crazy
+Bavarians, with their little flat drums beating, and their
+fur-crested helmets all bobbing, marching calmly up the Geisberg.
+Jack, those fellows went through the vineyards like fiends
+astride a tempest. That was at two o'clock. The Prussian
+Crown-Prince rode into the town an hour before; we couldn't hold
+it--Heaven knows why. That's all I saw--except the death of our
+general."
+
+"General Douay?" cried Lorraine, horrified.
+
+"Yes, he was killed about ten o'clock in the morning. The town
+was stormed through the Hagenauer Thor by the Bavarians. After
+that we still held the Geisberg and the Château. You should have
+seen it when we left it. I'll say it was a butcher's shambles.
+I'd say more if Mademoiselle de Nesville were not here." He was
+trying hard to bear up--to speak lightly of the frightful
+calamity that had overwhelmed General Abel Douay and his entire
+division.
+
+"The fight at the Château was worth seeing," said Georges,
+airily. "They went at it with drums beating and flags flying. Oh,
+but they fell like leaves in the gardens, there--the paths and
+shrubbery were littered with them, dead, dying, gasping, crawling
+about, like singed flies under a lamp. We had them beaten, too,
+if it hadn't been for their General von Kirchbach. He stood in
+the garden--he'd been hit, too--and bawled for the artillery.
+Then they came at us again in three divisions. Where they got all
+their regiments, I don't know, but their 7th Grenadier Guards
+were there, and their 47th, 58th, 59th, 80th, and 87th regiments
+of the line, not counting a Jäger battalion and no end of
+artillery. They carried the Three Poplars--a hill--and they began
+devastating everything. We couldn't face their fire--I don't know
+why, Jack; it breaks my heart when I say it, but we couldn't hold
+them. Then they began howling for cannon, and, of course, that
+settled the Château. The town was in flames when I left."
+
+After a silence, Jack asked him whether it was a rout or a
+retreat.
+
+"We're falling back in very decent order," said Georges,
+eagerly--"really, we are. Of course, there were some troops that
+got into a sort of panic--the Uhlans are annoying us considerably.
+The Turcos fought well. We fairly riddled the 58th Prussians--their
+king's regiment, you know. It was the 2d Bavarian Corps that did
+for us. We will meet them later."
+
+"Where are you going--to Metz?" inquired Jack, soberly.
+
+"Yes; I've a packet for Bazaine--I don't know what. They're
+trying to reach him by wire, but those confounded Uhlans are
+destroying everything. My dear fellow, you need not worry; we
+have been checked, that's all. Our promenade to Berlin is
+postponed in deference to King Wilhelm's earnest wishes."
+
+They all tried to laugh a little, and Jack chirped to his horse,
+but even that sober animal seemed to feel the depression, for he
+responded in fits and starts and jerks that were unpleasant and
+jarring to Georges' aching head.
+
+The sky had become covered with bands of wet-looking clouds, the
+leaves of the forest stirred noiselessly on their stems. Along
+the river willows quivered and aspens turned their leaves white
+side to the sky. In the querulous notes of the birds there was a
+prophecy of storms, the river muttered among its hollows of
+floods and tempests.
+
+Suddenly a great sombre raven sailed to the road, alighted,
+sidled back, and sat fearlessly watching them.
+
+Lorraine shivered and nestled closer to Jack.
+
+"Oh," she murmured, "I never saw one before--except in pictures."
+
+"They belong in the snow--they have no business here," said Jack;
+"they always make me think of those pictures of Russia--the
+retreat of the Grand Army, you know."
+
+"Wolves and ravens," said Lorraine, in a low voice; "I know why
+they come to us here in France--Monsieur Marche, did I not tell
+you that day in the carrefour?"
+
+"Yes," he answered; "do you really think you are a prophetess?"
+
+"Did you see wolves here?" asked Georges.
+
+"Yes; before war was declared. I told Monsieur Marche--it is a
+legend of our country. He, of course, laughed at it. I also do not
+believe everything I am told--but--I don't know--I have alway
+believed that, ever since I was, oh, very, very small--like that."
+She held one small gloved hand about twelve inches from the floor
+of the cart.
+
+"At such a height and such an age it is natural to believe
+anything," said Jack. "I, too, accepted many strange doctrines
+then."
+
+"You are laughing again," said Lorraine.
+
+So they passed through the forest, trying to be cheerful, even
+succeeding at times. But Georges' face grew paler every minute,
+and his smile was so painful that Lorraine could not bear it and
+turned her head away, her hand tightening on the box-rail
+alongside.
+
+As they were about to turn out into the Morteyn road, where the
+forest ended, Jack suddenly checked the horse and rose to his
+feet.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lorraine. "Oh, I see! Oh, look!"
+
+The Morteyn road was filled with infantry, solid, plodding
+columns, pressing fast towards the west. The fields, too, were
+black with men, engineers, weighted down with their heavy
+equipments, resting in long double rows, eyes vacant, heads bent.
+Above the thickets of rifles sweeping past, mounted officers sat
+in their saddles, as though carried along on the surface of the
+serried tide. Standards fringed with gold slanted in the last
+rays of the sun, sabres glimmered, curving upward from the
+thronged rifles, and over all sounded the shuffle, shuffle of
+worn shoes in the dust, a mournful, monotonous cadence, a
+hopeless measure, whose burden was despair, whose beat was the
+rhythm of breaking hearts.
+
+Oh, but it cut Lorraine to see their boyish faces, dusty, gaunt,
+hollow-eyed, turn to her and turn away without a change, without
+a shade of expression. The mask of blank apathy stamped on every
+visage almost terrified her. On they came, on, on, and still on,
+under a forest of shining rifles. A convoy of munitions crowded
+in the rear of the column, surrounded by troopers of the
+train-des-equipages; then followed more infantry, then cavalry,
+dragoons, who sat listlessly in their high saddles, carbines
+bobbing on their broad backs, whalebone plumes matted with dust.
+
+Georges rose painfully from his seat, stepped to the side, and
+climbed down into the road. He felt in the breast of his dolman
+for the packet, adjusted his sabre, and turned to Lorraine.
+
+"There is a squadron of the Remount Cavalry over in that
+meadow--I can get a horse there," he said. "Thank you, Jack.
+Good-by, Mademoiselle de Nesville, you have been more than
+generous."
+
+"You can have a horse from the Morteyn stables," said Jack; "my
+dear fellow, I can't bear to see you go--to think of your riding
+to Metz to-night."
+
+"It's got to be done, you know," said Georges. He bowed; Lorraine
+stretched out her hand and he gravely touched it with his
+fingers. Then he exchanged a nervous gripe with Jack, and turned
+away hurriedly, crowding between the passing dragoons, traversing
+the meadows until they lost him in the throng.
+
+"We cannot get to the house by the road," said Jack; "we must
+take the stable path;" and he lifted the reins and turned the
+horse's head.
+
+The stable road was narrow, and crossed with sprays of tender
+leaves. The leaves touched Lorraine's eyes, they rubbed across
+her fair brow, robbing her of single threads of glittering hair,
+they brushed a single bright tear from her cheeks and held it,
+glimmering like a drop of dew.
+
+"Behold the end of the world," said Lorraine--"I am weeping."
+
+He turned and looked into her eyes.
+
+"Is that strange?" he asked, gently.
+
+"Yes; I have often wished to cry. I never could--except once
+before--and that was four days ago."
+
+The day of their quarrel! He thrilled from head to foot, but
+dared not speak.
+
+"Four days ago," said Lorraine again. She thought of herself
+gliding from her bed to seek the stable where Jack's horse stood,
+she thought of her hot face pressed to the wounded creature's
+neck. Then, suddenly aware of what she had confessed, she leaned
+back and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Lorraine!" he whispered, brokenly.
+
+But they were already at the Château.
+
+"Lorraine, my child!" cried Madame de Morteyn, leaning from the
+terrace. Her voice was drowned in the crash of drums rolling,
+rolling, from the lawn below, and the trumpets broke out in harsh
+chorus, shrill, discordant, terrible.
+
+The Emperor had arrived at Morteyn.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE MARQUIS MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE
+
+
+The Emperor dined with the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn that
+evening in the great dining-room. The Château, patrolled by
+doubled guards of the Cent Gardes, was surrounded by triple
+hedges of bayonets and a perfect pest of police spies, secret
+agents, and flunkys. In the breakfast-room General Frossard and
+his staff were also dining; and up-stairs, in a small gilded
+salon, Jack and Lorraine ate soberly, tenderly cared for by the
+old house-keeper.
+
+Outside they could hear the steady tramp of passing infantry
+along the dark road, the clank of artillery, and the muffled
+trample of cavalry. Frossard's Corps was moving rapidly, its back
+to the Rhine.
+
+"I saw the Prince Imperial," said Jack; "he was in the
+conservatory, writing to his mother, the Empress. Have you ever
+seen him, Mademoiselle de Nesville? He is young, really a mere
+child, but he looks very manly in his uniform. He has that same
+charm, that same delicate, winning courtesy that the Emperor is
+famous for. But he looks so pale and tired--like a school-boy in
+the Lycée."
+
+"It would have been unfortunate if the Emperor had stopped at the
+Château de Nesville," said Lorraine, sipping her small glass of
+Moselle; "papa hates him."
+
+"Many Royalists do."
+
+"It is not that only; there is something else--something that I
+don't know about. It concerns my brother who died many years ago,
+before I was born. Have I never spoken of my brother? Has papa
+never said anything?"
+
+"No," said Jack, gently.
+
+"Well, when my brother was alive, our family lived in Paris. That
+is all I know, except that my brother died shortly before the empire
+was proclaimed, and papa and mamma came to our country-place here,
+where I was born. René's--my brother's--death had something to do
+with my father's hatred of the empire, I know that. But papa will
+never speak of it to me, except to tell me that I must always
+remember that the Emperor has been the curse of the De Nesvilles.
+Hark! Hear the troops passing. Why do they never cheer their
+Emperor?"
+
+"They cheered him at Saarbrück--I heard them. You are not eating;
+are you tired?"
+
+"A little. I shall go with Marianne, I think; I am sleepy. Are
+you going to sit up? Do you think we can sleep with the noise of
+the horses passing? I should like to see the Emperor at table."
+
+"Wait," said Jack; "I'll go down and find out whether we can't
+slip into the ballroom."
+
+"Then I'll go too," said Lorraine, rising. "Marianne, stay here;
+I will return in a moment;" and she slipped after Jack, down the
+broad staircase and out to the terrace, where a huge cuirassier
+officer stood in the moonlight, his straight sabre shimmering,
+his white mantle open over the silver breastplate.
+
+The ballroom was brilliantly lighted, the gilded canapés and
+chairs were covered with officers in every conceivable uniform,
+lounging, sprawling, chatting, and gesticulating, or pulling
+papers and maps over the floor. A general traced routes across
+the map at his feet with the point of a naked sword; an officer
+of dragoons, squatting on his haunches, followed the movement of
+the sword-point and chewed an unlighted cigarette. Officers were
+coming and going constantly, entering by the hallway and leaving
+through the door-like windows that swung open to the floor. The
+sinister face of a police-spy peered into the conservatory at
+intervals, where a slender, pale-faced boy sat, clothed in a
+colonel's uniform, writing on a carved table. It was the Prince
+Imperial, back from Saarbrück and his "baptism of fire," back
+also from the Spicheren and the disaster of Wörth. He was writing
+to his mother, that unhappy, anxious woman who looked every day
+from the Tuileries into the streets of a city already clamorous,
+already sullenly suspicious of its Emperor and Empress.
+
+The boy's face was beautiful. He raised his head and sat silently
+biting his pen, eyes wandering. Perhaps he was listening to the
+retreat of Frossard's Corps through the fair province of
+Lorraine--a province that he should never live to see again. A
+few months more, a few battles, a few villages in flames, a few
+cities ravaged, a few thousand corpses piled from the frontier to
+the Loire--and then, what? Why, an emperor the less and an
+emperor the more, and a new name for a province--that is all.
+
+His delicate, high-bred face fell; he shaded his sad eyes with
+one thin hand and wrote again--all that a good son writes to a
+mother, all that a good soldier writes to a sovereign, all that a
+good prince writes to an empress.
+
+"Oh, what sad eyes!" whispered Lorraine; "he is too young to see
+such things."
+
+"He may see worse," said Jack. "Come, shall we walk around the
+lawn to the dining-room?"
+
+They descended the dark steps, her arm resting lightly on his,
+and he guided her through a throng of gossiping cavalrymen and
+hurrying but polite officers towards the western wing of the
+Château, the trample of the passing army always in their ears.
+
+As he was about to cross the drive, a figure stepped from the
+shadow of the porte-cochère--a man in a rough tweed suit, who
+lifted his wide-awake politely and asked Jack if he was not
+English.
+
+"American," said Jack, guardedly.
+
+The man was apparently much relieved. He made a frank, manly
+apology for his intrusion, looked appealingly at Lorraine, and
+said, with a laugh: "The fact is, I'm astray in the wrong camp. I
+rode out from the Spicheren and got mixed in the roads, and first
+I knew I fell in with Frossard's Corps, and I can't get away. I
+thought you were an Englishman; you're American, it seems, and
+really I may venture to feel that there is hope for me--may I
+not?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Jack; "whatever I can do, I'll do gladly."
+
+"Then let me observe without hesitation," continued the man,
+smiling under his crisp mustache, "that I'm in search of a modest
+dinner and a shelter of even more modest dimensions. I'm a war
+correspondent, unattached just at present, but following the
+German army. My name is Archibald Grahame."
+
+At the name of the great war correspondent Jack stared, then
+impulsively held out his hand.
+
+"Aha!" said Grahame, "you must be a correspondent, too. Ha! I
+thought I was not wrong."
+
+He bowed again to Lorraine, who returned his manly salute very
+sweetly. "If," she thought, "Jack is inclined to be nice to this
+sturdy young man in tweeds, I also will be as nice as I can."
+
+"My name is Marche--Jack Marche," said Jack, in some trepidation.
+"I am not a correspondent--that is, not an active one."
+
+"You were at Sadowa, and you've been in Oran with Chanzy," said
+Grahame, quickly.
+
+Jack flushed with pleasure to find that the great Archibald
+Grahame had heard of him.
+
+"We must take Mr. Grahame up-stairs at once--must we not?--if he
+is hungry," suggested Lorraine, whose tender heart was touched at
+the thought of a hungry human being.
+
+They all laughed, and Grahame thanked her with that whimsical but
+charming courtesy that endeared him to all who knew him.
+
+"It is awkward, now, isn't it, Mr. Marche? Here I am in France
+with the army I tried to keep away from, roofless, supperless,
+and rather expecting some of these sentinels or police agents may
+begin to inquire into my affairs. If they do they'll take me for
+a spy. I was threatened by the villagers in a little hamlet west
+of Saint-Avold--and how I'm going to get back to my Hohenzollerns
+I haven't the faintest notion."
+
+"There'll surely be some way. My uncle will vouch for you and get
+you a safe-conduct," said Jack. "Perhaps, Mr. Grahame, you had
+better come and dine in our salon up-stairs. Will you? The
+Emperor occupies the large dining-room, and General Frossard and
+his staff have the breakfast-room."
+
+Amused by the young fellow's doubt that a simple salon on the
+first floor might not be commensurate with the hospitality of
+Morteyn, Archibald Grahame stepped pleasantly to the other side
+of the road; and so, with Lorraine between them, they climbed the
+terrace and scaled the stairs to the little gilt salon where
+Lorraine's maid Marianne and the old house-keeper sat awaiting
+her return.
+
+Lorraine was very wide-awake now--she was excited by the stir and
+the brilliant uniforms. She unconsciously took command, too,
+feeling that she should act the hostess in the absence of Madame
+de Morteyn. The old house-keeper, who adored her, supported her
+loyally; so, between Marianne and herself, a very delightful
+dinner was served to the hungry but patient Grahame when he
+returned with Jack from the latter's chamber, where he had left
+most of the dust and travel stains of a long tramp across
+country.
+
+And how the great war correspondent did eat and drink! It made
+Jack hungry again to watch him, so with a laughing apology to
+Lorraine he joined in with a will, enthusiastically applauded and
+encouraged by Grahame.
+
+"I could tell you were a correspondent by your appetite," said
+Grahame. "Dear me! it takes a campaign to make life worth
+living!"
+
+"Life is not worth living, then, without an appetite?" inquired
+Lorraine, mischievously.
+
+"No," said Grahame, seriously; "and you also will be of that
+opinion some day, mademoiselle."
+
+His kindly, humourous eyes turned inquiringly from Jack to
+Lorraine and from Lorraine to Jack. He was puzzled, perhaps, but
+did not betray it.
+
+They were not married, because Lorraine was Mademoiselle de
+Nesville and Jack was Monsieur Marche. Cousins? Probably.
+Engaged? Probably. So Grahame smiled benignly and emptied another
+bottle of Moselle with a frank abandon that fascinated the old
+house-keeper.
+
+"And you don't mean to say that you are going to put me up for
+the night, too?" he asked Jack. "You place me under eternal
+obligation, and I accept with that understanding. If you run into
+my Hohenzollerns, they'll receive you as a brother."
+
+"I don't think he will visit the Hohenzollern Regiment," observed
+Lorraine, demurely.
+
+"No--er--the fact is, I'm not doing much newspaper work now,"
+said Jack.
+
+Grahame was puzzled but bland.
+
+"Tell us, Monsieur Grahame, of what you saw in the Spicheren,"
+said Lorraine. "Is it a very bad defeat? I am sure it cannot be.
+Of course, France will win, sooner or later; nobody doubts that."
+
+Before Grahame could manufacture a suitable reply--and his wit
+was as quick as his courtesy--a door opened and Madame de Morteyn
+entered, sad-eyed but smiling.
+
+Jack jumped up and asked leave to present Mr. Grahame, and the
+old lady received him very sweetly, insisting that he should
+make the Château his home as long as he stayed in the vicinity.
+
+A few moments later she went away with Lorraine and her maid, and
+Jack and Archibald Grahame were left together to sip their
+Moselle and smoke some very excellent cigars that Jack found in
+the library.
+
+"Mr. Grahame," said Jack, diffidently, "if it would not be an
+impertinent question, who is going to run away in this campaign?"
+
+Grahame's face fell; his sombre glance swept the beautiful room
+and rested on a picture--the "Battle of Waterloo."
+
+"It will be worse than that," he said, abruptly. "May I take one
+of these cigars? Oh, thank you."
+
+Jack's heart sank, but he smiled and passed a lighted cigar-lamp
+to the other.
+
+"My judgment has been otherwise," he said, "and what you say
+troubles me."
+
+"It troubles me, too," said Grahame, looking out of the dark
+window at the watery clouds, ragged, uncanny, whirling one by one
+like tattered witches across the disk of a misshapen moon.
+
+After a silence Jack relighted his half-burned cigar.
+
+"Then it is invasion?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--invasion."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"Good heavens! the very stones in the fields will rise up!"
+
+"If the people did so too it might be to better purpose,"
+observed Grahame, dryly. Then he emptied his glass, flicked the
+ashes from his cigar, and, sitting erect in his chair, said,
+"See here, Marche, you and I are accustomed to this sort of
+thing, we've seen campaigns and we have learned to judge
+dispassionately and, I think, fairly accurately; but, on my
+honour, I never before have seen the beginning of such a
+tempest--never! You say the very stones will rise up in the
+fields of France. You are right. For the fields will be ploughed
+with solid shot, and the shells will sow the earth with iron from
+the Rhine to the Loire. Good Lord, do these people know what is
+coming over the frontier?"
+
+"Prussians," said Jack.
+
+"Yes, Prussians and a few others--Würtembergers, Saxons,
+Bavarians, men from Baden, from Hesse, from the Schwarzwald--from
+Hamburg to the Tyrol they are coming in three armies. I saw the
+Spicheren, I saw Wissembourg--I have seen and I know."
+
+Presently he opened a fresh bottle, and, with that whimsical
+smile and frank simplicity that won whom he chose to win, leaned
+towards Jack and began speaking as though the younger man were
+his peer in experience and age:
+
+"Shall I tell you what I saw across the Rhine? I saw the machinery
+at work--the little wheels and cogs turning and grinding and
+setting in motion that stupendous machine that Gneisenau patented
+and Von Moltke improved--the great Mobilization Machine! How this
+machine does its work it is not easy to realize unless one has
+actually watched its operation. I saw it--and what I saw left me
+divided between admiration and--well, damn it all!--sadness.
+
+"You know, Marche, that there are three strata of fighting men in
+Germany--the regular army, the 'reserve,' and the Landwehr. It
+is a mistake into which many fall to believe that the reserve is
+the rear of the regular army. The war strength of a regiment is
+just double its peace strength, and the increment is the reserve.
+The blending of the two in time of war is complete; the medalled
+men of 1866 and of the Holstein campaign, called up from the
+reserve, are welded into the same ranks with the young soldiers
+who are serving their first period of three years. It is an utter
+mistake to think of the Prussian army or the Prussian reserves as
+a militia like yours or ours. The Prussian reserve man has three
+years active service with his colours to point back to. Have ours?
+The mobilization machine grinds its grinding in this wise. The whole
+country is divided into districts, in the central city of each of
+which are the headquarters of the army corps recruited from that
+district. Thence is sent forth the edict for mobilization to the
+towns, the villages, and the quiet country parishes. From the forge,
+from the harvest, from the store, from the school-room, blacksmiths,
+farmers, clerks, school-masters drop everything at an hour's notice.
+
+"The contingent of a village is sent to headquarters. On the
+route it meets other contingents until the rendezvous is reached.
+And then--the transformation! A yokel enters--a soldier leaves.
+The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown
+forward, his legs straightened, his chin 'well off the stock,'
+his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as
+whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are
+orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none
+are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, and the
+barrack gates are never infested by those hordes of soldiers'
+women."
+
+He paused and puffed at his cigar thoughtfully.
+
+"They are such soldiers as the world has not yet seen. Marching?
+I saw them striding steadily forward with the thermometer at
+eighty-five in the shade, with needle-gun, heavy knapsack, eighty
+rounds of ammunition, huge great-coat, camp-kettle, sword, spade,
+water-bottle, haversack, and lots of odds and ends dangling about
+them, with perhaps a loaf or two under one arm. Sunstroke? No.
+Why? Sobriety. No absinthe there, Mr. Marche."
+
+"We beat those men at Saarbrück," said Jack.
+
+Grahame laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"At Saarbrück, when war was declared, the total German garrison
+consisted of a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Uhlans.
+Frossard and his whole corps were looking across at Saarbrück
+over the ridges of the Spicheren, and nobody had the means of
+knowing what everybody knows now, the reason, so discreditable to
+French organization, which prevented him from blowing out of his
+path the few pickets and patrols, and invading the territory
+which had its frontier only nominally guarded. I was in Saarbrück
+at the time, and I had the pleasure of dodging shells there, too.
+Why, we were all asking each other if it were possible that the
+Frenchmen did not know the weakness of the land. Our Uhlans and
+infantry were manipulated dexterously to make a battalion look
+like a brigade; but we had an army corps in front of us. We held
+the place by sheer impudence."
+
+"I know it," said Jack; "it makes me ill to think of it."
+
+"It ought to make Frossard ill! Had a French army of invasion
+pushed on through Saint-Johann on the 2d of August and marched
+rapidly into the interior, the Germans could not possibly have
+concentrated their scattered regiments, and it is my firm
+conviction that Napoleon would have seen the Rhine without having
+had to fight a pitched battle. Well, Marche, I drink to neither
+one side nor the other, but--here's to the men with backbones.
+Prosit!"
+
+They laughed and clinked glasses. Grahame finished his bottle,
+rose, politely stifled a yawn, and looked humourously at Jack.
+
+"There are two beds in my room; will you take one?" said the
+young fellow.
+
+"Thank you, I will," said Grahame, "and as soon as you please, my
+dear fellow."
+
+So Jack led the way and ushered the other into a huge room with
+two beds, seemingly lost in distant diagonal corners. Grahame
+promptly kicked off his boots, and sat down on his bed.
+
+"I saw a funny thing in Saarbrück," he said. "It was right in the
+midst of a cannonade--the shells were smashing the chimneys on
+the Hotel Hagen and raising hell generally. And right in the
+midst of the whole blessed mess, cool as a cucumber, came
+sauntering a real live British swell with a coat adorned with
+field-glasses and girdle and a dozen pockets, an eye-glass, a dog
+that seemed dearer to him than life, and a drawl that had not
+been perceptibly quickened by the French cannon. He-aw-had been
+going eastward somewhere to-aw-Constantinople, or Saint-Petersburg,
+or-aw-somewhere, when he-aw-heard that it might be amusing at
+Saarbrück. A shell knocked a cart-load of tiles around his head,
+and he looked at it through his eye-glass. Marche, I never laughed
+so in my life. He's a good fellow, though--he's trotting about with
+the Hohenzollern Regiment now, and, really, I miss him. His name is
+Hesketh--"
+
+"Not Sir Thorald?" cried Jack.
+
+"Eh?--yes, that's the man. Know him?"
+
+"A little," said Jack, laughing, and went out, bidding Graham
+good-night, and promising to have him roused at dawn.
+
+"Aren't you going to turn in?" called Grahame, fearful of having
+inconvenienced Jack in his own quarters.
+
+"Yes," said the young fellow. "I won't wake you--I'll be back in
+an hour." And he closed the door, and went down-stairs.
+
+For a few moments he stood on the cool terrace, listening to the
+movement of the host below; and always the tramp of feet, the
+snort of horses, and the metallic jingle of passing cannon filled
+his ears.
+
+The big cuirassier sentinel had been joined by two more, all of
+the Hundred-Guards. Jack noticed their carbines, wondering a
+little to see cuirassiers so armed, and marvelling at the long,
+slender, lance-like bayonets that were attached to the muzzles.
+
+Presently he went into the house, and, entering the smoking-room,
+met his aunt coming out.
+
+"Jack," she said, "I am a little nervous--the Emperor is still in
+the dining-room with a crowd of officers, and he has just sent an
+aide-de-camp to the Château de Nesville to summon the marquis. It
+will be most awkward; your uncle and he are not friendly, and the
+Marquis de Nesville hates the Emperor."
+
+"Why did the Emperor send for him?" asked Jack, wondering.
+
+"I don't know--he wishes for a private interview with the
+marquis. He may refuse to come--he is a very strange man, you
+know."
+
+"Then, if he is, he may come; that would be stranger still," said
+Jack.
+
+"Your uncle is not well, Jack," continued Madame de Morteyn; "he
+is quite upset by being obliged to entertain the Emperor. You
+know how all the Royalists feel. But, Jack, dear, if you could
+have seen your uncle it would have been a lesson in chivalry to
+you which any young man could ill afford to miss--he was so
+perfectly simple, so proudly courteous--ah, Jack, your uncle is
+one in a nation!"
+
+"He is--and so are you!" said Jack, kissing her faded cheek. "Are
+you going to retire now?"
+
+"Yes; your uncle needs me. The lights are out everywhere.
+Lorraine, dear child, is asleep in the next room to mine. Is Mr.
+Grahame comfortable? I am glad. The Prince Imperial is sleeping
+too, poor child--sleeping like a worn-out baby."
+
+Jack conducted his aunt to her chamber, and bade her good-night.
+Then he went softly back through the darkened house, and across
+the hall to the dining-room. The door was open, letting out a
+flood of lamp-light, and the generals and staff-officers were
+taking leave of the Emperor and filing out one by one, Frossard
+leading, his head bent on his breast. Some went away to rooms
+assigned them, guided by a flunky, some passed across the terrace
+with swords trailing and spurs ringing, and disappeared in the
+darkness. They had not all left the Emperor, when, suddenly,
+Jack heard behind him the voice of the Marquis de Nesville,
+cold, sneering, ironical.
+
+"Oh," he said, seeing Jack standing by the door, "can you tell me
+where I may find the Emperor of the French? I am sent for."
+Turning on the aide-de-camp at his side: "This gentleman
+courteously notified me that the Emperor desired my presence. I
+am here, but I do not choose to go alone, and I shall demand,
+Monsieur Marche, that you accompany me and remain during the
+interview."
+
+The aide-de-camp looked at him darkly, but the marquis sneered in
+his face.
+
+"I want a witness," he said, insolently; "you can tell that to
+your Emperor."
+
+The aide-de-camp, helmet under his arm, from which streamed a
+horse-hair plume, entered the dining-room as the last officer
+left it.
+
+Jack looked uneasily at the marquis, and was about to speak when
+the aid returned and requested the marquis to enter.
+
+"Monsieur Marche, remain here, I beg you," said the marquis,
+coolly; "I shall call you presently. It is a service I ask of
+you. Will you oblige me?"
+
+"Yes," said Jack.
+
+The door opened for a second.
+
+Napoleon III. sat at the long table, his head drooping on his
+breast; he was picking absently at threads in the texture of the
+table-cloth. That was all Jack saw--a glimpse of a table covered
+with half-empty glasses and fruit, an old man picking at the
+cloth in the lamplight; then the door shut, and he was alone in
+the dark hall. Out on the terrace he heard the tramp of the
+cuirassier sentinels, and beyond that the uproar of artillery,
+passing, always passing. He stared about in the darkness, he
+peered up the staircase into the gloom. A bat was flying
+somewhere near--he felt the wind from its mousy wings.
+
+Suddenly the door was flung open beside him, and the marquis
+called to him in a voice vibrating with passion. As he entered
+and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white
+with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of
+the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised
+his impassible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged the young
+man's respectful salutation.
+
+"You have asked me a question," said the marquis, harshly, "and I
+demanded to answer it in the presence of a witness. Is your
+majesty willing that this gentleman shall hear my reply?"
+
+The Emperor looked at him with half-closed, inscrutable eyes,
+then, turning his heavy face to Jack's, smiled wearily and
+inclined his head.
+
+"Good," said the marquis, apparently labouring under tremendous
+excitement. "You ask me to give you, or sell you, or loan you my
+secret for military balloons. My answer is, 'No!'"
+
+The Emperor's face did not change as he said, "I ask it for your
+country, not for myself, monsieur."
+
+"And I will give it to my country, not to you!" said the marquis,
+violently.
+
+Jack looked at the Emperor. He noticed his unkempt hair brushed
+forward, his short thumbs pinching the table-cloth, his closed
+eyes.
+
+The Marquis de Nesville took a step towards him.
+
+"Does your majesty remember the night that Morny lay dying in the
+shadows? And that horrible croak from the darkness when he
+raised himself on one elbow and gasped, 'Sire, prenez garde à la
+Prusse!' Then he died. That was all--a warning, a groan, the
+death-rattle in the shadows by the bed. Then he died."
+
+The Emperor never moved.
+
+"'Look out for Prussia!' That was Morny's last gasp. And now?
+Prussia is there, you are here! And you need aid, and you send
+for me, and I tell you that my secrets are for my country, not
+for you! No, not for you--you who said, 'It is easy to govern the
+French, they only need a war every four years!' Now--here is your
+war! Govern!"
+
+The Emperor's slow eyes rested a moment on the man before him.
+But the man, trembling, pallid with passion, clenched his hands
+and hurled an insult at the Emperor through his set teeth:
+"Napoleon the Little! Listen! When you have gone down in the
+crash of a rotten throne and a blood-bought palace, then, when
+the country has shaken this--this thing--from her bent back, then
+I will give to my country all I have! But never to you, to save
+your name and your race and your throne--never!"
+
+He fairly frothed at the lips as he spoke; his eyes blazed.
+
+"Your coup-d'état made me childless! I had a son, fairer than
+yours, who lies asleep in there--brave, gentle, loving--a son of
+mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him--shot him to
+death on the boulevards--him among the others--so that you could
+sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them--those piled corpses! I
+saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the
+heaped slain lying before Tortoni's, where the whole street was
+flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you
+ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honoré, and when you
+met the barricade you turned pale and rode back again! I saw you;
+I was sitting with my dead boy on my knees--I saw you--"
+
+With a furious cry the marquis tore a revolver from his pocket
+and sprang on the Emperor, and at the same instant Jack seized
+the crazy man by the shoulders and hurled him violently to the
+floor.
+
+Stunned, limp as a rag, the marquis lay at the Emperor's feet,
+his clenched hands slowly relaxing.
+
+The Emperor had not moved.
+
+Scarcely knowing what he did, Jack stooped, drew the revolver
+from the extended fingers, and laid it on the table. Then, with a
+fearful glance at the Emperor, he dragged the marquis to the
+door, opened it with a shove of his foot, and half closed it
+again.
+
+The aide-de-camp stood there, staring at the prostrate man.
+
+"Here, help me with him to his carriage; he is ill," panted
+Jack--"lift him!"
+
+Together they carried him out to the terrace, and down the steps
+to a coupé that stood waiting.
+
+"The marquis is ill," said Jack again; "put him to bed at once.
+Drive fast."
+
+Before the sound of the wheels died away Jack hastened back to
+the dining-room. Through the half-opened door he peered,
+hesitated, turned away, and mounted the stairs slowly to his own
+chamber.
+
+In the dining-room the lamp still burned dimly. Beside it sat the
+Emperor, head bent, picking absently at the table-cloth with
+short, shrunken thumbs.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE INVASION OF LORRAINE
+
+
+It was not yet dawn. Jack, sleeping with his head on his elbow,
+shivered in his sleep, gasped, woke, and sat up in bed. There was
+a quiet footfall by his bed, the scrape of a spur, then silence.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Grahame?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; I didn't mean to wake you. I'm off. I was going to leave a
+letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn--"
+
+"Are you dressed? What time is it?"
+
+"Four o'clock--twenty minutes after. It's a shame to rouse you,
+my dear fellow."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Jack. "Will you strike a
+light--there are candles on my dresser. Ah, that's better."
+
+He sat blinking at Grahame, who, booted and spurred and buttoned
+to the chin, looked at him quizzically.
+
+"You were not going off without your coffee, were you?" asked
+Jack. "Nonsense!--wait." He pulled a bell-rope dangling over his
+head. "Now that means coffee and hot rolls in twenty minutes."
+
+When Jack had bathed and shaved, operations he executed with
+great rapidity, the coffee was brought, and he and Grahame fell
+to by candle-light.
+
+"I thought you were afoot?" said Jack, glancing at the older
+man's spurs.
+
+"I'm going to hunt up a horse; I'm tired of this eternal
+tramping," replied Grahame. "Hello, is this package for me?"
+
+"Yes, there's a cold chicken and some things, and a flask to keep
+you until you find your Hohenzollern Regiment again."
+
+Grahame rose and held out his hand. "Good-by. You've been very
+kind, Marche. Will you say, for me, all that should be said to
+Madame de Morteyn? Good-by once more, my dear fellow. Don't
+forget me--I shall never forget you!"
+
+"Wait," said Jack; "you are going off without a safe-conduct."
+
+"Don't need it; there's not a French soldier in Morteyn."
+
+"Gone?" stammered Jack--"the Emperor, General Frossard, the
+army--"
+
+"Every mother's son of them, and I must hurry--"
+
+Their hands met again in a cordial grasp, then Grahame slipped
+noiselessly into the hallway, and Jack turned to finish dressing
+by the light of his clustered candles.
+
+As he stood before the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with
+studs and buttons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the
+night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impassive
+Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned,
+white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling
+from the glittering revolver.
+
+Lorraine's father! And he had laid hands on him and had flung
+him senseless at the feet of the Man of December! He could
+scarcely button his collar, his fingers trembled so. Perhaps he
+had killed the Marquis de Nesville. Sick at heart, he finished
+dressing, buttoned his coat, flung a cap on his head, and stole
+out into the darkness.
+
+On the terrace below he saw a groom carrying a lantern, and he
+went out hastily.
+
+"Saddle Faust at once," he said. "Have the troops all gone?"
+
+"All, monsieur; the last of the cavalry passed three hours ago;
+the Emperor drove away half an hour later with Lulu--"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"The prince--pardon, monsieur--they call him Lulu in Paris."
+
+"Hurry," said Jack; "I want that horse at once."
+
+Ten minutes later he was galloping furiously down the forest road
+towards the Château de Nesville. The darkness was impenetrable,
+so he let the horse find his own path, and gave himself up to a
+profound dejection that at times amounted to blind fear. Before
+his eyes he saw the pallid face of the Marquis de Nesville, he
+saw the man stretched on the floor, horribly still; that was the
+worst, the stillness of the body.
+
+The sky was gray through the trees when he turned into the park
+and skirted the wall to the wicket. The wicket was locked. He
+rang repeatedly, he shook the grille and pounded on the iron
+escutcheon with the butt of his riding-crop; and at length a
+yawning servant appeared from the gate-lodge and sleepily dragged
+open the wicket.
+
+"The marquis was ill, have you heard anything?" asked Jack.
+
+"The marquis is there on the porch," said the servant, with a
+gesture towards the house.
+
+Jack's heart leaped up. "Thank God!" he muttered, and dismounted,
+throwing his bridle to the porter, who now appeared in the
+doorway.
+
+He could see the marquis walking to and fro, hands clasped behind
+his strong, athletic back; his head was turned in Jack's
+direction. "The marquis is crazy," thought Jack, hesitating. He
+was convinced now that long brooding over ancient wrongs had
+unsettled the man's mind. There had always been something in his
+dazzling blue eyes that troubled Jack, and now he knew it was the
+pale light of suppressed frenzy. Still, he would have to face him
+sooner or later, and he did not recoil now that the hour and the
+place and the man had come.
+
+"I'll settle it once for all," he thought, and walked straight up
+the path to the house. The marquis came down the steps to meet
+him.
+
+"I expected you," he said, without a trace of anger. "I have much
+to say to you. Will you come in or shall we sit in the arbour
+there? You will enter? Then come to the turret, Monsieur Marche."
+
+Jack would have refused, but he had not the courage. He was not
+at all pleased at the idea of mounting to a turret with a man
+whom he had laid violent hands on the night before, a man whom he
+had seen succumb to an access of insane fury in the presence of
+the Emperor of France. But he went, cursing the cowardice that
+prevented him from being cautious; and in a few moments he entered
+the chamber where retorts and bottles and steel machinery littered
+every corner, and the pale dawn broke through the window in ghastly
+streams of light, changing the candle-flames to sickly greenish
+blotches.
+
+They sat opposite each other, neither speaking. Jack glanced at a
+heavy steel rod on the floor beside him. It was just as well to
+know it was there, in case of need.
+
+"Monsieur," said the marquis, abruptly, "I owe you a great deal
+more than my life, which is nothing; I owe you my family honour."
+
+This was a new way of looking at the situation; Jack fidgeted in
+his chair and eyed the marquis.
+
+"Thanks to you," he continued, quietly, "I am not an assassin, I
+am not a butcher of dogs. The De Nesvilles were never public
+executioners--they left that to the Bonapartes and Monsieur de
+Paris."
+
+He rose hastily from his chair and held out a hand. Jack took it
+warily and returned the nervous pressure. Then they both resumed
+their seats.
+
+"Let us clear matters up," said the marquis in a wonderfully
+gentle voice, that would have been fascinating to more phlegmatic
+men than Jack--"let us clear up everything and understand each
+other. You, monsieur, dislike me; pardon--you dislike me for
+reasons of your own. I, on the contrary, like you; I like you
+better this moment than I ever did. Had you not come as I
+expected, had you not entered, had you refused to mount to the
+turret, I still should have liked you. Now I also respect you."
+
+Jack twisted and turned in his chair, not knowing what to think
+or say.
+
+
+"Why do you dislike me?" asked the marquis, quietly.
+
+"Because you are not kind to your daughter," said Jack, bluntly.
+
+To his horror the man's eyes filled with tears, big, glittering
+tears that rolled down his immovable face. Then a flush stained
+his forehead; the fever in his cheeks dried the tears.
+
+"Jack," he said, calling the young fellow by his name with a
+peculiarly tender gesture, "I loved my son. My soul died within
+me when René died, there on the muddy pavement of the Paris
+boulevards. I sometimes think I am perhaps a little out of my
+mind; I brood on it too much. That is why I flung myself into
+this"--with a sweep of his arm towards the flasks and machinery
+piled around. "Lorraine is a girl, sweet, lovable, loyal. But she
+is not my daughter."
+
+"Lorraine!" stammered Jack.
+
+"Lorraine."
+
+The young fellow sat up in his chair and studied the face of the
+pale man before him.
+
+"Not--your child?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Whose?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+After a silence the marquis stood up, and walked to the window.
+His face was haggard, his hair dishevelled.
+
+"No," he said, "Lorraine is not my daughter. She is not even my
+heiress. She was--she was--found, eighteen years ago."
+
+The room was becoming lighter; the sky grew faintly luminous and
+the mist from the stagnant fen curled up along the turret like
+smoke.
+
+Jack picked up his cap and riding-crop and rose; the marquis
+turned from the window to confront him. His face was no longer
+furrowed with pain, the cold light had crept back into his eyes.
+
+"Monsieur," said Jack, "I ask your permission to address
+Lorraine. I love her."
+
+The marquis stood silent, scarcely breathing.
+
+"You know who and what I am; you probably know what I have. It is
+enough for me; it will be enough for us both. I shall work to
+make it enough. I do not expect or wish for anything from you for
+Lorraine; I do not give it a thought. Lorraine does not love me,
+but," and here he spoke with humility, "I believe that she might.
+If I win her, will you give her to me?"
+
+"Win her?" repeated the marquis, with an ugly look. The man's
+face was changing now, darkening in the morning light.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, violently, "you may say to her what you
+please!" and he opened the door and showed Jack the way out.
+
+Dazed, completely mystified, Jack hurried away to find his horse
+at the gate where he had left him. The marquis was crazy, that
+was certain. These unaccountable moods and passions, following
+each other so abruptly, were nothing else but reactions from a
+life of silent suffering. All the way back to Morteyn he pondered
+on the strange scene in the turret, the repudiation of Lorraine,
+the sudden tenderness for himself, and then the apathy, the
+suppressed anger, the indifference coupled with unexplainable
+emotion.
+
+"No sane man could act like that," he murmured, as he rode into
+the Morteyn gate, and, with a smart slap of his hand on Faust's
+withers, he sent that intelligent animal at a trot towards the
+stables, where a groom awaited him with sponge and bucket.
+
+The gardeners were cleaning up the litter in the roads and paths
+left by the retreating army. The road by the gate was marked with
+hoof and wheel, but the macadam had not suffered very much, and
+already a roller was at work removing furrow and hoof-print.
+
+He entered the dining-room. It was empty. So also was the
+breakfast-room, for breakfast had been served an hour before.
+
+He sent for coffee and muffins and made a hasty breakfast,
+looking out of the window at times for signs of his aunt and
+Lorraine. The maid said that Madame de Morteyn had driven to
+Saint-Lys with the marquis, and that Mademoiselle de Nesville had
+gone to her room. So he finished his coffee, went to his room,
+changed his clothes, and sent a maid to inquire whether Lorraine
+would receive him in the small library at the head of the stairs.
+The maid returned presently, saying that Mademoiselle de Nesville
+would be down in a moment or two, so Jack strolled into the
+library and leaned out of the window to smoke.
+
+When she came in he did not hear her until she spoke.
+
+"Don't throw your cigarette away, monsieur; I permit you to
+smoke--indeed, I command it. How do you do?" This in very timid
+English. "I mean--good-morning--oh, dear, this terrible English
+language! Now you may sit there, in that large leather arm-chair,
+and you may tell me why you did not appear at breakfast. Is
+Monsieur Grahame still sleeping? Gone? Oh, dear! And you have
+been to the Château de Nesville? Is my father well? And contented?
+There, I knew he would miss me. Did you give him my dearest love?
+Thank you for remembering. Now tell me--"
+
+"What?" laughed Jack.
+
+"Everything, of course."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+She looked at him, but did not answer.
+
+Then he deliberately sat down and made love to her, not actual,
+open, unblushing love--but he started in to win her, and what his
+tongue refused to tell, his eyes told until trepidation seized
+her, and she sat back speechless, watching him with shy blue eyes
+that always turned when they met his, but always returned when
+his were lowered.
+
+It is a pretty game, this first preliminary of love--like the
+graceful sword-play and salute of two swordsmen before a duel.
+There was no one to cry "Garde à vous!" no one to strike up the
+weapons that were thrust at two unarmoured hearts, for the
+weapons were words and glances, and Love, the umpire, alas! was
+not impartial.
+
+So the timid heart of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she
+knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with
+desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that,
+if not utter treachery, was giving aid and encouragement to the
+enemy.
+
+Besieged, threatened, she sat there in the arm-chair, half
+frightened, half smiling, fearful yet contented, alarmed yet
+secure, now resisting, now letting herself drift on, until the
+result of the combination made Jack's head spin; and he felt
+resentful in his heart, and he said to himself what all men under
+such circumstances say to themselves--"Coquetry!"
+
+One moment he was sure she loved him, the next he was certain she
+did not. This oscillation between heaven and hell made him
+unhappy, and, manlike, he thought the fault was hers. This is the
+foundation for man's belief in the coquetry of women.
+
+As for Lorraine, she thrilled with a gentle fear that was the
+most delightful sensation she had ever known. She looked shyly at
+the strong-limbed, sunburned young fellow opposite, and she began
+to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head,
+every gesture, every change in his face she knew now--knew so
+well that she blushed at her own knowledge.
+
+But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not,
+although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she
+refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then
+she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then
+she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then--But it is
+always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of
+fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love.
+So the morning wore away.
+
+The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library
+with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after
+that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that
+Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the
+vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying on
+the lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy
+to sleep.
+
+He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and
+wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation
+to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two
+letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his
+sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.
+
+    "DEAR JACK,--I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off
+    to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at
+    Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to
+    come back. You're the only person on earth I can write
+    this to.
+
+    "Faithfully yours, MOLLY HESKETH."
+
+Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit
+of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could
+read between the lines--a man in love is less dense than when in
+his normal state--and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought
+of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing
+amid a shower of bricks and bursting shells, staring at war
+through a monocle.
+
+"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to
+Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came
+before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's
+drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment,
+that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led
+him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to
+the 11th Uhlans.
+
+"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half
+aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this
+war lasts."
+
+Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's
+lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's
+troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered
+whether any other troops were between him and Saarbrück. The
+truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But
+how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And
+there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the
+Germans should pass that way; not at all likely--but suppose they
+should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No,
+he could never go away and leave Lorraine--that was out of the
+question.
+
+He lighted a match and moodily burned Molly's letter to ashes in
+the fireplace. He also stirred the ashes up, for he was
+honourable in little things--like Ricky--and also, alas!
+apparently no novice.
+
+Dorothy's letter lay on the table--her third since she had left
+for Paris. He opened his knife and split the envelope carefully,
+still thinking of Lorraine.
+
+    "MY OWN DEAR JACK,--There is something I have been
+    trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I
+    have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall
+    tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so
+    if you do not read carefully between every line, you may
+    not find it, after all.
+
+    "I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and
+    ill--the excitement in the city and that horrid National
+    Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald
+    is away on business, she says--where, I forgot to ask
+    her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday.
+    Some ragamuffins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her.
+    Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think
+    I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very
+    cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to
+    Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the English
+    papers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me
+    sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear.
+
+    "The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every
+    day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no
+    men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d
+    of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you
+    know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there?
+    Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak
+    of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren.
+    Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and
+    write me _at once_. Don't forget--the _11th Uhlans_. Oh,
+    Jack, darling! can't you understand?
+
+    Your loving sister, DOROTHY."
+
+"Understand? What?" repeated Jack. He read the letter again
+carefully.
+
+"I can't see what the mischief is extraordinary in that," he
+mused, "unless she's giving me a tip about Sir Thorald; but
+no--she can't know anything in that direction. Now what is it
+that she has hidden away? Oh, here's a postscript."
+
+He turned the sheet and read:
+
+    "My love to aunt and uncle, Jack--don't forget. I am
+    writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in
+    Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out.
+    There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about
+    the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one
+    expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to the
+    _Berlin Post_ and the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ and the
+    _Munich Neueste Nachrichten_, but the horrid creature at
+    the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her
+    place. I hope the _Herald_ will give particulars of
+    losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on
+    earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?
+
+    "DORRIE.
+
+    "P. P. S.--Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I
+    ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to
+    find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."
+
+"Now, what on earth interests Dorrie in all these battle
+statistics?" he wondered; "and what in the name of common-sense
+can she find to interest her in the 11th Uhlans? Ricky? Absurd!"
+
+He repeated "absurd" two or three times, but he became more
+thoughtful a moment later, and sat smoking and pondering. That
+would be a nice muddle if she, the niece of a Frenchman--an
+American, too--should fix her affections on a captain of Uhlans
+whose regiment he, Jack Marche, would avoid as he would hope to
+avoid the black small-pox.
+
+"Absurd," he repeated for the fourth time, and tossed his
+cigarette into the open fireplace. And as he rose to go up-stairs
+something out on the road by the gate attracted his attention,
+and he went to the window.
+
+Three horsemen sat in their saddles on the lawn, lance on thigh,
+eyes fixed on him.
+
+They were Uhlans!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+"IN THE HOLLOW OF THY HAND"
+
+
+For a moment he recoiled as though he had received a blow between
+the eyes.
+
+There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over
+one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points,
+schabraques edged with yellow--aye, and tunics also, yellow and
+blue--those were the colours--the colours of the 11th Uhlans.
+
+Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what
+it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done--death
+even though the man he had shot were not dead--death though he
+had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its
+most awful form--hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian,
+foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing
+upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the
+sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling,
+informing, or otherwise, was hung--sometimes with a drum-head
+court-martial, sometimes without.
+
+Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he
+leaned back against the table, cold with fear.
+
+This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the
+needle-guns sent a shower of lead over his rocky observatory;
+the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when
+he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in
+the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle horsemen.
+
+Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did
+not understand ropes.
+
+He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there
+were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back
+from the open window. Had they seen him?
+
+All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled
+like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans,
+plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a
+fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were
+gone.
+
+Utterly unnerved, Jack sank into the arm-chair. What should he
+do? If he stayed at Morteyn he stood a good chance of hanging. He
+could not leave his aunt and uncle, nor could he tell them, for
+the two old people would fall sick with the anxiety. And yet, if
+he stayed at Morteyn, and the Germans came, it might compromise
+the whole household and bring destruction to Château and park. He
+had not thought of that before, but now he remembered also
+another German rule, inflexible, unvarying. It was this, that in
+a town or village where the inhabitants resisted by force or
+injured any German soldier, the village should be burned and the
+provisions and stock confiscated for the use of King Wilhelm's
+army.
+
+Shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he sprang to his feet and
+walked hastily to the terrace. Nothing was to be seen on the
+road, nor yet in the meadows beyond. Up-stairs he heard
+Lorraine's voice, and his aunt's voice, too. Sometimes they
+laughed a little in low tones, and he even caught the rustle of
+stiff silken embroidery against the window-sill.
+
+His mind was made up in an instant; his coolness returned as the
+colour returns to a pale cheek. The Uhlans had probably not seen
+him; if they had, it made little difference, for even the picquet
+that had chased him could not have recognized him at that
+distance. Then, again, in a whole regiment it was not likely that
+the three horsemen who had peeped at Morteyn through the
+road-gate could have been part of that same cursed picquet. No,
+the thing to avoid was personal contact with any of the 11th
+Uhlans. This would be a matter of simple prudence; outside of
+that he had nothing to fear from the Prussian army. Whenever he
+saw the schapskas and lances he would be cautious; when these
+lances were pennoned with black and white, and when the schapskas
+and schabraques were edged with yellow, he would keep out of the
+way altogether. It shamed him terribly to think of his momentary
+panic; he cursed himself for a coward, and dug his clenched fists
+into both pockets. But even as he stood there, withering himself
+with self-scorn, he could not help hoping that his aunt and uncle
+would find it convenient to go to Paris soon. That would leave
+him free to take his own chances by remaining, to be near
+Lorraine. For it did not occur to him that he might leave Morteyn
+as long as Lorraine stayed.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when he lighted a pipe and walked
+out to the road, where the smooth macadam no longer bore the
+slightest trace of wheel or hoof, and nobody could have imagined
+that part of an army corps had passed there the night before.
+
+He felt lonely and a little despondent, and he walked along the
+road to the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn and sat down at her
+naked stone feet. And as he sat there smoking, twirling his
+shooting-cap in his hands, without the least warning a horseman,
+advancing noiselessly across the turf, passed him, carbine on
+thigh, busby glittering with the silver skull and crossbones.
+Before he could straighten up another horseman passed, then
+another, then three, then six, then a dozen, all sitting with
+poised carbines, scarcely noticing him at all, the low, blazing
+sun glittering on the silver skulls and crossed thigh-bones, deep
+set in their sombre head-gear.
+
+They were Black Hussars.
+
+A distant movement came to his ear at the same time, the soft
+shock of thousands of footfalls on the highway. He sprang up and
+started forward, but a trooper warned him back with a stern
+gesture, and he stood at the foot of the shrine, excited but
+outwardly cool, listening to the approaching trample.
+
+He knew what it meant now; these passing videttes were the dust
+before the tempest, the prophecy of the deluge. For the sound on
+the distant highway was the sound of infantry, and a host was on
+the march, a host helmeted with steel and shod with steel, a vast
+live bulk, gigantic, scaled in mail, whose limbs were human,
+whose claws were lances and bayonets, whose red tongues were
+flame-jets from a thousand cannon.
+
+The German army had entered France and the province of Lorraine
+was a name.
+
+Like a hydra of three hideous heads the German army had pushed
+its course over the Saar, over the Rhine, over the Lauter; it
+sniffed at the frontier line; licked Wissembourg and the
+Spicheren with flaming tongues, shuddered, coiled, and glided
+over the boundary into the fair land of Lorraine. Then, like some
+dreadful ringed monster, it cast off two segments, north, south,
+and moved forward on its belly, while the two new segments,
+already turned to living bodies, with heads and eyes and
+contracted scales, struggled on alone, diverging to the north and
+south, creeping, squirming, undulating, penetrating villages and
+cities, stretching across hills and rivers, until all the land
+was shining with shed scales and the sky reeked with the smoke of
+flaming tongues. This was the invasion of France. Before it
+Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before
+it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte
+had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour
+lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet
+of the Garde Impériale.
+
+On the hill-sides of Lorraine were letters of fire, writing for
+all France to read, and every separate letter was a flaming
+village. The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards
+Châlons; Bazaine read it and said, "There is time;" MacMahon,
+Canrobert, Leboeuf, Ladmirault read it and wondered idly what it
+meant, till Vinoy turned a retreat into a triumph, and Gambetta,
+flabby, pompous, unbalanced, bawled platitudes from the Palais
+Bourbon.
+
+In three splendid armies the tide of invasion set in; the Red
+Prince tearing a bloody path to Metz, the Crown Prince riding
+west by south, resting in Nancy, snubbing Toul, spreading out
+into the valley of the Marne to build three monuments of bloody
+bones--Saint-Marie, Amanvilliers, Saint-Privat.
+
+Metz, crouching behind Saint-Quentin and Les Bottes, turned her
+anxious eyes from Thionville to Saint-Julien and back to where
+MacMahon's three rockets should have starred the sky; and what
+she saw was the Red Prince riding like a fiery spectre from east
+to west; what she saw was the spiked helmets of the Feldwache and
+the sodded parapets of Longeau. Chained and naked, the beautiful
+city crouched in the tempest that was to free her forever and
+give her the life she scorned, the life more bitter than death.
+
+Something of this ominous prophecy came to Jack, standing below
+the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn, listening to the on-coming
+shock of German feet, as he watched the cavalry riding past in
+the glow of the setting sun.
+
+And now the infantry burst into view, a gloomy, solid column tramp,
+tramp along the road--jägers, with their stiff fore-and-aft shakos,
+dull-green tunics, and snuffy, red-striped trousers tucked into
+dusty half-boots. On they came, on, on--would they never pass? At
+last they were gone, somewhere into the flaming west, and now the
+red sunbeams slanted on eagle crests and tipped the sea of polished
+spiked helmets with fire, for a line regiment was coming, shaking
+the earth with its rhythmical tramp--thud! thud! thud!
+
+He looked across the fields to the hills beyond; more regiments,
+dark masses moving against the sky, covered the landscape far as
+the eye could reach; cavalry, too, were riding on the Saint-Avold
+road through the woods; and beyond that, vague silhouettes of
+moving wagons and horsemen, crawling out into the world of valleys
+that stretched to Bar-le-Duc and Avricourt.
+
+Oppressed, almost choked, as though a rising tide had washed
+against his breast, ever mounting, seething, creeping, climbing,
+he moved forward, waiting for a chance to cross the road and gain
+the Château, where he could see the servants huddling over the
+lawn, and the old vicomte, erect, motionless, on the terrace
+beside his wife and Lorraine.
+
+Already in the meadow behind him the first bivouac was pitched;
+on the left stood a park of field artillery, ammunition-wagons in
+the rear, and in front the long lines of picket-ropes to which
+the horses were fastened, their harness piled on the grass behind
+them.
+
+The forge was alight, the farriers busy shoeing horses; the
+armourer also bent beside his blazing forge, and the tinkling of
+his hammer on small-arms rose musically above the dull shuffle of
+leather-shod feet on the road.
+
+To the right of the artillery, bisected as is the German fashion,
+lay two halves of a battalion of infantry. In the foreground the
+officers sat on their camp-chairs, smoking long faïence pipes; in
+the rear, driven deep into the turf, the battalion flag stood
+furled in its water-proof case, with the drum-major's halberd
+beside it, and drums and band instruments around it on the grass.
+Behind this lay a straight row of knapsacks, surrounded by the
+rolled great-coats; ten paces to the rear another similar row;
+between these two rows stood stacks of needle-guns, then another
+row of knapsacks, another stack of needle-guns, stretching with
+mathematical exactness to the grove of poplars by the river. A
+cordon of sentinels surrounded the bivouac; there was a group of
+soldiers around a beer-cart, another throng near the wine-cart.
+All was quiet, orderly, and terribly sombre.
+
+Near the poplar-trees the pioneers had dug their trenches and
+lighted fires. Across the trenches, on poles of green wood, were
+slung simmering camp-kettles.
+
+He turned again towards the Château; a regiment of Saxon riders
+was passing--had just passed--and he could get across now, for
+the long line had ended and the last Prussian cuirassiers were
+vanishing over the hill, straight into the blaze of the setting
+sun.
+
+As he entered the gate, behind him, from the meadow, an infantry
+band crashed out into a splendid hymn--a hymn in praise of the
+Most High God, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
+
+And the soldiers' hoarse voices chimed in--
+
+    "Thou, who in the hollow of Thy Hand--"
+
+And the deep drums boomed His praise.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE
+
+
+The candles were lighted again in the ballroom, and again the
+delicate, gilded canapés were covered with officers, great
+stalwart fellows with blond hair and blue eyes, cuirassiers in
+white tunics faced with red, cuirassiers in green and white,
+black, yellow, and white, orange and white; dragoons in blue and
+salmon colour, bearing the number "7" on their shoulder-straps,
+dragoons of the Guard in blue and white, dragoons of the 2d
+Regiment in black and blue. There were hussars too, dandies of
+the 19th in their tasselled boots and crimson busby-crowns; Black
+Hussars, bearing, even on their soft fatigue-caps, the emblems of
+death, the skull and crossed thigh-bones. An Uhlan or two of the
+2d Guard Regiment, trimmed with white and piped with scarlet,
+dawdled around the salon, staring at gilded clock and candelabra,
+or touching the grand-piano with hesitating but itching fingers.
+Here and there officers of the general staff stood in consultation,
+great, stiff, strapping men, faultlessly clothed in scarlet and
+black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms.
+The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals,
+some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little
+even when questioned. The huge Saxon officers, beaming with
+good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men
+and the stiff-necked Prussians.
+
+In the long dining-room dinner was nearly ended. Facing each
+other sat the old Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, he pale,
+dignified, exquisitely courteous, she equally pale but more
+gentle in her sweet dignity. On the right sat the Red Prince,
+stiff as steel, jerky in every movement, stern, forbidding,
+unbending as much as his black Prussian blood would let him; on
+the left sat a thin old man, bald as an ivory ball, pallid,
+hairless of face, a frame of iron in a sombre, wrinkled tunic,
+without a single decoration. His short hawk's nose, keen and fine
+as a falcon's beak, quivered with every breath; his thin lips
+rested one upon the other in stern, delicate curves. It was
+Moltke, the master expert, come from Berlin to watch the wheels
+turning in that vast complicated network of machinery which he
+controlled with one fragile finger pressing the button.
+
+There, too, was Von Zastrow, destined to make his error at
+Gravelotte, there was Steinmetz, and the handsome Saxon prince,
+and great, flabby August of Würtemberg, talking with Alvensleben,
+dainty, pious, aristocratic. Behind, in the shadow, stood
+Manstein and Goben, a grim, gray pair, with menacing eyes.
+Perhaps they were thinking of the Red Prince's parting words at
+the Spicheren: "Your duty is to march forward, always forward,
+find the enemy, prevent his escape, and fight him wherever you
+find him." To which the fastidious and devout Alvensleben
+muttered, "In the name of God," and poor, brave Kamecke,
+shuddering as he thought of his Westphalians and the cul-de-sac
+where he had sent them on the 6th day of August, sighed and
+looked out into deepening twilight.
+
+Outside a Saxon infantry band began to play a masterpiece of
+Beethoven. It seemed to be the signal for breaking up, and the
+Red Prince, with abrupt deference, turned to Madame de Morteyn,
+who gave the signal and rose. The Red Prince stepped back as the
+old vicomte gave his wife a trembling arm. Then he bowed where he
+stood, clothed in his tight, blood-red tunic, tall, powerful,
+square-jawed, cruel-mouthed, and eyed like a wolf. But his
+forehead was fine, broad, and benevolent, and his beard softened
+the wicked curve of his lips.
+
+Jack and Lorraine had again dined together in the little gilded
+salon above, served by Lorraine's maid and wept over by the old
+house-keeper.
+
+The terrified servants scarcely dared to breathe as they crept
+through the halls where, "like a flight of devils from hell" the
+"Prussian ogres" had settled in the house. They came whimpering
+to their mistress, but took courage at the calm, dignified
+attitude of the old vicomte, and began to think that these
+"children-eating Prussians" might perhaps forego their craving
+for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a
+group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to
+their own plumpness and possible desirability for ragoûts.
+
+The old marquis himself received his unwelcome guests as though
+he were receiving travelling strangers, to whom, now that they
+were under his roof, faultless hospitality was due, nothing more,
+merely the courtesy of a French nobleman to an uninvited guest.
+
+Ah, but the steel was in his heart to the hilt. He, an old
+soldier of the Malakoff, of Algeria, the brother in arms of
+Changarnier, of Chanzy, he obliged to receive invaders--invaders
+belonging to the same nation which had lined the streets of
+Berlin so long ago, cringing, whining "Vive l'Empereur!" at the
+crack of the thongs of Murat's horsemen!
+
+Yet now it was that he showed himself the chivalrous soldier, the
+old colonel of the old régime, the true beau-sabreur of an epoch
+dead. And the Red Prince Frederick Charles knew it, and bowed low
+as the vicomte left the dining-hall with his gentle, pale-faced
+wife on his arm.
+
+Jack, sitting after dinner with Lorraine in the bay-window above,
+looked down upon the vast camp that covered the whole land, from
+the hills to the Lisse, from the forest to the pastures above
+Saint-Lys. There were no tents--the German army carried none.
+Here and there a canvas-covered wagon glistened white in the
+moonlight; the pale radiance fell on acres of stacked rifles, on
+the brass rims of drums, and the spikes of the sentries' helmets.
+Videttes, vaguely silhouetted on distant knolls, stood almost
+motionless, save for the tossing of their horses' heads. Along
+the river Lisse the infantry pickets lay, the sentinels,
+patrolling their beats with brisk, firm steps, only pausing to
+bring their heavy heels together, wheel squarely, and retrace
+their steps, always alert and sturdy. The wind shifted to the
+west and the faint chimes of Saint-Lys came quavering on the
+breeze.
+
+"The bells!" said Jack; "can you hear them?"
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine, listlessly.
+
+She had been very silent during their dinner. He wondered that
+she had not shown any emotion at the sight of the invading
+soldiers. She had not--she had scarcely even shown curiosity. He
+thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this
+swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and
+the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated,
+at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen,
+trampling the meadows of the province that he loved--the province
+of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know
+two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the
+new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of
+those whom she has sheltered.
+
+So Jack felt the shame and humiliation as though a blow had been
+struck at his own home and kin, and he suffered the more thinking
+what his uncle must suffer. And Lorraine! His heart had bled for
+her when the harsh treble of the little, flat Prussian drums
+first broke out among the hills. He looked for the deep sorrow,
+the patience, the proud endurance, the prouder faith that he
+expected in her; he met with silence, even a distrait indifference.
+
+Surely she could comprehend what this crushing disaster
+prophesied for France? Surely she of all women, sensitive,
+tender, and loyal, must know what love of kin and country meant?
+
+Far away in the southwest the great heart of Paris throbbed in
+silence, for the beautiful, sinful city, confused by the din of
+the riffraff within her walls, blinded by lies and selfish
+counsels, crouched in mute agony, listening for the first ominous
+rumbling of a rotten, tottering Empire.
+
+God alone knows why he gave to France, in the supreme moment of
+her need, the beings who filled heaven with the wind of their
+lungs and brought her to her knees in shame--not for brave men
+dead in vain, not for a wasted land, scourged and flame-shrunken
+from the Rhine to the Loire, not for provinces lost nor cities
+gone forever--but for the strange creatures that her agony
+brought forth, shapes simian and weird, all mouth and convulsive
+movement, little pigmy abortions mouthing and playing antics
+before high Heaven while the land ran blood in every furrow and
+the world was a hell of flame.
+
+Gambetta, that incubus of bombastic flabbiness, roaring prophecy
+and platitude through the dismayed city, kept his eye on the
+balcony of the particular edifice where, later, he should pose as
+an animated Jericho trumpet. So, biding his time, he bellowed,
+but it was the Comédie Française that was the loser, not the
+people, when he sailed away in his balloon, posed, squatting
+majestically as the god of war above the clouds of battle. And
+little Thiers, furtive, timid, delighting in senile efforts to
+stir the ferment of chaos till it boiled, he, too, was there,
+owl-like, squeaky-voiced, a true "Bombyx à Lunettes." There, too,
+was Hugo--often ridiculous in his terrible moods, egotistical,
+sloppy, roaring. The Empire pinched Hugo, and he roared; and let
+the rest of the world judge whether, under such circumstances,
+there was majesty in the roar. The spectacle of Hugo, prancing on
+the ramparts and hurling bad names at the German armies, recalls
+the persistent but painful manoeuvres of a lion with a flea. Both
+are terribly in earnest--neither is sublime.
+
+Jack sat leaning on the window-ledge, his chin on both hands,
+watching the moonlight rippling across the sea of steel below.
+Lorraine, also silent, buried in an arm-chair, lay huddled
+somewhere in the shadows, looking up at the stars, scarcely
+visible in the radiance of the moon.
+
+After a while she spoke in a low voice: "Do you remember in
+chapel a week ago--what--"
+
+"Yes, I know what you mean. Can you say it--any of it?"
+
+"Yes, all."
+
+Presently he heard her voice in the darkness repeating the
+splendid lines:
+
+"'In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and
+the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease
+because they are few, and they that look out of the windows be
+darkened.
+
+"'And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of
+the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a
+bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.
+
+"'Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall
+be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the
+grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.
+
+"'Because man goeth to his long home--'"
+
+Her voice broke a little.
+
+"'And the mourners go about the streets--'"
+
+He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a
+moment her fingers touched his, moved a little, and were clasped
+close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too
+deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression--a despair
+scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by
+realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first
+outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched
+hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved.
+Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and
+interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body.
+Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but
+not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as
+yet by the keen shaft of grief.
+
+He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to
+understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him,
+perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised
+everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.
+
+Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped
+her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!"--so
+he waited, there alone in the darkness.
+
+The bells of Saint-Lys sounded again, scarcely vibrating in the
+still air; a bank of sombre cloud buried the moon, and put out
+the little stars one by one until the blackness of the night
+crept in, blotting out river and tree and hill, hiding the silent
+camp in fathomless shadow. He slept.
+
+When he awoke, slowly, confused and uncertain, he found her close
+to him, kneeling on the floor, her face on his knees. He touched
+her arm, fearfully, scarcely daring; he touched her hair, falling
+heavily over her face and shoulders and across his knees. Ah!
+but she was tired--her very soul was weary and sick; and she was
+too young to bear her trouble. Therefore she came back to him who
+had reached out his hand to her. She could not cry--she could
+only lie there and try to live through the bitterness of her
+solitude. For now she knew at last that she was alone on earth.
+The knowledge had come in a moment, it had come with the first
+trample of the Prussian horsemen; she knew that her love, given
+so wholly, so passionately, was nothing, had been nothing, to her
+father. He whom she lived for--was it possible that he could
+abandon her in such an hour? She had waited all day, all night;
+she said in her heart that he would come from his machines and
+his turret to be with her. Together they could have lived through
+the shame of the day--of the bitter days to come; together they
+could have suffered, knowing that they had each other to live
+for.
+
+But she could not face the Prussian scourge alone--she could not.
+These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of
+the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade,
+every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that
+her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world
+could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of
+invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it
+nobly, who could have bidden her hope and pray and wait--he sat
+in his turret turning little wheels while the whole land shook
+with the throes of invasion--their native land, Lorraine.
+
+The death-throes of a nation are felt by all the world. Bismarck
+placed a steel-clad hand upon the pulse of France, and knew
+Lorraine lay dying. Amputation would end all--Moltke had the
+apparatus ready; Bismarck, the great surgeon and greater
+executioner, sat with mailed hand on the pulse of France and
+waited.
+
+The girl, Lorraine, too, knew the crisis had come--sensitive
+prophetess in all that she held sacred! She had never prayed for
+the Emperor, but she always prayed for France when she asked
+forgiveness night and morning. At confession she had accused
+herself sometimes because she could not understand the deeper
+meaning of this daily prayer, but now she understood it; the
+fierce love for native soil that blazes up when that soil is
+stamped upon and spurned.
+
+All the devotion, all the tender adoration, that she had given her
+father turned now to bitter grief for this dear land of hers. It, at
+least, had been her mother, her comforter, her consolation; and
+there it lay before her--it called to her; she responded passionately,
+and gave it all her love. So she lay there in the dark, her hot face
+buried in her hands, close to one whom she needed and who needed her.
+
+He was too wise to speak or move; he loved her too much to touch
+again the hair, flung heavily across her face--to touch her
+flushed brow, her clasped hands, her slender body, delicate and
+warm, firm yet yielding. He waited for the tears to come. And
+when they fell, one by one, great, hot drops, they brought no
+relief until she told him all--all--her last and inmost hope and
+fear.
+
+Then when her white soul lay naked in all its innocence before
+him, and when the last word had been said, he raised her head
+and searched in her pure eyes for one message of love for
+himself.
+
+It was not there; and the last word had been said.
+
+And, even as he looked, holding her there almost in his arms, the
+Prussian trumpets clanged from the dim meadows and the drums
+thundered on the hills, and the invading army roused itself at
+the dawn of another day.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE STRETCHING OF NECKS
+
+
+For two days and nights the German army passed through Morteyn
+and Saint-Lys, on the march towards Metz. All day long the hills
+struck back the echoes of their flat brass drums, and shook with
+the shock of armed squadrons, tramping on into the west.
+Interminable trains of wagons creaked along the sandy Saint-Avold
+road; the whistle of the locomotive was heard again at Saint-Lys,
+where the Bavarians had established a base of supplies and were
+sending their endless, multicoloured trains puffing away towards
+Saarbrück for provisions and munitions of war that had arrived
+there from Cologne. Generals with their staffs, serious, civil
+fellows, with anxious, near-sighted eyes, stopped at the Château
+and were courteously endured, only to be replaced by others
+equally polite and serious. And regularly, after each batch left
+with their marching regiments, there came back to the Château by
+courier, the same evening, a packet of visiting-cards and a
+polite letter signed by all the officers entertained, thanking
+the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn for their hospitality.
+
+At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the
+afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the
+hills west of Morteyn, and the last straggling Uhlan followed
+after, twirling his long lance.
+
+Every day Lorraine had watched and waited for one word from her
+father; every day Jack had ridden over to the Château de
+Nesville, but the marquis refused to see him or to listen to any
+message, nor did he send any to Lorraine.
+
+Old Pierre told Jack that no Germans had visited the Château;
+that the marquis was busy all day with his machinery, and never
+left his turret except to eat at daylight in the grand salon
+below. He also intimated that his master was about ready to make
+another ascension in the new balloon, which, old Pierre affirmed,
+had a revolving screw at either side of the wicker car, like a
+ship; and, like a ship, it could be steered with perfect ease. He
+even took Jack to a little stone structure that stood in a
+meadow, surrounded by trees. In there, according to Pierre, stood
+this marvellous balloon, not yet inflated, of course. That was
+only a matter of five seconds; a handful of the silver dust
+placed at the aperture of the silken bag, a drop of pure water
+touched to it, and, puff! the silver dust turns to vapour and the
+balloon swells out tight and full.
+
+Jack had peeped into the barred window and had seen the wicker
+car of the balloon standing on the cement floor, filled with the
+folded silken covering for the globe of the balloon. He could
+just make out, on either side of the car, two twisted twin
+screws, wrought out of some dull oxidized metal. On returning to
+Morteyn that evening he had told Lorraine.
+
+She explained that the screws were made of a metal called
+aluminum, rare then, because so difficult to extract from its
+combining substances, and almost useless on account of its being
+impossible to weld. Her father, however, had found a way to
+utilize it--how, she did not know. If this ascension proved a
+success the French government would receive the balloon and the
+secret of the steering and propelling gear, along with the
+formula for the silvery dust used to inflate it. Even she
+understood what a terrible engine of war such an aërial ship
+might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after
+fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies
+could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before
+a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from the clouds.
+
+On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left
+Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the
+marquis--for Lorraine's sake.
+
+He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was
+disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned
+lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.
+
+"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't
+worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working
+for France."
+
+He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long
+as she lived. He said, too, that the marquis was labouring for
+France. So he was; but France would never see the terrible war
+engine, nor know the secrets of its management, as long as
+Napoleon III. was struggling to keep his family in the high
+places of France.
+
+"Good-by," he said again. "I shall be back by sundown."
+
+Lorraine leaned over the terrace, looking down at him with blue,
+fathomless eyes.
+
+"By sundown?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Truly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tiens ta Foy."
+
+"Always, Lorraine."
+
+She did not chide him; she longed to call him Jack, but it stuck
+in her white throat when she tried.
+
+"If you do not come back by sundown, then I shall know you
+cannot," she said.
+
+"But I shall."
+
+"Yes, I believe it."
+
+"Come after me if I don't return," he laughed, as he descended
+the steps.
+
+"I shall, if you break your faith," she smiled.
+
+She watched him out of sight--he was going on foot this
+time--then the trees hid him, and she turned back into the house,
+where Madame de Morteyn was preparing to close the Château for
+the winter and return to Paris.
+
+It was the old vicomte who had decided; he had stayed and faced
+the music as long as there was any to face--Prussian music, too.
+But now the Prussians had passed on towards Metz--towards Paris,
+also, perhaps, and he wished to be there; it was too sad in the
+autumn of Lorraine.
+
+He had aged fearfully in the last four days; he was in truth an old
+man now. Even he knew it--he who had never before acknowledged age;
+but he felt it at night; for it is when day is ended that the old
+comprehend how old they are.
+
+This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning
+Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to
+Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people
+once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and
+surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and
+return to Morteyn with one servant. This he had promised
+Lorraine, and she had not said no. His aunt also wished it, but
+she did not think it time yet to tell the vicomte.
+
+The servants, with the exception of one maid and the coachman,
+had gone in the morning, by way of Vigny, with the luggage. The
+vicomte and his wife were to travel by carriage to Passy-le-Sel,
+and from there, via Belfort, if the line were open, to Paris by
+rail. Jack, it had been arranged, was to ride to Belfort on
+horseback, and join the old people there for the journey to
+Paris.
+
+So Lorraine turned back into the silent house, where the
+furniture stood in its stiff, white dust-coverings, where cloths
+covered candelabra and mirror, and the piano was bare of
+embroidered scarfs.
+
+She passed through darkened rooms, one after another, through the
+long hall, where no servants remained, through the ballroom and
+dining-room, and out into the conservatory, emptied of every
+palm. She passed on across the interior court, through the
+servants' wicket, and out to the stables. All the stalls save one
+were empty. Faust stood in that one stall switching his tail and
+peering around at her with wise, dark eyes. Then she kissed his
+soft nose, and went sadly back to the house, only to roam over it
+again from terrace to roof, never meeting a living soul, never
+hearing a sound except when she passed the vicomte's suite, where
+Madame de Morteyn and the maid were arranging last details and
+the old vicomte lay asleep in his worn arm-chair.
+
+There was one room she had not visited, one room in which she had
+never set foot, never even peeped into. That was Jack's room. And
+now, by an impulse she could not understand, her little feet led
+her up the stairway, across the broad landing, through the
+gun-room, and there to the door--his door. It was open. She
+glided in.
+
+There was a faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather,
+too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or
+perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle.
+Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes,
+cigar-boxes, neckties, riding-crops, and gloves.
+
+She stole on tiptoe to the bed, looked at her wide, bright eyes
+in the mirror opposite, flushed, hesitated, bent swiftly, and
+touched the white pillow with her lips.
+
+For a second she knelt there where he might have knelt, morning
+and evening, then slipped to her feet, turned, and was gone.
+
+At sundown Jack returned, animated, face faintly touched with red
+from his three-mile walk. He had seen the marquis; more, too, he
+had seen the balloon--he had examined it, stood in the wicker
+car, tested the aluminum screws. He brought back a message for
+Lorraine, affectionate and kindly, asking for her return home
+early the next morning.
+
+"If we do not find you at Belfort to-morrow," said Madame de
+Morteyn, seriously, "we shall not wait. We shall go straight on
+to Paris. The house is ready to be locked, everything is in
+perfect order, and really, Jack, there is no necessity for your
+coming. Perhaps Lorraine's father may ask you to stay there for a
+few days."
+
+"He has," said Jack, growing a trifle pink.
+
+"Then you need not come to Belfort at all," insisted his aunt.
+Jack protested that he could not let them go to Paris alone.
+
+"But I've sent Faust on already," said Madame de Morteyn,
+smiling.
+
+"Then the Marquis de Nesville will lend me a horse; you can't
+keep me away like that," said Jack; "I will drive Mademoiselle de
+Nesville to her home and then come on horseback and meet you at
+Belfort, as I said I would."
+
+"We won't count on you," said his aunt; "if you're not there when
+the train comes, your uncle and I will abandon you to the mercy
+of Lorraine."
+
+"I shall send him on by freight," said Lorraine, trying to smile.
+
+"I'm going back to the Château de Nesville to-night for an hour
+or two," observed Jack, finishing his Moselle; "the marquis
+wanted me to help him on the last touches. He makes an ascent
+to-morrow noon."
+
+"Take a lantern, then," said Madame de Morteyn; "don't you want
+Jules, too--if you're going on foot through the forest?"
+
+"Don't want Jules, and the squirrels won't eat me," laughed Jack,
+looking across at Lorraine. He was thinking of that first dash in
+the night together, she riding with the fury of a storm-witch,
+her ball-gown in ribbons, her splendid hair flashing, he
+galloping at her stirrup, putting his horse at a dark figure that
+rose in their path; and then the collision, the trample, the
+shots in the dark, and her round white shoulder seared with the
+bullet mark.
+
+She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going
+to start.
+
+"Now," he said.
+
+"You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de
+Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her
+chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with
+Lorraine.
+
+Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised
+Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.
+
+"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.
+
+"Always, Lorraine."
+
+The night was starless. As he stood there on the terrace swinging
+his lantern, he looked back at her, up into her eyes. And as he
+looked she bent down, impulsively stretching out both arms and
+whispering, "At eleven--you have promised, Jack."
+
+At last his name had fallen from her lips--had slipped from them
+easily--sweet as the lips that breathed it.
+
+He tried to answer; he could not, for his heart beat in his
+throat. But he took her two hands and crushed them together and
+kissed the soft, warm palms, passive under his lips. That was
+all--a touch, a glimpse of his face half lit by the lantern
+swinging; and again she called, softly, "Jack, 'Tiens ta Foy!'"
+And he was gone.
+
+The distance to the Château de Nesville was three miles; it might
+have been three feet for all Jack knew, moving through the
+forest, swinging his lantern, his eyes on the dim trees towering
+into the blackness overhead, his mind on Lorraine. Where the
+lantern-light fell athwart rugged trunks, he saw her face; where
+the tall shadows wavered and shook, her eyes met his. Her voice
+was in the forest rumour, the low rustle of leafy undergrowth,
+the whisper of waters flowing under silent leaves.
+
+Already the gray wall of the park loomed up in the east, already
+the gables and single turret of the Château grew from the shadows
+and took form between the meshed branches of the trees.
+
+The grille swung wide open, but the porter was not there. He
+walked on, hastening a little, crossed the lawn by the summer
+arbour, and approached the house. There was a light in the
+turret, but the rest of the house was dark. As he reached the
+porch and looked into the black hallway, a slight noise in the
+dining-room fell upon his ear, and he opened the door and went
+in. The dining-room was dark; he set his extinguished lantern on
+the table and lighted a lamp by the window, saying: "Pierre, tell
+the marquis I am here--tell him I am to return to Morteyn by
+eleven--Pierre, do you hear me? Where are you, then?"
+
+He raised his head instinctively, his hand on the lamp-globe.
+Pierre was not there, but something moved in the darkness outside
+the window, and he went to the door.
+
+"Pierre!" he called again; and at the same instant an Uhlan
+struck him with his lance-butt across the temples.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+How long it was before he opened his eyes he could not tell. He
+found himself lying on the ground in a meadow surrounded by
+trees. A camp-fire flickered near, lighting the gray side of the
+little stone house where the balloon was kept.
+
+There were sounds--deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or
+threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing,
+crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt
+button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished schapskas and
+gold-scaled chin-guards. The knot of struggling figures suddenly
+widened out into a half-circle, then came a quick command, a cry
+in French--"Ah! God!"--and something shot up into the air and
+hung from a tree, dangling, full in the firelight.
+
+It was the writhing body of a man.
+
+Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands.
+Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat,
+leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.
+
+Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: "Links! vorwärts!" There
+came a regular tramp of feet--one, two! one, two!--across the
+grass, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in
+his arms.
+
+The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he
+saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right--tall
+Uhlans, buttoned to the chin in their sombre overcoats,
+helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.
+
+Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a
+second or two before he even heard him.
+
+"Prisoner, do you understand German?" repeated the Uhlan,
+harshly.
+
+"Yes," muttered Jack. He began to shiver, perhaps from the chill
+of the wet earth.
+
+"Stand up!"
+
+Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his
+eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the
+man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to
+that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling
+oak-branch at the edge of the grove.
+
+Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name pronounced;
+he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispassionate
+voice--"accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian
+Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully,
+maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded
+trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty."
+
+Again he heard the same voice: "The law of non-combatants
+operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty
+due."
+
+Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now
+he knew him--the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who
+had scaled the park wall with the box--that was the face he had
+struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face,
+with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the
+man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in
+pencil on the maps--Siurd von Steyr!
+
+Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted
+to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispassionate and
+harsh as ever when he said: "The prisoner Marche is at liberty to
+confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!"
+
+There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled
+into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with
+trailing spurs across the road to the tree.
+
+From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his
+name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of
+tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-glasses told
+him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the
+hill-side.
+
+One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks,
+saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.
+
+"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr.
+
+Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was
+choking. Everything around him swam in darkness--a darkness lit
+by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their
+midst now, shouldered and shoved across the grass; their hot
+breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back
+his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree
+where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a
+swivel.
+
+It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the
+first cry out of him: "Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of God!
+Not--not this--"
+
+He was struggling now--he set his teeth and struck furiously. The
+crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man
+in their midst--more mounted men, shouting.
+
+The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in
+his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his
+fingers between the noose and his neck; now the thing loosened
+and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.
+
+"Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr!--here! get
+back there!--get back!"
+
+"Rickerl!" gasped Jack--"tell--tell them--they must shoot--not
+hang--"
+
+He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and
+distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless,
+haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the
+noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up,
+lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive
+horses wheeled.
+
+And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face
+like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car,
+which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.
+
+"This is not the place nor is this the time to judge your
+prisoners," said Rickerl, pushing his horse up to Von Steyr and
+scowling down into his face. "Who called this drum-head court? Is
+that your province? Oh, in my absence? Well, then, I am here! Do
+you see me?"
+
+The insult fell like the sting of a lash across Von Steyr's face.
+He saluted, and, looking straight into Rickerl's eyes, said, "Zum
+Befehl, Herr Hauptmann! I am at your convenience also."
+
+"When you please!" shouted Rickerl, crimson with fury. "Retire!"
+
+Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed
+his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a
+groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his
+hands to his head, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn
+gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as
+a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above
+his head. Then, through the ring of nervous, quivering horses the
+globe of the balloon appeared as by magic--an enormous, looming,
+yellow sphere, tense, glistening, gigantic.
+
+The horses reared, snorting with fright, the Uhlans clung to
+their saddles, shouting and cursing, and the huge balloon,
+swaying from its single rope, pounded and bounced from side to
+side, knocking beast and man into a chaotic mass of frantic
+horses and panic-stricken riders.
+
+With a report like a pistol the rope parted, the great globe
+bounded and shot up into the air; a tumult of harsh shouts arose;
+the crazed horses backed, plunged, and scattered, some falling,
+some bolting into the undergrowth, some rearing and swaying in an
+ecstasy of terror.
+
+The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long
+lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the
+banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the
+forest, drifting slowly westward.
+
+And now Von Steyr had a weapon in his hands--not a carbine, but a
+long chassepot-rifle, a relic of the despoiled franc-tireur,
+dangling from the oak-tree.
+
+Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!"
+
+"Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!"
+
+The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.
+
+The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest was belted by a blue
+line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in
+the sky. Then far away a light report startled the sudden
+stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall,
+swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and
+earth.
+
+"You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand
+at Von Steyr.
+
+"God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his
+teeth.
+
+Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.
+
+"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.
+
+Von Steyr stared around him, right and left--Jack was gone.
+
+"Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously--"if
+you escape my sabre in the morning."
+
+"Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked
+convulsively.
+
+"Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he
+cried. "Open order! Forward!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+RICKERL'S SABRE
+
+
+Jack, lying full length in the depths of the forest, listened
+fearfully for the sounds of the human pack on his heels. The
+blackness was stupefying; the thud of his own heart seemed to
+fill the shrouded forest like the roll of a muffled drum.
+Presently he crept on again, noiselessly, painfully, closing his
+eyes when the invisible twigs brushed his face.
+
+He did not know where he was going, he only thought of getting
+away, anywhere--away from that hangman's rope.
+
+Again he rested, suffocated by the tumult in his breast, burning
+with thirst. For a long while he lay listening; there was not a
+sound in the night. Little by little his coolness returned; he
+thought of Lorraine and his promise, and he knew that now he
+could not keep it. He thought, too, of the marquis, never
+doubting the terrible fate of the half-crazed man. He had seen
+him stun the soldier with a blow of the steel box, he had seen
+the balloon shoot up into the midnight sky, he had heard the shot
+and caught a glimpse of the glare of the burning balloon.
+Somewhere in the forest the battered body of the marquis lay in
+the wreck of the shattered car. The steel box, too, lay
+there--the box that was so precious to the Germans.
+
+He rose to his knees, felt around among the underbrush, bent his
+head and crept on, parting leaves and branches with one hand,
+holding the other over his eyes. The thought that he might be
+moving in a circle filled him with fear. But that was exactly
+what he was doing, for now he found himself close to the park
+wall; and, listening, he heard the river murmuring among the
+alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again
+could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True,
+he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was
+nothing but a reprieve at best.
+
+The murmur of the river filled his ears; his hot throat was
+cracking. Drink he must, at any rate, and he started on in the
+darkness, moving stealthily over the moss. The water was closer
+than he had imagined; he bent above it, first touching it with
+groping hands, then noiselessly bathed his feverish face in the
+dark stream, drinking his fill.
+
+He longed to follow the shallow stream, wading to Morteyn, but he
+dared not risk it; so he went along the bank as far as he could,
+trying to keep within sound of the waters, until again he found
+himself close to the park wall. The stream had vanished again.
+
+Dawn began to gray the forest; little by little the nearest trees
+grew from the darkness, and bushes took vague shapes in the
+gloom. He strained his eyes, peering at every object near him,
+striving to recognize stones, saplings, but he could not. Even
+when dawn at last came up out of the east, and the thickets grew
+distinct, he did not know where he was. A line of vapour through
+the trees marked the course of the little river. Which way was
+it flowing? Even that he could not tell. He looked in vain for
+the park wall; that had vanished utterly with the dawn. Very
+cautiously he advanced over the deep forest mould to the
+willow-fringed bank of the stream. The current was flowing east.
+Where was he? He parted the willows and looked out, and at the
+same instant an Uhlan saw him and shouted.
+
+Running swiftly through the trees, head lowered, hands clenched,
+he heard the sound of galloping on a soft road that seemed to run
+through the forest, parallel to his own course. Then, as he bore
+hastily to the right and plunged into the deeper undergrowth, he
+caught a glimpse of the Château close by through the trees.
+Horrified to find himself back at the place from which he had
+started, he doubled in his tracks, ran on, stooping low, splashed
+into the stream and across, and plunged up to the shoulders
+through the tall weeds and bushes until again he felt the forest
+leaves beneath his feet.
+
+The sudden silence around him was disconcerting. Where had the
+Uhlan gone? He ran on, making straight for the depths of the
+woods, for he knew now where he was, and in which direction
+safety lay.
+
+After a while his breath and legs gave out together, and he
+leaned against a beech-tree, his hands pressed to his mouth,
+where the breath struggled for expulsion. And, as he leaned
+there, two Uhlans, mounted, lances advanced, came picking their
+way among the trees, turning their heads cautiously from side to
+side. Behind these two rode six others, apparently unarmed, two
+abreast. He saw at once that nothing could save him, for they
+were making straight for his beech-tree. In that second of
+suspense he made up his mind to die fighting, for he knew what
+capture meant. He fixed his eyes on the foremost Uhlan, and
+waited. When the Uhlan should pass his tree he would fly at him;
+the rest could stab him to death with their lances--that was the
+only way to end it now.
+
+He shrank back, teeth set, nerving himself for the spring--a
+hunted thing turned fierce, a desperate man knowing that death
+was close. How long they were in coming! Had they seen him? When
+would the horse's nose pass the great tree-trunk?
+
+"Halt!" cried a voice very near. The soft trample of horses
+ceased.
+
+"Dismount!"
+
+It seemed an age; the sluggish seconds crawled on. There was the
+sound of feet among the dry forest leaves--the hum of deep
+voices. He waited, trembling, for now it would be a man on foot
+with naked sabre who should sink under his spring. Would he never
+come?
+
+At last, unable to stand the suspense, he moved his eyes to the
+edge of the tree. There they were, a group of Uhlans standing
+near two men who stood facing each other, jackets off, shirts
+open to the throat.
+
+The two men were Rickerl and Von Steyr.
+
+Rickerl rolled up his white shirt-sleeve and tucked the cuff into
+the folds, his naked sabre under his arm. Von Steyr, in shirt,
+riding-breeches, and boots, stood with one leg crossed before the
+other, leaning on his bared sabre. The surgeon and the two
+seconds walked apart, speaking in undertones, with now and then a
+quick gesture from the surgeon. The three troopers held the
+horses of the party, and watched silently. When at last one of
+the Uhlans spoke, they were so near that every word was perfectly
+distinct to Jack:
+
+"Gentlemen, an affair of honour in the face of the enemy is
+always deplorable."
+
+Rickerl burst out violently. "There can be no compromise--no
+adjustment. Is it Lieutenant von Steyr who seeks it? Then I tell
+him he is a hangman and a coward! He hangs a franc-tireur who
+fires on us with explosive bullets, but he himself does not
+hesitate to disgrace his uniform and regiment by firing explosive
+bullets at an escaping wretch in a balloon!"
+
+"You lie!" said Von Steyr, his face convulsed. At the same moment
+the surgeon stepped forward with a gesture, the two seconds
+placed themselves; somebody muttered a formula in a gross bass
+voice and the swordsmen raised their heavy sabres and saluted.
+The next moment they were at it like tigers; their sabres flashed
+above their heads, the sabres of the seconds hovering around the
+outer edge of the circle of glimmering steel like snakes coiling
+to spring.
+
+To and fro swayed the little group under the blinding flashes of
+light, stroke rang on stroke, steel shivered and tinkled and
+clanged on steel.
+
+Fascinated by the spectacle, Jack crouched close to the tree,
+seeing all he dared to see, but keeping a sharp eye on the three
+Uhlans who were holding the horses, and who should have been
+doing sentry duty also. But they were human, and their eyes could
+not be dragged away from the terrible combat before them.
+
+Suddenly, from the woods to the right, a rifle-shot rang out,
+clear and sharp, and one of the Uhlans dropped the three bridles,
+straightened out to his full height, trembled, and lurched
+sideways. The horses, freed, backed into the other horses; the
+two remaining Uhlans tried to seize them, but another shot rang
+out--another, and then another. In the confusion and turmoil a
+voice cried: "Mount, for God's sake!" but one of the horses was
+already free, and was galloping away riderless through the woods.
+
+A terrible yell arose from the underbrush, where a belt of smoke
+hung above the bushes, and again the rifles cracked. Von Steyr
+turned and seized a horse, throwing himself heavily across the
+saddle; the surgeon and the two seconds scrambled into their
+saddles, and the remaining pair of Uhlans, already mounted,
+wheeled their horses and galloped headlong into the woods.
+
+Jack saw Rickerl set his foot in the stirrup, but his horse was
+restive and started, dragging him.
+
+"Hurry, Herr Hauptmann!" cried a Uhlan, passing him at a gallop.
+Rickerl cast a startled glance over his shoulder, where, from the
+thickets, a dozen franc-tireurs were springing towards him,
+shouting and shaking their chassepots. Something had given
+way--Jack saw that--for the horse started on at a trot, snorting
+with fright. He saw Rickerl run after him, seize the bridle,
+stumble, recover, and hang to the stirrup; but the horse tore
+away and left him running on behind, one hand grasping his naked
+sabre, one clutching a bit of the treacherous bridle.
+
+"À mort les Uhlans!" shouted the franc-tireurs, their ferocious
+faces lighting up as Rickerl's horse eluded its rider and crashed
+away through the saplings.
+
+Rickerl cast one swift glance at the savage faces, turned his
+head like a trapped wolf in a pit, hesitated, and started to run.
+A chorus of howls greeted him: "À mort!" "À mort le voleur!" "À
+la lanterne les Uhlans!"
+
+Scarcely conscious of what he was doing, Jack sprang from his
+tree and ran parallel to Rickerl.
+
+"Ricky!" he called in English--"follow me! Hurry! hurry!"
+
+The franc-tireurs could not see Jack, but they heard his voice,
+and answered it with a roar. Rickerl, too, heard it, and he also
+heard the sound of Jack's feet crashing through the willows along
+the river-bottom.
+
+"Jack!" he cried.
+
+"Quick! Take to the river-bank!" shouted Jack in English again.
+In a moment they were running side by side up the river-bottom,
+hidden from the view of the franc-tireurs.
+
+"Do as I do," panted Jack. "Throw your sabre away and follow me.
+It's our last chance." But Rickerl clung to his sabre and ran on.
+And now the park wall rose right in their path, seeming to block
+all progress.
+
+"We can't get over--it's ended," gasped Rickerl.
+
+"Yes, we can--follow," whispered Jack, and dashed straight into
+the river where it washed the base of the wall.
+
+"Do exactly as I do. Follow close," urged Jack; and, wading to the
+edge of the wall, he felt along under the water for a moment, then
+knelt down, ducked his head, gave a wriggle, and disappeared.
+Rickerl followed him, kneeling and ducking his head. At the same
+moment he felt a powerful current pulling him forward, and, groping
+around under the shallow water, his hands encountered the rim of a
+large iron conduit. He stuck his head into it, gave himself a push,
+and shot through the short pipe into a deep pool on the other side
+of the wall, from which Jack dragged him dripping and exhausted.
+
+"You are my prisoner!" said Jack, between his gasps. "Give me
+your sabre, Ricky--quick! Look yonder!" A loud explosion followed
+his words, and a column of smoke rose above the foliage of the
+vineyard before them.
+
+"Artillery!" blurted out Rickerl, in amazement.
+
+"French artillery--look out! Here come the franc-tireurs over the
+wall! Give me that sabre and run for the French lines--if you
+don't want to hang!" And, as Rickerl hesitated, with a scowl of
+hate at the franc-tireurs now swarming over the wall, Jack seized
+the sabre and jerked it violently from his hand.
+
+"You're crazy!" he muttered. "Run for the batteries!--here, this
+way!"
+
+A franc-tireur fired at them point-blank, and the bullet whistled
+between them. "Leave me. Give me my sabre," said Rickerl, in a
+low voice.
+
+"Then we'll both stay."
+
+"Leave me! I'll not hang, I tell you."
+
+"No."
+
+The franc-tireurs were running towards them.
+
+"They'll kill us both. Here they come!"
+
+"You stood by me--" said Jack, in a faint voice.
+
+Rickerl looked him in the eyes, hesitated, and cried, "I
+surrender! Come on! Hurry, Jack--for your sister's sake!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+SIR THORALD IS SILENT
+
+
+It was a long run to the foot of the vineyard hill, where, on the
+crest, deep hidden among the vines, three cannon clanged at
+regular intervals, stroke following stroke, like the thundering
+summons of a gigantic tocsin.
+
+Behind them they saw the franc-tireurs for a moment, thrashing
+waist-deep through the rank marsh weeds; then, as they plunged
+into a wheat-field, the landscape disappeared, and all around the
+yellow grain rustled, waving above their heads, dense, sun-heated,
+suffocating.
+
+Their shoes sank ankle-deep in the reddish-yellow soil; they
+panted, wet with perspiration as they ran. Jack still clutched
+Rickerl's sabre, and the tall corn, brushing the blade, fell
+under the edge, keen as a scythe.
+
+"I can go no farther," breathed Jack, at last. "Wait a moment,
+Ricky."
+
+The hot air in the depths of the wheat was stifling, and they
+stretched their heads above the sea of golden grain, gasping like
+fishes in a bowl.
+
+"Perhaps I won't have to surrender you, after all," said Jack.
+"Do you see that old straw-stack on the slope? If we could reach
+the other slope--"
+
+He held out his hand to gauge the exact direction, then bent
+again and plodded towards it, Rickerl jogging in his footprints.
+
+As they pressed on under the rustling canopy, the sound of the
+cannon receded, for they were skirting the vineyard at the base
+of the hill, bearing always towards the south. And now they came
+to the edge of the long field, beyond which stretched another
+patch of stubble. The straw-stack stood half-way up the slope.
+
+"Here's your sabre," motioned Jack. He was exhausted and reeled
+about in the stubble, but Rickerl passed one arm about him, and,
+sabre clutched in the other hand, aided him to the straw-stack.
+
+The fresh wind strengthened them both; the sweat cooled and dried
+on their throbbing faces. They leaned against the stack,
+breathing heavily, the breeze blowing their wet hair, the solemn
+cannon-din thrilling their ears, stroke on stroke.
+
+"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the
+smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard--"a brigade or two of
+Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy.
+Their rear-guard is making a stand--that's all. Jack, what on
+earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"
+
+Jack, panting full length in the shadow of the straw-stack, told
+Rickerl the whole wretched story, from the time of his leaving
+Forbach, after having sent the despatches to the _Herald_, up to
+the moment he had called to Rickerl there in the meadow,
+surrounded by Uhlans, a rope already choking him senseless.
+
+Rickerl listened impassively, playing with the sabre on his
+knees, glancing right and left across the country with his
+restless baby-blue eyes. When Jack finished he said nothing, but
+it was plain enough how seriously he viewed the matter.
+
+"As for your damned Uhlans," ended Jack, "I have tried to keep
+out of their way. It's a relief to me to know that I didn't kill
+that trooper; but--confound him!--he shot at me so enthusiastically
+that I thought it time to join the party myself. Ricky, would they
+have hanged me if they had given me a fair court-martial?"
+
+"As a favour they might have shot you," replied Rickerl,
+gloomily.
+
+"Then," said Jack, "there are two things left for me to do--go to
+Paris, which I can't unless Mademoiselle de Nesville goes, or
+join some franc-tireur corps and give the German army as good as
+they send. If you Uhlans think," he continued, violently, "that
+you're coming into France to hang and shoot and raise hell
+without getting hell in return, you're a pack of idiots!"
+
+"The war is none of your affair," said Rickerl, flushing. "You
+brought it on yourself--this hanging business. Good heavens! the
+whole thing makes me sick! I can't believe that two weeks ago we
+were all there together at Morteyn--"
+
+"A pretty return you're making for Morteyn hospitality!" blurted
+out Jack. Then, shocked at what he had said, he begged Rickerl's
+pardon and bitterly took himself to task.
+
+"I _am_ a fool, Ricky; I know you've got to follow your regiment,
+and I know it must cut you to the heart. Don't mind what I say;
+I'm so miserable and bewildered, and I haven't got the feeling
+of that rope off my neck yet."
+
+Rickerl raised his hand gently, but his face was hard set.
+
+"Jack, you don't begin to know what a hell I am living in, I who
+care so much for France and the French people, to know that all,
+all is ended forever, that I can never again--"
+
+His voice choked; he cleared it and went on: "The very name of
+Uhlan is held in horror in France now; the word Prussian is a
+curse when it falls from French lips. God knows why we are
+fighting! We Germans obey, that is all. I am a captain in a
+Prussian cavalry regiment; the call comes, that is all that I
+know. And here I am, riding through the land I love; I sit on my
+horse and see the torch touched to field and barn; I see
+railroads torn out of the ground, I see wretched peasants hung to
+the rafters of their own cottages." He lowered his voice; his
+face grew paler. "I see the friend I care most for in all the
+world, a rope around his neck, my own troopers dragging him to
+the vilest death a man can die! That is war! Why? I am a
+Prussian, it is not necessary for me to know; but the regiment
+moves, and I move! it halts, I halt! it charges, retreats, burns,
+tramples, rends, devastates! I am always with it, unless some
+bullet settles me. For this war is nearly ended, Jack, nearly
+ended--a battle or two, a siege or two, nothing more. What can
+stand against us? Not this bewildered France."
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+Rickerl's blue eyes sought his; he rested his square chin on one
+hand and spoke again:
+
+"Jack, do you know that--that I love your sister?"
+
+"Her last letter said as much," replied Jack, coldly.
+
+Rickerl watched his face.
+
+"You are sorry?"
+
+"I don't know; I had hoped she would marry an American. Have you
+spoken?"
+
+"Yes." This was a chivalrous falsehood; it was Dorothy who had
+spoken first, there in the gravel drive as he rode away from
+Morteyn.
+
+Jack glanced at him angrily.
+
+"It was not honourable," he said; "my aunt's permission should
+have been asked, as you know; also, incidentally, my own.
+Does--does Dorothy care for you? Oh, you need not answer that; I
+think she does. Well, this war may change things."
+
+"Yes," said Rickerl, sadly.
+
+"I don't mean that," cried Jack; "Heaven knows I wouldn't have
+you hurt, Ricky; don't think I meant that--"
+
+"I don't," said Rickerl, half smiling; "you risked your skin to
+save me half an hour ago."
+
+"And you called off your bloody pack of hangmen for me," said
+Jack; "I'm devilish grateful, Ricky--indeed I am--and you know
+I'd be glad to have you in the family if--if it wasn't for this
+cursed war. Never mind, Dorothy generally has what she wants,
+even if it's--"
+
+"Even if it's an Uhlan?" suggested Rickerl, gravely.
+
+Jack smiled and laid his hand on Rickerl's arm.
+
+"She ought to see you now, bareheaded, dusty, in your
+shirt-sleeves! You're not much like the attaché at the
+Diplomatic ball--eh, Ricky? If you marry Dorothy I'll punch your
+head. Come on, we've got to find out where we are."
+
+"That's my road," observed Rickerl, quietly, pointing across the
+fields.
+
+"Where? Why?"
+
+"Don't you see?"
+
+Jack searched the distant landscape in vain.
+
+"No, are the Germans there? Oh, now I see. Why, it's a squadron
+of your cursed Uhlans!"
+
+"Yes," said Rickerl, mildly.
+
+"Then they've been chased out of the Château de Nesville!"
+
+"Probably. They may come back. Jack, can't you get out of this
+country?"
+
+"Perhaps," replied Jack, soberly. He thought of Lorraine, of the
+marquis lying mangled and dead in the forest beside the fragments
+of his balloon.
+
+"Your Lieutenant von Steyr is a dirty butcher," he said. "I hope
+you'll finish him when you find him."
+
+"He fired explosive bullets, which your franc-tireurs use on us,"
+retorted Rickerl, growing red.
+
+"Oh," cried Jack in disgust, "the whole business makes me sick!
+Ricky, give me your hand--there! Don't let this war end our
+friendship. Go to your Uhlans now. As for me, I must get back to
+Morteyn. What Lorraine will do, where she can go, how she will
+stand this ghastly news, I don't know; and I wish there was
+somebody else to tell her. My uncle and aunt have already gone to
+Paris, they said they would not wait for me. Lorraine is at
+Morteyn, alone except for her maid, and she is probably
+frightened at my not returning as I promised. Do you think you
+can get to your Uhlans safely? They passed into the grove beyond
+the hills. What the mischief are those cannon shelling, anyway?
+Well, good-by! Better not come up the hill with me, or you'll
+have to part with your sabre for good. We did lose our franc-tireur
+friends beautifully. I'll write Dorothy; I'll tell her that I
+captured you, sabre and all. Good-by! Good-by, old fellow! If
+you'll promise not to get a bullet in your blond hide I'll promise
+to be a brother-in-law to you!"
+
+Rickerl looked very manly as he stood there, booted, bareheaded,
+his thin shirt, soaked with sweat, outlining his muscular figure.
+
+They lingered a moment, hands closely clasped, looking gravely
+into each other's faces. Then, with a gesture, half sad, half
+friendly, Rickerl started across the stubble towards the distant
+grove where his Uhlans had taken cover.
+
+Jack watched him until his white shirt became a speck, a dot, and
+finally vanished among the trees on the blue hill. When he was
+gone, Jack turned sharply away and climbed the furze-covered
+slope from whence he hoped to see the cannon, now firing only at
+five-minute intervals. As he toiled up the incline he carefully
+kept himself under cover, for he had no desire to meet any lurking
+franc-tireurs. It is true that, even when the franc-tireurs had
+been closest, there in the swamp among the rank marsh grasses, the
+distance was too great for them to have identified him with certainty.
+But he thought it best to keep out of their way until within hail of
+the regular troops, so he took advantage of bushes and inequalities
+of the slope to reconnoitre the landscape before he reached the
+summit of the ridge. There was a tufted thicket of yellow broom in
+flower on the crest of the ridge; behind this he lay and looked out
+across the plain.
+
+A little valley separated this hill from the vineyard, terraced
+up to the north, ridge upon ridge. The cannon smoke shot up from
+the thickets of vines, rose, and drifted to the west, blotting
+out the greater portion of the vineyard. The cannon themselves
+were invisible. At times Jack fancied he saw a human silhouette
+when the white smoke rushed outward, but the spectral vines
+loomed up everywhere through the dense cannon-fog and he could
+not be sure.
+
+However, there were plenty of troops below the hill now--infantry
+of the line trudging along the dusty road in fairly good order,
+and below the vineyard, among the uncut fields of flax, more
+infantry crouched, probably supporting the three-gun battery on
+the hill.
+
+At that distance he could not tell a franc-tireur from any
+regular foot-soldier except line-infantry; their red caps and
+trousers were never to be mistaken. As he looked, he wondered at
+a nation that clothed its troops in a colour that furnished such
+a fearfully distinct mark to the enemy. A French army, moving,
+cannot conceal itself; the red of trousers and caps, the
+mirror-like reflections of cuirass and casque and lance-tip,
+advertise the presence of French troops so persistently that an
+enemy need never fear any open landscape by daylight.
+
+Jack watched the cannonade, lying on his stomach, chin supported
+by both hands. He was perfectly cool now; he neither feared the
+Uhlans nor the franc-tireurs. For a while he vainly tried to
+comprehend the reason of the cannonade; the shells shot out
+across the valley in tall curves, dropping into a distant bit of
+hazy blue woodland, or exploded above the trees; the column of
+infantry below plodded doggedly southward; the infantry in the
+flax-field lay supine. Clearly something was interfering with the
+retreat of the troops--something that threatened them from those
+distant woods. And now he could see cavalry moving about the
+crest of the nearer hills, but, without his glass, it was not
+possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer
+forest that hid the Château de Nesville. Somewhere within those
+sombre woods lay the dead marquis.
+
+With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine,
+passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger
+had made him faint; his head grew dizzy.
+
+"It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the
+hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he
+walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed
+it to dull his hunger. The raw place on his neck, where the rope
+had chafed, stung when the perspiration started. He moved quickly
+but warily, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. Once he passed
+a miniature vineyard, heavy with white-wine grapes; and, as he
+threaded a silent path among the vines, he ate his fill and
+slaked his thirst with the cool amber fruit. He had reached the
+edge of the little vineyard, and was about to cross a tangle of
+briers and stubble, when something caught his eye in the thicket;
+it was a man's face--and he stopped.
+
+For a minute they stared at each other, making no movement, no
+sound.
+
+"Sir Thorald!"--faltered Jack.
+
+But Sir Thorald Hesketh could not speak, for he had a bullet
+through his lungs.
+
+As Jack sprang into the brier tangle towards him, a slim figure
+in the black garments of the Sisters of Mercy rose from Sir
+Thorald's side. He saw the white cross on her breast, he saw the
+white face above it and the whiter lips.
+
+It was Alixe von Elster.
+
+At the same instant the road in front was filled with French
+infantry, running.
+
+Alixe caught his arm, her head turned towards the road where the
+infantry were crowding past at double-quick, enveloped in a
+whirling torrent of red dust.
+
+"There is a cart there," she said. "Oh, Jack, find it quickly!
+The driver is on the seat--and I can't leave Sir Thorald."
+
+In his amazement he stood hesitating, looking from the girl to
+Sir Thorald; but she drew him to the edge of the thicket and
+pointed to the road, crying, "Go! go!" and he stumbled down the
+pasture slope to the edge of the road.
+
+Past him plodded the red-legged infantry; he saw, through the
+whirlwind of dust, the vague outlines of a tumbril and horse
+standing below in the ditch, and he ran along the grassy
+depression towards the vehicle. And now he saw the driver,
+kneeling in the cart, his blue blouse a mass of blood, his
+discoloured face staring out at the passing troops.
+
+As he seized the horse's head and started up the slope again,
+firing broke out among the thickets close at hand; the infantry
+swung out to the west in a long sagging line; the chassepots
+began banging right and left. For an instant he caught a glimpse
+of cavalry riding hard across a bit of stubble--Uhlans he saw at
+a glance--then the smoke hid them. But in that brief instant he
+had seen, among the galloping cavalrymen, a mounted figure,
+bareheaded, wearing a white shirt, and he knew that Rickerl was
+riding for his life.
+
+Sick at heart he peered into the straight, low rampart of smoke;
+he watched the spirts of rifle-flame piercing it; he saw it turn
+blacker when a cannon bellowed in the increasing din. The
+infantry were lying down out there in the meadow; shadowy gray
+forms passed, repassed, reeled, ran, dropped, and rose again.
+Close at hand a long line of men lay flat on their bellies in the
+wheat stubble. When each rifle spoke the smoke rippled through
+the short wheat stalks or eddied and curled over the ground like
+the gray foam of an outrushing surf.
+
+He backed the horse and heavy cart, turned both, half blinded by
+the rifle-smoke, and started up the incline. Two bullets,
+speeding over the clover like singing bees, rang loudly on the
+iron-bound cartwheels; the horse plunged and swerved, dragging
+Jack with him, and the dead figure, kneeling in the cart, tumbled
+over the tail-board with a grotesque wave of its stiffening
+limbs. There it lay, sprawling in an impossible posture in the
+ditch. A startled grasshopper alighted on its face, turned
+around, crawled to the ear, and sat there.
+
+And now the volley firing grew to a sustained crackle, through
+which the single cannon boomed and boomed, hidden in the surging
+smoke that rolled in waves, sinking, rising, like the waves of a
+wind-whipped sea.
+
+"Where are you, Alixe?" he shouted.
+
+"Here! Hurry!"
+
+She stood on the edge of the brier tangle as he laboured up the
+slope with the horse and cart. Sir Thorald's breathing was
+horrible to hear when they stooped and lifted him; Alixe was
+crying. They laid him on the blood-soaked straw; Alixe crept in
+beside him and took his head on her knees.
+
+"To Morteyn?" whispered Jack. "Perhaps we can find a surgeon
+nearer--"
+
+"Oh, hurry!" she sobbed; and he climbed heavily to the seat and
+started back towards the road.
+
+The road was empty where he turned in out of the fields, but,
+just above, he heard cannon thundering in the mist. As he drew in
+the reins, undecided, the cannonade suddenly redoubled in fury;
+the infantry fire blazed out with a new violence; above the
+terrific blast he heard trumpets sounding, and beneath it he felt
+the vibration of the earth; horses were neighing out beyond the
+smoke; a thousand voices rose in a far, hoarse shout:
+
+"Hurrah! Preussen!"
+
+The Prussian cavalry were charging the cannon.
+
+Suddenly he heard them close at hand; they loomed everywhere in
+the smoke, they were among the infantry, among the cannoneers; a
+tall rider in silver helmet and armour plunged out into the road
+behind them, his horse staggered, trembled, then man and beast
+collapsed in a shower of bullets. Others were coming, too,
+galloping in through the grain stubble and thickets, shaking
+their long, straight sabres, but the infantry chased them, and
+fell upon them, clubbing, shooting, stabbing, pulling horses and
+men to earth. The cannon, which had ceased, began again; the
+infantry were cheering; trumpets blew persistently, faintly and
+more faintly. In the road a big, bearded man was crawling on his
+hands and knees away from a dead horse. His helmet fell off in
+the dust.
+
+Jack gathered the reins and called to the horse. As the heavy
+cart moved off, the ground began to tremble again with the shock
+of on-coming horses, and again, through the swelling tumult, he
+caught the cry--
+
+"Hurrah! Preussen!"
+
+The Prussian cuirassiers were coming back.
+
+"Is Sir Thorald dying?" he asked of Alixe; "can he live if I lash
+the horse?"
+
+"Look at him, Jack," she muttered.
+
+"I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You--you are
+wounded, are you? there--on the neck--"
+
+"It is his blood on my breast."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE WHITE CROSS
+
+
+At ten o'clock that night Jack stepped from the ballroom to the
+terrace of the Château Morteyn and listened to the distant murmur
+of the river Lisse, below the meadow. The day of horror had ended
+with a dozen dropping shots from the outposts, now lining the
+banks of the Lisse from the Château de Nesville to Morteyn. The
+French infantry had been pouring into Morteyn since late
+afternoon; they had entered the park when he entered, driving his
+tumbril with its blood-stained burden; they had turned the river
+into a moat, the meadow into an earthwork, the Château itself
+into a fortress.
+
+On the concrete terrace beside him a gatling-gun glimmered in the
+starlight; sentinels leaned on their elbows, sprawling across the
+parapets; shadowy ranks of sleeping men lay among the shrubbery
+below, white-faced, exhausted, motionless.
+
+There were low voices from the darkened ballroom, the stir and
+tinkle of spurred boots, the ring of sabres. Out in the hard
+macadamized road, cannon were passing into the park by the iron
+gate; beyond the road masses of men moved in the starlight.
+
+After a moment Jack turned away and entered the house. For the
+hundredth time he mounted the stairs to Lorraine's bedroom door
+and listened, holding his breath. He heard nothing--not a
+cry--not a sob. It had been so from the first, when he had told
+her that her father lay dead somewhere in the forest of Morteyn.
+
+She had said nothing--she went to her room and sat down on the
+bed, white and still. Sir Thorald lay in the next room, breathing
+deeply. Alixe was kneeling beside him, crying silently.
+
+Twice a surgeon from an infantry regiment had come and gone away
+after a glance at Sir Thorald. A captain came later and asked for
+a Sister of Mercy.
+
+"She can't go," said Jack, in a low voice. But little Alixe rose,
+still crying, and followed the captain to the stables, where a
+dozen mangled soldiers lay in the straw and hay.
+
+It was midnight when she returned to find Jack standing beside
+Sir Thorald in the dark. When he saw it was Alixe he led her
+gently into the hall.
+
+"He is conscious now; I will call you when the time comes. Go
+into that room--Lorraine is there, alone. Ah, go, Alixe; it is
+charity!--and you wear the white cross--"
+
+"It is dyed scarlet," she whispered through her tears.
+
+He returned to Sir Thorald, who lay moving his restless hands
+over the sheets and turning his head constantly from side to
+side.
+
+"Go on," said Jack; "finish what you were saying."
+
+"Will she come?"
+
+"Yes--in time."
+
+Sir Thorald relapsed into a rambling, monotonous account of some
+military movement near Wissembourg until Jack spoke again:
+
+"Yes--I know; tell me about Alixe."
+
+"Yes--Alixe," muttered Sir Thorald--"is she here? I was wrong; I
+saw her at Cologne; that was all, Jack--nothing more."
+
+"There is more," said Jack; "tell me."
+
+"Yes, there is more. I saw that--that she loved me. There was a
+scene--I am not always a beast--I tried not to be. Then--then I
+found that there was nothing left but to go away--somewhere--and
+live--without her. It was too late. She knew it--"
+
+"Go on," said Jack.
+
+Suddenly Sir Thorald's voice grew clear.
+
+"Can't you understand?" he asked; "I damned both our souls. She
+is buying hers back with tears and blood--with the white cross on
+her heart and death in her eyes! And I am dying here--and she's
+to drag out the years afterwards--"
+
+He choked; Jack watched him quietly.
+
+Sir Thorald turned his head to him when the coughing ceased.
+
+"She went with a field ambulance; I went, too. I was shot below
+that vineyard. They told her; that is all. Am I dying?"
+
+Jack did not answer.
+
+"Will you write to Molly?" asked Sir Thorald, drowsily.
+
+"Yes. God help you, Sir Thorald."
+
+"Who cares?" muttered Sir Thorald. "I'm a beast--a dying beast.
+May I see Alixe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then tell her to come--now. Soon I'll wish to be alone; that's
+the way beasts die--alone."
+
+He rambled on again about a battle somewhere in the south, and
+Jack went to the door and called, "Alixe!"
+
+She came, pallid and weeping, carrying a lighted candle.
+
+Jack took it from her hand and blew out the flame.
+
+"They won't let us have a light; they fear bombardment. Go in
+now."
+
+"Is he dying?"
+
+"God knows."
+
+"God?" repeated Alixe.
+
+Jack bent and touched the child's forehead with his lips.
+
+"Pray for him," he said; "I shall write his wife to-night."
+
+Alixe went in to the bedside to kneel again and buy back two
+souls with the agony of her child's heart.
+
+"Pray," she said to Sir Thorald.
+
+"Pray," he repeated.
+
+Jack closed the door.
+
+Up and down the dark hall he wandered, pausing at times to listen
+to some far rifle-shot and the answering fusillade along the
+picket-line. Once he stopped an officer on the stairway and asked
+for a priest, but, remembering that Sir Thorald was Protestant,
+turned away with a vague apology and resumed his objectless
+wandering.
+
+At times he fancied he heard cannon, so far away that nothing of
+sound remained, only a faint jar on the night air. Twice he
+looked from the window over the vast black forest, thinking of
+the dead man lying there alone. And then he longed to go to
+Lorraine; he felt that he must touch her, that his hand on hers
+might help her somehow.
+
+At last, deadly weary, he sat down on the stairs by her door to
+try to think out the problems that to-morrow would bring.
+
+His aunt and uncle had gone on to Paris; Lorraine's father was
+dead and her home had been turned into a fort. Saint-Lys was
+heavily occupied by the Germans, and they held the railroad also
+in their possession. It seemed out of the question to stay in
+Morteyn with Lorraine, for an assault on the Château was
+imminent. How could he get her to Paris? That was the only place
+for her now.
+
+He thought, too, of his own danger from the Uhlans. He had told
+Lorraine, partly because he wished her to understand their
+position, partly because the story of his capture, trial, and
+escape led up to the tragedy that he scarcely knew how to break
+to her. But he had done it, and she, pale as death, had gone
+silently to her room, motioning him away as he stood awkwardly at
+the door.
+
+That last glimpse of the room remained in his mind, it
+obliterated everything else at moments--Lorraine sitting on her
+bedside, her blue eyes vacant, her face whiter than the pillows.
+
+And so he sat there on the stairs, the dawn creeping into the
+hallway; and his eyes never left the panels of her door. There
+was not a sound from within. This for a while frightened him, and
+again and again he started impulsively towards the door, only to
+turn back again and watch there in the coming dawn. Presently he
+remembered that dawn might bring an attack on the Château, and he
+rose and hurried down-stairs to the terrace where a crowd of
+officers stood watching the woods through their night-glasses.
+The general impression among them was that there might be an
+attack. They yawned and smoked and studied the woods, but they
+were polite, and answered all his questions with a courteous
+light-heartedness that jarred on him. He glanced for a moment at
+the infantry, now moving across the meadow towards the river; he
+saw troops standing at ease along the park wall, troops sitting
+in long ranks in the vegetable garden, troops passing the
+stables, carrying pickaxes and wheeling wheelbarrows piled with
+empty canvas sacks.
+
+Sleepy-eyed boyish soldiers of the artillery were harnessing the
+battery horses, rubbing them down, bathing wounded limbs or
+braiding the tails. The farrier was shoeing a great black horse,
+who turned its gentle eyes towards the hay-bales piled in front
+of the stable. One or two slim officers, in pale-blue fur-edged
+pelisses, strolled among the trampled flower-beds, smoking cigars
+and watching a line of men shovelling earth into canvas sacks.
+The odour of soup was in the air; the kitchen echoed with the din
+of pots and pans. Outside, too, the camp-kettles were steaming
+and the rattle of gammels came across the lawn.
+
+"Who is in command here?" asked Jack, turning to a handsome
+dragoon officer who stood leaning on his sabre, the horse-hair
+crinière blowing about his helmet.
+
+"Why, General Farron!" said the officer in surprise.
+
+"Farron!" repeated Jack; "is he back from Africa, here in
+France--here at Morteyn?"
+
+"He is at the Château de Nesville," said the officer, smiling.
+"You seem to know him, monsieur."
+
+"Indeed I do," said Jack, warmly. "Do you think he will come
+here?"
+
+"I suppose so. Shall I send you word when he arrives?"
+
+Another officer came up, a general, white-haired and sombre.
+
+"Is this the Vicomte de Morteyn?" he asked, looking at Jack.
+
+"His nephew; the vicomte has gone to Paris. My name is Marche,"
+said Jack.
+
+The general saluted him; Jack bowed.
+
+"I regret the military necessity of occupying the Château; the
+government will indemnify Monsieur le Vicomte--"
+
+Jack held up his hand: "My uncle is an old soldier of France--the
+government is welcome; I bid you welcome in the name of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."
+
+The old general flushed and bowed deeply.
+
+"I thank you in the name of the government. Blood will tell. It
+is easy, Monsieur Marche, to see that you are the nephew of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."
+
+"Monsieur Marche," said the young dragoon officer, respectfully,
+"is a friend of General Farron."
+
+"I had the honour to be attached as correspondent to his
+staff--in Oran," said Jack.
+
+The old general held out his hand with a gesture entirely
+charming.
+
+"I envy General Farron your friendship," he said. "I had a
+son--perhaps your age. He died--yesterday." After a silence, he
+said: "There are ladies in the Château?"
+
+"Yes," replied Jack, soberly.
+
+The general turned with a gesture towards the woods. "It is too
+late to move them; we are, it appears, fairly well walled in. The
+cellar, in case of bombardment, is the best you can do for them.
+How many are there?"
+
+"Two, general. One is a Sister of Mercy."
+
+Other officers began to gather on the terrace, glasses
+persistently focussed on the nearer woods. Somebody called to an
+officer below the terrace to hurry the cannon.
+
+Jack made his way through the throng of officers to the stairs,
+mounted them, and knocked at Lorraine's door.
+
+"Is it you--Jack?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come."
+
+He went in.
+
+Lorraine lay on the bed, quiet and pale; it startled him to see
+her so calm. For an instant he hesitated on the threshold, then
+went slowly to the bedside. She held out one hand; he took it.
+
+"I cannot cry," she said; "I cannot. Sit beside me, Jack. Listen:
+I am wicked--I have not a single tear for my father. I have been
+here--so--all night long. I prayed to weep; I cannot. I
+understand he is dead--that I shall never again wait for him,
+watch at his door in the turret, dream he is calling me; I
+understand that he will never call me again--never again--never.
+And I cannot weep. Do you hate me? I am tired--so tired, like a
+child--very young."
+
+She raised her other hand and laid it in his. "I need you," she
+said; "I am too tired, too young, to be so alone. It is myself I
+suffer for; think, Jack, myself, in such a moment. I am selfish,
+I know it. Oh, if I could weep now! Why can I not? I loved my
+father. And now I can only think of his little machines in the
+turret and his balloon, and--oh!--I only remember the long days
+of my life when I waited on the turret stairs hoping he would
+come out, dreaming he would come some day and take me in his arms
+and kiss me and hold me close, as I am to you. And now he never
+will. And I waited all my life!"
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, touching her hair; "you are feverish."
+
+Her head was pressed close to him; his arms held her tightly; she
+sighed like a restless child.
+
+"Never again--never--for he is dead. And yet I could have lived
+forever, waiting for him on the turret stairs. Do you understand?"
+
+Holding her strained to his breast he trembled at the fierce
+hopelessness in her voice. In a moment he recognized that a
+crisis was coming; that she was utterly irresponsible, utterly
+beyond reasoning. Like a spectre her loveless childhood had risen
+and confronted her; and now that there was no longer even hope,
+she had turned desperately upon herself with the blank despair of
+a wounded animal. End it all!--that was her one impulse. He felt
+it already taking shape; she shivered in his arms.
+
+"But there is a God--" he began, fearfully.
+
+She looked up at him with vacant eyes, hot and burning.
+
+He tried again: "I love you, Lorraine--"
+
+Her straight brows knitted and she struggled to free herself.
+
+"Let me go!" she whispered. "I do not wish to live--I can't!--I
+can't!"
+
+Then he played his last card, and, holding her close, looked
+straight into her eyes.
+
+"France needs us all," he said.
+
+She grew quiet. Suddenly the warm blood dyed her cheeks. Then,
+drop by drop, the tears came; her sweet face, wet and flushed,
+nestled quietly close to his own face.
+
+"We will both live for that," he said; "we will do what we can."
+
+For an hour she lay sobbing her heart out in his arms; and when
+she was quiet at last he told her how the land lay trembling
+under the invasion, how their armies had struggled and dwindled
+and lost ground, how France, humbled, drenched with blood and
+tears, still stood upright calling to her children. He spoke of
+the dead, the dying, the mutilated creatures gasping out their
+souls in the ditches.
+
+"Life is worth living," he said. "If our place is not in the
+field with the wounded, not in the hospital, not in the prisons
+where these boys are herded like diseased cattle, then it is
+perhaps at the shrine's foot. Pray for France, Lorraine, pray and
+work, for there is work to do."
+
+"There is work; we will go together," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, together. Perhaps we can help a little. Your father, when
+he died, had the steel box with him. Lorraine, when he is found
+and is laid to rest, we will take that box to the French lines.
+The secret must belong to France!"
+
+She was eager enough now; she sat up on the bed and listened
+with bright, wet eyes while he told her what they two might do
+for her land of France.
+
+"Dear--dear Jack!" she cried, softly.
+
+But he knew that it was not the love of a maid for a man that
+parted her lips; it was the love of the land, of her land of
+Lorraine, that fierce, passionate love of soil that had at last
+blazed up, purified in the long years of a loveless life. All
+that she had felt for her father turned to a burning thrill for
+her country. It is such moments that make children defenders of
+barricades, that make devils or saints of the innocent. The maid
+that rode in mail, crowned, holding aloft the banner of the
+fleur-de-lys, died at the stake; her ashes were the ashes of a
+saint. The maid who flung her bullets from the barricade, who
+carried a dagger to the Rue Haxo, who spat in the faces of the
+line when they shoved her to the wall in the Luxembourg, died too
+for France. Her soul is the soul of a martyr; but all martyrs are
+not saints.
+
+For another hour they sat there, planning, devising, eager to
+begin their predestined work. They spoke of the dead, too, and
+Lorraine wept at last for her father.
+
+"There was a Sister of Mercy here," she said; "I saw her. I could
+not speak to her. Later I knew it was Alixe. You called her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Shall I speak to her?"
+
+He went out into the hall and tapped at the door of the next
+room.
+
+"Alixe?"
+
+"Yes--Jack."
+
+He entered.
+
+Sir Thorald lay very still under the sheets, the crucifix on his
+breast. At first Jack thought he was dead, but the slight motion
+of the chest under the sheets reassured him. He turned to Alixe:
+
+"Go for a minute and comfort Lorraine," he whispered. "Go, my
+child."
+
+"I--I cannot--"
+
+"Go," said Sir Thorald, in a distinct voice.
+
+When she had gone, Jack bent over Sir Thorald. A great pity
+filled him, and he touched the half-opened hand with his own.
+
+Sir Thorald looked up at him wistfully.
+
+"I am not worth it," he said.
+
+"Yes, we all are worth it."
+
+"I am not," gasped Sir Thorald. "Jack, you are good. Do you
+believe, at least, that I loved her?"
+
+"Yes, if you say so."
+
+"I do--in the shadow of death."
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+"I never loved--before," said Sir Thorald.
+
+In the stillness that followed Jack tried to comprehend the good
+or evil in this stricken man. He could not; he only knew that a
+great love that a man might bear a woman made necessary a great
+sacrifice if that love were unlawful. The greater the love the
+more certain the sacrifice--self-sacrifice on the altar of
+unselfish love, for there is no other kind of love that man may
+bear for woman.
+
+It wearied Jack to try to think it out. He could not; he only
+knew that it was not his to judge or to condemn.
+
+"Will you give me your hand?" asked Sir Thorald.
+
+Jack laid his hand in the other's feverish one.
+
+"Don't call her," he said, distinctly; "I am dying."
+
+Presently he withdrew his hand and turned his face to the wall.
+
+For a long time Jack sat there, waiting. At last he spoke: "Sir
+Thorald?"
+
+But Sir Thorald had been dead for an hour.
+
+When Alixe entered Jack took her slim, childish hands and looked
+into her eyes. She understood and went to her dead, laying down
+her tired little head on the sheeted breast.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A DOOR IS LOCKED
+
+
+Lorraine stood on the terrace beside the brass gatling-gun, both
+hands holding to Jack's arm, watching the soldiers stuffing the
+windows of the Château with mattresses, quilts, and bedding of
+all kinds.
+
+A stream of engineers was issuing from the hallway, carrying
+tables, chairs, barrels, and chests to the garden below, where
+other soldiers picked them up and bore them across the lawn to
+the rear of the house.
+
+"They are piling all the furniture they can get against the gate
+in the park wall," said Jack; "come out to the kitchen-garden."
+
+She went with him, still holding to his arm. Across the vegetable
+garden a barricade of furniture--sofas, chairs, and wardrobes--lay
+piled against the wooden gate of the high stone wall. Engineers were
+piercing the wall with crowbars and pickaxes, loosening the cement,
+dragging out huge blocks of stone to make embrasures for three cannon
+that stood with their limbers among the broken bell-glasses and
+cucumber-frames in the garden.
+
+A ladder lay against the wall, and on it was perched an officer,
+who rested his field-glasses across the tiled top and stood
+studying the woods. Below him a general and half a dozen
+officers watched the engineers hacking at the wall; a long,
+double line of infantry crouched behind them, the bugler
+kneeling, glancing anxiously at his captain, who stood talking to
+a fat sub-officer in capote and boots.
+
+Artillerymen were gathered about the ammunition-chests, opening
+the lids and carrying shell and shrapnel to the wall; the
+balconies of the Château were piled up with breastworks of rugs,
+boxes, and sacks of earth. Here and there a rifleman stood, his
+chassepot resting on the iron railing, his face turned towards
+the woods.
+
+"They are coming," said a soldier, calling back to a comrade, who
+only laughed and passed on towards the kitchen, loaded down with
+sacks of flour.
+
+A restless movement passed through the kneeling battalion of
+infantry.
+
+"Fiche moi la paix, hein!" muttered a lieutenant, looking
+resentfully at a gossiping farrier. Another lieutenant drew his
+sword, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.
+
+"Are they coming?" asked Lorraine.
+
+"I don't know. Watch that officer on the wall. He seems to see
+nothing yet. Don't you think you had better go to the rear of the
+house now?"
+
+"No, not unless you do."
+
+"I will, then."
+
+"No, stay here. I am not afraid. Where is Alixe?"
+
+"With the wounded men in the stable. They have hoisted the red
+cross over the barn; did you notice?"
+
+Before she could answer, one of the soldiers on the balcony of
+the Château fired. Another rose from behind a mattress and fired
+also; then half a dozen shots rang out, and the smoke whirled up
+over the roof of the house. The officer on the ladder was
+motioning to the group of officers below; already the artillerymen
+were running the three cannon forward to the port-holes that had
+been pierced in the park wall.
+
+"Come," said Jack.
+
+"Not yet--I am not frightened."
+
+A loud explosion enveloped the wall in sulphurous clouds, and a
+cannon jumped back in recoil. The cannoneers swarmed around it,
+there was a quick movement of a sponger, an order, a falling into
+place of rigid artillerymen, then bang! and another up-rush of
+smoke. And now the other cannon joined in--crash! bang!--and the
+garden swam in the swirling fog. Infantry, too, were firing all
+along the wall, and on the other side of the house the rippling
+crash of the gatling-gun rolled with the rolling volleys. Jack
+led Lorraine to the rear of the Château, but she refused to stay,
+and he reluctantly followed her into the house.
+
+From every mattress-stuffed window the red-legged soldiers were
+firing out across the lawn towards the woods; the smoke drifted
+back into the house in thin shreds that soon filled the rooms
+with a blue haze.
+
+Suddenly something struck the chandelier and shattered it to the
+gilt candle-sockets. Lorraine looked at it, startled, but another
+bullet whizzed into the room, starring the long mirror, and
+another knocked the plaster from the fireplace. Jack had her out
+of the room in a second, and presently they found themselves in
+the cellar, the very cement beneath their feet shaking under the
+tremendous shocks of the cannon.
+
+"Wait for me. Do you promise, Lorraine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel
+drive to the stable.
+
+"Alixe!" he called.
+
+She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There
+was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of
+grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely
+knew it.
+
+"What can I do?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"
+
+He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set
+them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four
+surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges,
+basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of
+ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.
+
+"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not--when I
+am ready," he said.
+
+"No; go and stay with her. If I need you I will send."
+
+He could scarcely hear her in the tumult and din, but he
+understood and nodded, watching her busy with her lint and
+bandages. As he turned to go, the first of the wounded, a mere
+boy, was brought in on the shoulders of a comrade. Jack heard him
+scream as they laid him on the table; then he went soberly away
+to the cellar where Lorraine sat, her face in her hands.
+
+"We are holding the Château," he said. "Will you stay quietly for
+a little while longer, if I go out again?"
+
+"If you wish," she said.
+
+He longed to take her in his arms. He did not; he merely said,
+"Wait for me," and went away again out into the smoke.
+
+From the upper-story windows, where he had climbed, he could see
+to the edge of the forest. Already three columns of men had
+started out from the trees across the meadow towards the park
+wall. They advanced slowly and steadily, firing as they came on.
+Somewhere, in the smoke, a Prussian band was playing gayly, and
+Jack thought of the Bavarians at the Geisberg, and their bands
+playing as the men fell like leaves in the Château gardens.
+
+He had his field-glasses with him, and he fixed them on the
+advancing columns. They were Bavarians, after all--there was no
+mistaking the light-blue uniforms and fur-crested helmets. And
+now he made out their band, plodding stolidly along, trombones
+and bass-drums wheezing and banging away in the rifle-smoke; he
+could even see the band-master swinging his halberd forward.
+
+Suddenly the nearest column broke into a heavy run, cheering
+hoarsely. The other columns came on with a rush; the band halted,
+playing them in at the death with a rollicking quickstep; then
+all was blotted out in the pouring cannon-smoke. Flash on flash
+the explosions followed each other, lighting the gloom with a
+wavering yellow glare, and on the terrace the gatling whirred and
+spluttered its slender streams of flame, while the treble crash
+of the chassepots roared accompaniment.
+
+Once or twice Jack thought he heard the rattle of their little
+harsh, flat drums, but he could see them no longer; they were in
+that smoke-pall somewhere, coming on towards the park wall.
+
+Bugles began to sound--French bugles--clear and sonorous. Across
+the lawn by the river a battalion of French infantry were
+running, firing as they ran. He saw them settle at last like
+quail among the stubble, curling up and crouching in groups and
+bevies, alert heads raised. Then the firing rippled along the
+front, and the lawn became gray with smoke.
+
+As he went down the stairs and into the garden he heard the soldiers
+saying that the charge had been checked. The wounded were being
+borne towards the barn, long lines of them, heads and limbs hanging
+limp. A horse in the garden was ending a death-struggle among the
+cucumber-frames, and the battery-men were cutting the traces to give
+him free play. Upon the roof a thin column of smoke and sparks rose,
+where a Prussian shell--the first as yet--had fallen and exploded
+in the garret. Some soldiers were knocking the sparks from the roof
+with the butts of their rifles.
+
+When he went into the cellar again Lorraine was pacing restlessly
+along the wine-bins.
+
+"I cannot stay here," she said. "Jack, get some bottles of brandy
+and come to the barn. The wounded will need them."
+
+"You cannot go out. I will take them."
+
+"No, I shall go."
+
+"I ask you not to."
+
+"Let me, Jack," she said, coming up to him--"with you."
+
+He could not make her listen; she went with him, her slender arms
+loaded with bottles. The shells were falling in the garden now;
+one burst and flung a shower of earth and glass over them.
+
+"Hurry!" he said. "Are you crazy, Lorraine, to come out into
+this?"
+
+"Don't scold, Jack," she whispered.
+
+When she entered the stable he breathed more freely. He watched
+her face narrowly, but she did not blanch at the sickening
+spectacle of the surgeons' tables.
+
+They placed their bottles of brandy along the side of a
+box-stall, and stood together watching the file of wounded
+passing in at the door.
+
+"They do not need us here, yet," he said. "I wonder where Alixe
+is?"
+
+"There is a Sister of Mercy out on the skirmish-line across the
+lawn," said a soldier of the hospital corps, pointing with bloody
+hands towards the smoke-veiled river.
+
+Jack looked at Lorraine in utter despair.
+
+"I must go; she can't stay there," he muttered.
+
+"Yes, you must go," repeated Lorraine. "She will be shot."
+
+"Will you wait here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+So he went away, thinking bitterly that she did not care whether
+he lived or died--that she let him leave her without a word of
+fear, of kindness. Then, for the first time, he realized that she
+had never, after all, been touched by his devotion; that she had
+never understood, nor cared to understand, his love for her. He
+walked out across the smoky lawn, the din of the rifles in his
+ears, the bitterness of death in his heart. He knew he was going
+into danger--that he was already in peril. Bullets whistled
+through the smoke as he advanced towards the firing-line, where,
+in the fog, dim figures were outlined here and there. He passed
+an officer, standing with bared sword, watching his men digging
+up the sod and piling it into low breastworks. He went on,
+passing others, sometimes two soldiers bearing a wounded man, now
+and then a maimed creature writhing on the grass or hobbling away
+to the rear. The battle-line lay close to him now--long open
+ranks of men, flat on their stomachs, firing into the smoke
+across the river-bank. Their officers loomed up in the gloom,
+some leaning quietly back on their sword-hilts, some pacing to
+and fro, smoking, or watchfully steadying the wearied men.
+
+Almost at once he saw Alixe. She was standing beside a tall
+wounded officer, giving him something to drink from a tin cup.
+
+"Alixe," said Jack, "this is not your place."
+
+She looked at him tranquilly as the wounded man was led away by a
+soldier of the hospital corps.
+
+"It is my place."
+
+"No," he said, violently, "you are trying to find death here!"
+
+"I seek nothing," she said, in a gentle, tired voice; "let me
+go."
+
+"Come back. Alixe--your brother is alive."
+
+She looked at him impassively.
+
+"My brother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have no brother."
+
+He understood and chafed inwardly.
+
+"Come, Alixe," he urged; "for Heaven's sake, try to live and
+forget--"
+
+"I have nothing to forget--everything to remember. Let me pass."
+She touched the blood-stained cross on her breast. "Do you not
+see? That was white once. So was my soul."
+
+"It is now," he said, gently. "Come back."
+
+A wounded man somewhere in the smoke called, "Water! water! In
+the name of God!--my sister--"
+
+"I am coming!" called Alixe, clearly.
+
+"To me first! Hasten, my sister!" groaned another.
+
+"Patience, children--I come!" called Alixe.
+
+With a gesture she passed Jack; a flurry of smoke hid her. The
+pungent powder-fog made his eyes dim; his ears seemed to split
+with the terrific volley firing.
+
+He turned away and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the
+well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the
+firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe,
+following her with his buckets where she passed among the
+wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a
+pail full of water, and he held his finger in the hole until the
+water was all used up. Twice he heard cheering and the splash of
+cavalry in the shallow river, but they seemed to be beaten off
+again, and he went about his business, listless, sombre, a dead
+weight at his heart.
+
+He had been kneeling beside a wounded man for some minutes when
+he became conscious that the firing had almost ceased. Bugles
+were sounding near the Château; long files of troops passed him
+in the lifting smoke; officers shouted along the river-bank.
+
+He rose to his feet and looked around for Alixe. She was not in
+sight. He walked towards the river-bank, watching for her, but he
+could not find her.
+
+"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an
+officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.
+
+A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a
+Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Château. I think she was
+hurt."
+
+"Hurt!"
+
+"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the
+stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod
+breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and
+entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables;
+Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.
+
+"Where is Alixe?" he asked.
+
+"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the
+terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech
+of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by
+a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed
+into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very
+tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.
+
+"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone
+with Sir Thorald." And he climbed the stairs and knocked softly
+at the door of the death-chamber.
+
+"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay
+here."
+
+She was kneeling at the bedside, her face buried on the breast of
+the dead man.
+
+"Alixe," he said, but his voice broke in spite of him, and he
+went to her and touched her.
+
+Very tenderly he raised her head, looked into her eyes, then
+quietly turned away.
+
+Outside the door he met Lorraine.
+
+"Don't go in," he murmured.
+
+She looked fearfully up into his face.
+
+"Yes," he said, "she was shot through the body."
+
+Then he closed the door and turned the key on the outside,
+leaving the dead to the dead.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+LORRAINE SLEEPS
+
+
+The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of
+water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of
+amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.
+
+Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before,
+although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about,
+gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary
+observation of the Château.
+
+Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of
+nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse
+with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the
+cover of the woods.
+
+Around the Château the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through
+the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their
+waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches
+dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi,
+grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at
+times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue
+overcoats.
+
+The line of battle stretched from the Château Morteyn, parallel
+with the river and the park wall, to the Château de Nesville; and
+along this line the officers were riding all day, muffled to the
+chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops
+gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they
+expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work
+excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks
+with earth, while in the Château itself preparations were in
+progress for the fighting of fire.
+
+The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched
+over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long
+trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches
+had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of
+each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the
+ground for a head-stone.
+
+Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one
+sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side
+by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse.
+Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It
+was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the
+linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove
+back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his
+face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a
+few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud
+between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned
+with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds.
+Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths
+of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns;
+and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw
+that her fair hands were cut and bleeding from plaiting the
+thorn-covered blossoms.
+
+They spoke briefly, almost coldly. Lorraine hung the two wreaths
+over the head-piece of the cross and, kneeling, signed herself.
+
+When she rose Jack replaced his cap, but said nothing. They stood
+side by side, looking out across the woods, where, behind a
+curtain of mist and rain, the single turret of the Château de
+Nesville was hidden.
+
+She seemed restless and preoccupied, and he, answering aloud her
+unasked question, said, "I am going to search the forest to-day.
+I cannot bear to leave you, but it must be done, for your sake
+and for the sake of France."
+
+She answered: "Yes, it must be done. I shall go with you."
+
+"You cannot," he said; "there is danger in the forest."
+
+"You are going?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They said nothing more for a moment or two. He was thinking of
+Alixe and her love for Sir Thorald. Who would have thought it
+could have turned out so? He looked down at the river Lisse,
+where, under the trees of the bank, they had all sat that day--a
+day that already seemed legendary, so far, so far in the
+mist-hung landscape of the past. He seemed to hear Molly
+Hesketh's voice, soft, ironical, upbraiding Sir Thorald; he
+seemed to see them all there in the sunshine--Dorothy, Rickerl,
+Cecil, Betty Castlemaine--he even saw himself strolling up to
+them, gun under arm, while Sir Thorald waved his wine-cup and
+bantered him.
+
+He looked at the river. The green row-boat lay on the bank, keel
+up, shattered by a shell; the trees were covered with yellow,
+seared foliage that dropped continually into the water; the river
+itself was a canal of mud. And, as he looked, a dead man, face
+under water, sped past, caught on something, drifted, spun
+giddily in an eddy, washed to and fro, then floated on under the
+trees.
+
+"You will catch cold here in the rain," he said, abruptly.
+
+"You also, Jack."
+
+They walked a few steps towards the house, then stopped and
+looked at each other.
+
+"You are drenched," he said; "you must go to your room and lie
+down."
+
+"I will--if you wish," she answered.
+
+He drew her rain-cloak around her, buttoned the cape and high
+collar, and settled the hood on her head. She looked up under her
+pointed hood.
+
+"Do you care so much for me?" she asked, listlessly.
+
+"Will you give me the right--always--forever?"
+
+"Do you mean that--that you love me?"
+
+"I have always loved you."
+
+Still she looked up at him from the shadow of her hood.
+
+"I love you, Lorraine."
+
+One arm was around her now, and with the other hand he held both
+of hers.
+
+She spoke, her eyes on his.
+
+"I loved you once. I did not know it then. It was the first night
+there on the terrace--when they were dancing. I loved you
+again--after our quarrel, when you found me by the river. Again
+I loved you, when we were alone in the Château and you came to
+see me in the library."
+
+He drew her to him, but she resisted.
+
+"Now it is different," she said. "I do not love you--like that. I
+do not know what I feel; I do not care for that--for that love. I
+need something warmer, stronger, more kindly--something I never
+have had. My childhood is gone, Jack, and yet I am tortured with
+the craving for it; I want to be little again--I want to play
+with children--with young girls; I want to be tired with pleasure
+and go to bed with a mother bending over me. It is that--it is
+that that I need, Jack--a mother to hold me as you do. Oh, if you
+knew--if you knew! Beside my bed I feel about in the dark, half
+asleep, reaching out for the mother I never knew--the mother I
+need. I picture her; she is like my father, only she is always
+with me. I lie back and close my eyes and try to think that she
+is there in the dark--close--close. Her cheeks and hands are
+warm; I can never see her eyes, but I know they are like mine. I
+know, too, that she has always been with me--from the years that
+I have forgotten--always with me, watching me that I come to no
+harm--anxious for me, worrying because my head is hot or my hands
+cold. In my half-sleep I tell her things--little intimate things
+that she must know. We talk of everything--of papa, of the house,
+of my pony, of the woods and the Lisse. With her I have spoken of
+you often, Jack. And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell
+you, Jack. I can never love you like--like that, but I need you,
+and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love. Be
+gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret.
+You are all I have."
+
+The intense grief in her face, the wide, childish eyes, the cold
+little hands tightening in his, all these touched the manhood in
+him, and he answered manfully, putting away from himself all that
+was weak or selfish, all that touched on love of man for woman:
+
+"Let me be all you ask," he said. "My love is of that kind,
+also."
+
+"My darling Jack," she murmured, putting both arms around his
+neck.
+
+He kissed her peacefully.
+
+"Come," he said. "Your shoes are soaking. I am going to take
+charge of you now."
+
+When they entered the house he took her straight to her room,
+drew up an arm-chair, lighted the fire, filled a foot-bath with
+hot water, and, calmly opening the wardrobe, pulled out a warm
+bath-robe. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he knelt and
+unbuttoned her shoes.
+
+"Now," he said, "I'll be back in five minutes. Let me find you
+sitting here, with your feet in that hot water."
+
+Before she could answer, he went out. A thrill of comfort passed
+through her; she drew the wet stockings over her feet, shivered,
+slipped out of skirt and waist, put on the warm, soft bath-robe,
+and, sinking back in the chair, placed both little white feet in
+the foot-bath.
+
+"I am ready, Jack," she called, softly.
+
+He came in with a tray of tea and toast and a bit of cold
+chicken. She followed his movement with tired, shy eyes,
+wondering at his knowledge of little things. They ate their
+luncheon together by the fire. Twice he gravely refilled the
+foot-bath with hotter water, and she settled back in her soft,
+warm chair, sighing contentment.
+
+After a while he lighted a cigarette and read to her--fairy tales
+from Perrault--legends that all children know--all children who
+have known mothers. Lorraine did not know them. At first she
+frowned a little, watching him dubiously, but little by little
+the music of the words and the fragrance of the sweet, vague
+tales crept into her heart, and she listened breathless to the
+stories, older than Egypt--stories that will outlast the last
+pyramid.
+
+Once he laid down his book and told her of the Prince of Argolis
+and Æthra; of the sandals and sword, of Medea, and of the
+wreathed wine-cup. He told her, too, of the Isantee, and the
+legends of the gray gull, of Harpan and Chaské, and the white
+lodge of hope.
+
+She listened like a tired child, her wrist curved under her chin,
+the bath-robe close to her throat. While she listened she moved
+her feet gently in the hot water, nestling back with the thrill
+of the warmth that mounted to her cheeks.
+
+Then they were silent, their eyes on each other.
+
+Down-stairs some rain-soaked officer was playing on the piano old
+songs of Lorraine and Alsace. He tried to sing, too, but his
+voice broke, whether from emotion or hoarseness they could not
+tell. A moment or two later a dripping infantry band marched out
+to the conservatory and began to play. The dismal trombone
+vibrated like a fog-horn, the wet drums buzzed and clattered, the
+trumpets wailed with the rising wind in the chimneys. They
+played for an hour, then stopped abruptly in the middle of
+"Partons pour la Syrie," and Jack and Lorraine heard them
+trampling away--slop, slop--across the gravel drive.
+
+The fire in the room made the air heavy, and he raised one window
+a little way, but the wet wind was rank with the odour of
+disinfectants and ether from the stable hospital, and he closed
+the window after a moment.
+
+"I spent all the morning with the wounded," said Lorraine, from
+the depths of her chair. The child-like light in her eyes had
+gone; nothing but woman's sorrow remained in their gray-blue
+depths.
+
+Jack rose, picked up a big soft towel, and, deliberately lifting
+one of her feet from the water, rubbed it until it turned rosy.
+Then he rubbed the other, wrapped the bath-robe tightly about
+her, lifted her in his arms, threw back the bed-covers, and laid
+her there snug and warm.
+
+"Sleep," he said.
+
+She held up both arms with a divine smile.
+
+"Stay with me until I sleep," she murmured drowsily. Her eyes
+closed; one hand sought his.
+
+After a while she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+LORRAINE AWAKES
+
+
+When Lorraine had been asleep for an hour, Jack stole from the
+room and sought the old general who was in command of the park.
+He found him on the terrace, smoking and watching the woods
+through his field-glasses.
+
+"Monsieur," said Jack, "my ward, Mademoiselle de Nesville, is
+asleep in her chamber. I must go to the forest yonder and try to
+find her father's body. I dare not leave her alone unless I may
+confide her to you."
+
+"My son," said the old man, "I accept the charge. Can you give me
+the next room?"
+
+"The next room is where our little Sister of Mercy died."
+
+"I have journeyed far with death--I am at home in death's
+chamber," said the old general. He followed Jack to the
+death-room, accompanied by his aide-de-camp.
+
+"It will do," he said. Then, turning to an aid, "Place a sentry
+at the next door. When the lady awakes, call me."
+
+"Thank you," said Jack. He lingered a moment and then continued:
+"If I am shot in the woods--if I don't return--General Chanzy
+will take charge of Mademoiselle de Nesville, for my uncle's
+sake. They are sword-brothers."
+
+"I accept the responsibility," said the old general, gravely.
+
+They bowed to each other, and Jack went out and down the stairs
+to the lawn. For a moment he looked up into the sky, trying to
+remember where the balloon might have been when Von Steyr's
+explosive bullet set it on fire. Then he trudged on into the
+wood-road, buckling his revolver-case under his arm and adjusting
+the cross-strap of his field-glasses.
+
+Once in the forest he breathed more freely. There was an odour of
+rotting leaves in the wet air; the branches quivered and dripped,
+and the tree-trunks, moist and black, exhaled a rank aroma of
+lichens and rain-soaked moss.
+
+Along the park wall, across the Lisse, sentinels stood in the rain,
+peering out of their caped overcoats or rambling along the river-bank.
+A spiritless challenge or two halted him for a few moments, but he
+gave the word and passed on. Once or twice squads met him and passed
+with the relief, sick boyish soldiers, crusted with mud. Twice he met
+groups of roving, restless-eyed franc-tireurs in straight caps and
+sheepskin jackets, but they did not molest him nor even question him
+beyond asking the time of day.
+
+And now he passed the carrefour where he and Lorraine had first
+met. Its only tenant was a sentinel, yellow with jaundice, who
+seized his chassepot with shaking hands and called a shrill "Qui
+Vive?"
+
+From the carrefour Jack turned to the left straight into the
+heart of the forest. He risked losing his way; he risked more
+than that, too, for a shot from sentry or franc-tireur was not
+improbable, and, more-over, nobody knew whether Uhlans were in
+the woods or not.
+
+As he advanced the forest growth became thicker; underbrush, long
+uncut, rose higher than his head. Over logs and brush tangles he
+pressed, down into soft, boggy gullys deep with dead leaves,
+across rapid, dark brooks, threads of the river Lisse, over stony
+ledges, stumps, windfalls, and on towards the break in the trees
+from which, on clear days, one could see the turret-spire of the
+Château de Nesville. When he reached this point he looked in vain
+for the turret; the rain hid it. Still, he could judge fairly
+well in which direction it lay, and he knew that the distance was
+half a mile.
+
+"The balloon dropped near here," he muttered, and started in a
+circle, taking a gigantic beech-tree as the centre mark.
+Gradually he widened his circuit, stumbling on over the slippery
+leaves, keeping a wary eye out for the thing on the ground that
+he sought.
+
+He had seen no game in the forest, and wondered a little. Once or
+twice he fancied that he heard some animal moving near, but when
+he listened all was quiet, save for the hoarse calling of a raven
+in some near tree. Suddenly he saw the raven, and at the same
+moment it rose, croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket
+floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They
+were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the
+rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and
+sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above
+his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay
+there in the thicket. And he was right; but when he saw the
+thing he covered his eyes with both hands and his heart rose in
+his throat. At last he stepped forward and looked into the vacant
+eye-sockets of a skull from which shreds of a long beard still
+hung, wet and straggling.
+
+It lay under the washed-out roots of a fir-tree, the bare ribs
+staring through the torn clothing, the fleshless hands clasped
+about a steel box.
+
+How he brought himself to get the box from that cage of bones he
+never knew. At last he had it, and stepped back, the sweat
+starting from every pore. But his work was not finished. What the
+ravens and wolves had left of the thing he pushed with sticks
+into a hollow, and painfully covered it with forest mould. Over
+this he pulled great lumps of muddy clay, trampling them down
+firmly, until at last the dead lay underground and a heap of
+stones marked the sepulchre.
+
+The ravens had alighted in the tree-tops around the spot,
+watching him gravely, croaking and sidling away when he moved
+with abruptness. Looking up into the tree-tops he saw some shreds
+of stuff clinging to the branches, perhaps tatters from the
+balloon or the dead man's clothing. Near him on the ground lay a
+charred heap that was once the wicker car of the balloon. This he
+scattered with a stick, laid a covering of green moss on the
+mound, placed two sticks crosswise at the head, took off his cap,
+then went his way, the steel box buttoned securely in his breast.
+As he walked on through the forest, a wolf fled from the
+darkening undergrowth, hesitated, turned, cringing half boldly,
+half sullenly, watching him with changeless, incandescent eyes.
+
+Darkness was creeping into the forest when he came out on the
+wood-road. He had a mile and a half before him without lantern or
+starlight, and he hastened forward through the mire, which seemed
+to pull him back at every step. It astonished him that he
+received no challenge in the twilight; he peered across the
+river, but saw no sentinels moving. The stillness was profound,
+save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet
+branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep
+his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of
+the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the
+whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer
+it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it
+passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp
+report, and the steel fragments hurtled through the naked trees.
+
+He was running now; he knew the Prussian guns had opened on the
+Château again, and the thought of Lorraine in the tempest of iron
+terrified him. And now the shells were streaming into the woods,
+falling like burning stars from the heavens, bursting over the
+tree-tops; the racket of tearing, splintering limbs was in his
+ears, the dull shock of a shell exploding in the mud, the splash
+of fragments in the river. Behind him a red flare, ever growing,
+wavering, bursting into crimson radiance, told him that the
+Château de Nesville was ablaze. The black, trembling shadows cast
+by the trees grew blacker and steadier in the fiery light; the
+muddy road sprang into view under his feet; the river ran
+vermilion. Another light grew in the southern sky, faint yet, but
+growing surely. He ran swiftly, spurred and lashed by fear, for
+this time it was the Château Morteyn that sent a column of sparks
+above the trees, higher, higher, under a pall of reddening smoke.
+
+At last he stumbled into the garden, where a mass of plunging
+horses tugged and strained at their harnessed guns and caissons.
+Muddy soldiers put their ragged shoulders to the gun-wheels and
+pushed; teamsters cursed and lashed their horses; officers rode
+through the throng, shouting. A squad of infantry began a
+fusillade from the wall; other squads fired from the lawn, where
+the rear of a long column in retreat stretched across the gardens
+and out into the road.
+
+As Jack ran up the terrace steps the gatling began to whir like a
+watchman's rattle; needle-pointed flames pricked the darkness
+from hedge and wall, where a dark line swayed to and fro under
+the smoke.
+
+Up the stairs he sped, and flung open the door of the bedroom.
+Lorraine stood in the middle of the room, looking out into the
+darkness. She turned at the sound of the opening door:
+
+"Jack!"
+
+"Hurry!" he gasped; "this time they mean business. Where is your
+sentinel? Where is the general? Hurry, my child--dress quickly!"
+
+He went out to the hall again, and looked up and down. On the
+floor below he heard somebody say that the general was dead, and
+he hurried down among a knot of officers who were clustered at
+the windows, night-glasses levelled on the forest. As he entered
+the room a lieutenant fell dead and a shower of bullets struck
+the coping outside.
+
+He hastened away up-stairs again. Lorraine, in cloak and hat, met
+him at the door.
+
+"Keep away from all windows," he said. "Are you ready?"
+
+She placed her arm in his, and he led her down the stairs to the
+rear of the Château.
+
+"Have they gone--our soldiers?" faltered Lorraine. "Is it defeat?
+Jack, answer me!"
+
+"They are holding the Château to protect the retreat, I think.
+Hark! The gatling is roaring like a furnace! What has happened?"
+
+"I don't know. The old general came to speak to me when I awoke.
+He was very good and kind. Then suddenly the sentinel on the
+stairs fell down and we ran out. He was dead; a bullet had
+entered from the window at the end of the hall. After that I went
+into my room to dress, and the general hurried down-stairs,
+telling me to wait until he called for me. He did not come back;
+the firing began, and some shells hit the house. All the troops
+in the garden began to leave, and I did not know what to do, so I
+waited for you."
+
+Jack glanced right and left. The artillery were leaving by the
+stable road; from every side the infantry streamed past across
+the lawn, running when they came to the garden, where a shower of
+bullets fell among the shrubbery. A captain hastening towards the
+terrace looked at them in surprise.
+
+"What is it?" cried Jack. "Can't you hold the Château?"
+
+"The other Château has been carried," said the captain. "They are
+taking us on the left flank. Madame," he added, "should go at
+once; this place will be untenable in a few moments."
+
+Lorraine spoke breathlessly: "Are you to hold the Château with
+the gatling until the army is safe?"
+
+"Yes, madame," said the captain. "We are obliged to."
+
+There came a sudden lull in the firing. Lorraine caught Jack's
+arm.
+
+"Come," cried Jack, "we've got to go now!"
+
+"I shall stay!" she said; "I know my work is here!"
+
+The German rifle-flames began to sparkle and flicker along the
+river-bank; a bullet rang out against the granite façade behind
+them.
+
+"Come!" he cried, sharply, but she slipped from him and ran
+towards the house.
+
+Drums were beating somewhere in the distant forest--shrill,
+treble drums--and from every hill-side the hollow, harsh Prussian
+trumpets spoke. Then came a sound, deep, menacing--a far cry:
+
+"Hourra! Preussen!"
+
+"Why don't you cheer?" faltered Lorraine, mounting the terrace.
+The artillerymen looked at her in surprise. Jack caught her arm;
+she shook him off impatiently.
+
+"Cheer!" she cried again. "Is France dumb?" She raised her hand.
+
+"Vive la France!" shouted the artillerymen, catching her ardour.
+"Vive la Patrie! Vive Lorraine!"
+
+Again the short, barking, Prussian cheer sounded, and again the
+artillerymen answered it, cheer on cheer, for France, for the
+Land, for the Province of Lorraine. Up in the windows of the
+Château the line soldiers were cheering, too; the engineers on
+the roof, stamping out the sparks and flames, swung their caps
+and echoed the shouts from terrace and window.
+
+In the sudden silence that followed they caught the vibration of
+hundreds of hoofs--there came a rush, a shout:
+
+"Hourra! Preussen! Hourra! Hourra!" and into the lawn dashed the
+German cavalry, banging away with carbine and revolver. At the
+same moment, over the park walls swarmed the Bavarians in a
+forest of bayonets. The Château vomited flame from every window;
+the gatling, pulled back into the front door, roared out in a
+hundred streaks of fire. Jack dragged Lorraine to the first
+floor; she was terribly excited. Almost at once she knelt down
+and began to load rifles, passing them to Jack, who passed them
+to the soldiers at the windows. Once, when a whole window was
+torn in and the mattress on fire, she quenched the flames with
+water from her pitcher; and when the soldiers hesitated at the
+breach, she started herself, but Jack held her back and led the
+cheering, and piled more mattresses into the shattered window.
+
+Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house,
+hammering with rifle-butts at the closed shutters, crouching,
+dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into
+the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres
+in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and
+galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.
+
+Suddenly they all gave way; the garden and lawns were emptied
+save for the writhing wounded and motionless dead.
+
+"Cheer!" gasped Lorraine; and the battered Château rang again
+with frenzied cries of triumph.
+
+The wounded were calling for water, and Jack and Lorraine brought
+it in bowls. Here and there the bedding and wood-work had caught
+fire, but the line soldiers knocked it out with their rifle-butts.
+Whenever Lorraine entered a room they cheered her--the young
+officers waved their caps, even a dying bugler raised himself and
+feebly sounded the salute to the colours.
+
+By the light of the candles Jack noticed for the first time that
+Lorraine wore the dress of the Province--that costume that he had
+first seen her in--the scarlet skirt, the velvet bodice, the
+chains of silver. And as she stood loading the rifles in the
+smoke-choked room, the soldiers saw more than that: they saw the
+Province itself in battle there--the Province of Lorraine. And
+they cheered and leaped to the windows, firing frenziedly, crying
+the old battle-cry of Lorraine: "Tiens ta Foy! Frappe! Pour le
+Roy!" while the child in the bodice and scarlet skirt stood up
+straight and snapped back the locks of the loaded chassepots, one
+by one.
+
+"Once again! For France!" cried Lorraine, as the clamour of the
+Prussian drums broke out on the hill-side, and the hoarse
+trumpets signalled from wood to wood.
+
+A thundering cry arose from the Château:
+
+"France!"
+
+The sullen boom of a Prussian cannon drowned it; the house shook
+with the impact of a shell, bursting in fury on the terrace.
+
+White faces turned to faces whiter still.
+
+"Cannon!"
+
+"Hold on! For France!" cried Lorraine, feverishly.
+
+"Cannon!" echoed the voices, one to another.
+
+Again the solid walls shook with the shock of a solid shot.
+
+Jack stuffed the steel box into his breast and turned to
+Lorraine.
+
+"It is ended, we cannot stay--" he began; but at that instant
+something struck him a violent blow on the chest, and he fell,
+striking the floor with his head.
+
+In a second Lorraine was at his side, lifting him with all the
+strength of her arms, calling to him: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"
+
+The soldiers were leaving the windows now; the house rocked and
+tottered under the blows of shell and solid shot. Down-stairs an
+officer cried: "Save yourselves!" There was a hurry of feet
+through the halls and on the stairs. A young soldier touched
+Lorraine timidly on the shoulder.
+
+"Give him to me; I will carry him down," he said.
+
+She clung to Jack and turned a blank gaze on the soldier.
+
+"Give him to me," he repeated; "the house is burning." But she
+would not move nor relinquish her hold. Then the soldier seized
+Jack and threw him over his shoulder, running swiftly down the
+stairs, that rocked under his feet. Lorraine cried out and
+followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and
+thunder of the exploding shells dazed and stunned her; but the
+soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she
+followed, stumbling to his side.
+
+"To the trees--yonder--the forest--" he gasped.
+
+They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man
+by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.
+
+"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"
+
+"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against
+a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes
+closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+PRINCESS IMPERIAL
+
+
+The glare from the Château Morteyn, now wrapped in torrents of
+curling flame, threw long crimson shafts of light far into the
+forest. The sombre trees glimmered like live cinders; the wet
+moss crisped and bronzed as the red radiance played through the
+thickets. The bright, wavering fire-glow fell full on Jack's
+body; his face was hidden in the shadow of Lorraine's hair.
+
+Twice the timid young soldier drew her away, but she crept back,
+murmuring Jack's name; and at last the soldier seized the body in
+both arms and stumbled on again, calling Lorraine to follow.
+
+Little by little the illumination faded out among the trees; the
+black woods crowded in on every side; the noise of the crackling
+flames, the shouting, the brazen rattle of drums grew fainter and
+fainter, and finally died out in the soft, thick blackness of the
+forest.
+
+When they halted the young soldier placed Jack on the moss, then
+held out his hands. Lorraine touched them. He guided her to the
+prostrate figure; she flung herself face down beside it.
+
+After a moment the soldier touched her again timidly on the
+shoulder:
+
+"Have I done well?"
+
+She sobbed her thanks, rising to her knees. The soldier, a boy of
+eighteen, straightened up; he noiselessly laid his knapsack and
+haversack on the ground, trembled, swayed, and sat down,
+muttering vaguely of God and the honour of France. Presently he
+went away, lurching in the darkness like a drunken man--on, on,
+deep into the forest, where nothing of light or sound penetrated.
+And when he could no longer stand he sat down, his young head in
+his hands, and waited. His body had been shot through and
+through. About midnight he died.
+
+When Jack came to his senses the gray mystery of dawn was passing
+through the silent forest aisles; the beeches, pallid, stark,
+loomed motionless on every side; the pale veil of sky-fog hung
+festooned from tree to tree. There was a sense of breathless
+waiting in the shadowy woods--no sound, no stir, nothing of life
+or palpitation--nothing but foreboding.
+
+Jack crawled to his knees; his chest ached, his mouth cracked
+with a terrible throbbing thirst. Dazed as yet, he did not even
+look around; he did not try to think; but that weight on his
+chest grew to a burning agony, and he tore at his coat and threw
+it open. The flat steel box, pierced by a bullet, fell on the
+ground before his knees. Then he remembered. He ripped open
+waistcoat and shirt and stared at his bare breast. It was
+discoloured--a mass of bruises, but there was no blood there. He
+looked listlessly at the box on the leaves under him, and touched
+his bruised body. Suddenly his mind grew clearer; he stumbled up,
+steadying himself against a tree. His lips moved "Lorraine!" but
+no sound came. Again, in terror, he tried to cry out. He could
+not speak. Then he saw her. She lay among the dead leaves, face
+downward in the moss.
+
+When at last he understood that she was alive he lay down beside
+her, one arm across her body, and sank into a profound sleep.
+
+She woke first. A burning thirst set her weeping in her sleep and
+then roused her. Tear-stained and ghastly pale, she leaned over
+the sleeping man beside her, listened to his breathing, touched
+his hair, then rose and looked fearfully about her. On the
+knapsack under the tree a tin cup was shining. She took it and
+crept down into a gulley, where, through the deep layers of dead
+leaves, water sparkled in a string of tiny iridescent puddles.
+The water, however, was sweet and cold, and, when she had
+satisfied her thirst and had dug into the black loam with the
+edge of the cup, more water, sparkling and pure, gushed up and
+spread out in the miniature basin. She waited for the mud and
+leaves to settle, and when the basin was clear she unbound her
+hair, loosened her bodice, and slipped it off. When she had
+rolled the wide, full sleeves of her chemise to the shoulder she
+bathed her face and breast and arms; they glistened like marble
+tinged with rose in the pale forest dawn. The little scrupulous
+ablutions finished, she dried her face on the fine cambric of the
+under-sleeve, she dried her little ears, her brightening eyes,
+the pink palms of her hand, and every polished finger separately
+from the delicate flushed tip to the wrist, blue-veined and
+slender. She shook out her heavy hair, heavy and gleaming with
+burnished threads, and bound it tighter. She mended the broken
+points of her bodice, then laced it firmly till it pressed and
+warmed her fragrant breast. Then she rose.
+
+There was nothing of fear or sorrow in her splendid eyes; her
+mouth was moist and scarlet, her curved cheeks pure as a child's.
+
+For a moment she stood pensive, her face now grave, now
+sensitive, now touched with that mysterious exaltation that glows
+through the histories of the saints, that shines from tapestries,
+that hides in the dim faces carved on shrines.
+
+For the world was trembling and the land cried out under the
+scourge, and she was ready now for what must be. The land would
+call her where she was awaited; the time, the hour, the place had
+been decreed. She was ready--and where was the bitterness of
+death, when she could face it with the man she loved.
+
+Loved? At the thought her knees trembled under her with the
+weight of this love; faint with its mystery and sweetness, her
+soul turned in its innocence to God. And for the first time in
+her child's life she understood that God lived.
+
+She understood now that the sadness of life was gone forever.
+There was no loneliness now for soul or heart; nothing to fear,
+nothing to regret. Her life was complete. Death seemed an
+incident. If it came to her or to the man she loved, they would
+wait for one another a little while--that was all.
+
+A pale sunbeam stole across the tree-tops. She looked up. A
+little bird sang, head tilted towards the blue. She moved softly
+up the slope, her hair glistening in the early sun, her blue eyes
+dreaming; and when she came to the sleeping man she bent beside
+him and held a cup of sweet water to his lips.
+
+About noon they spoke of hunger, timidly, lest either might think
+the other complained. Her head close against his, her warm arms
+tight around his neck, she told him of the boy soldier, the
+dreadful journey in the night, the terror, and the awakening. She
+told him of the birth of her love for him--how death no longer
+was to be feared or sought. She told him there was nothing to
+alarm him, nothing to make them despair. Sin could not touch
+them; death was God's own gift.
+
+He listened, too happy to even try to understand. Perhaps he
+could not, being only a young man in love. But he knew that all
+she said must be true, perhaps too true for him to comprehend. He
+was satisfied; his life was complete. Something of the contentment
+of a school-boy exhausted with play lingered in his eyes.
+
+They had spoken of the box; she had taken it reverently in her
+hands and touched the broken key, snapped off short in the lock.
+Inside, the Prussian bullet rattled as she turned the box over
+and over, her eyes dim with love for the man who had done all for
+her.
+
+Jack found a loaf of bread in the knapsack. It was hard and dry,
+but they soaked it in the leaf-covered spring and ate it
+deliciously, cheek against cheek.
+
+Little by little their plans took shape. They were to go--Heaven
+knows how!--to find the Emperor. Into his hands they would give
+the box with its secrets, then turn again, always together, ready
+for their work, wherever it might be.
+
+Towards mid-afternoon Lorraine grew drowsy. There was a summer
+warmth in the air; the little forest birds came to the spring
+and preened their feathers in the pale sunshine. Two cicadas,
+high in the tree-tops, droned an endless harmony; hemlock cones
+dropped at intervals on the dead leaves.
+
+When Lorraine lay asleep, her curly head on Jack's folded coat,
+her hands clasped under her cheek, Jack leaned back against the
+tree and picked up the box. He turned it softly, so that the
+bullet within should not rattle. After a moment he opened his
+penknife and touched the broken fragment of the key in the lock.
+Idly turning the knife-blade this way and that, but noiselessly,
+for fear of troubling Lorraine, he thought of the past, the
+present, and the future. Sir Thorald lay dead on the hillock
+above the river Lisse; Alixe slept beside him; Rickerl was
+somewhere in the country, riding with his Uhlan scourges; Molly
+Hesketh waited in Paris for her dead husband; the Marquis de
+Nesville's bones were lying in the forest where he now sat,
+watching the sleeping child of the dead man. His child? Jack
+looked at her tenderly. No, not the child of the Marquis de
+Nesville, but a foundling, a lost waif in the Lorraine Hills,
+perhaps a child of chance. What of it? She would never know. The
+Château de Nesville was a smouldering mass of fire; the lands
+could revert to the country; she should never again need them,
+never again see them, for he would take her to his own land when
+trouble of war had passed, and there she should forget pain and
+sorrow and her desolate, loveless childhood; she should only
+remember that in the Province of Lorraine she had met the man she
+loved. All else should be a memory of green trees and vineyards
+and rivers, growing vaguer and dimmer as the healing years passed
+on.
+
+The knife-blade in the box bent, sprang back--the box flew open.
+
+He did not realize it at first; he looked at the three folded
+papers lying within, curiously, indolently. Presently he took
+them and looked at the superscriptions written on the back, in
+the handwriting of the marquis. The three papers were inscribed
+as follows:
+
+    "1. For the French Government after the fall of the
+    Empire."
+
+    "2. For the French Government on the death of Louis
+    Bonaparte, falsely called Emperor."
+
+    "3. To whom it may concern!"
+
+"To whom it may concern!" he repeated, looking at the third
+paper. Presently he opened it and read it, and as he read his
+heart seemed to cease its beating.
+
+    "_TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN_!
+
+    "Grief has unsettled my mind, yet, what I now write is
+    true, and, if there is a God, I solemnly call His curses
+    on me and mine if I lie.
+
+    "My only son, René Philip d'Harcourt de Nesville, was
+    assassinated on the Grand Boulevard in Paris, on the 2d
+    of December, 1851. His assassin was a monster named
+    Louis Bonaparte, now known falsely as Napoleon III.,
+    Emperor of the French. His paid murderers shot my boy
+    down, and stabbed him to death with their bayonets, in
+    front of the Café Tortoni. I carried his body home; I
+    sat at the window, with my dead boy on my knees, and I
+    saw Louis Bonaparte ride into the Rue St. Honoré with
+    his murderous Lancers, and I saw children spit at him
+    and hurl curses at him from the barricade.
+
+    "Now I, Gilbert, Marquis de Nesville, swore to strike.
+    And I struck, not at his life--that can wait. I struck
+    at the root of all his pride and honour--I struck at
+    that which he held dearer than these--at his dynasty!
+
+    "Do the people of France remember when the Empress was
+    first declared enciente? The cannon thundered from the
+    orangerie at Saint-Cloud, the dome of the Invalides
+    blazed rockets, the city glittered under a canopy of
+    coloured fire. Oh, they were very careful of the Empress
+    of the French! They went to Saint-Cloud, and later to
+    Versailles, as they go to holy cities, praying. And the
+    Emperor himself grew younger, they said.
+
+    "Then came the news that the expected heir, a son, had
+    been born dead! Lies!
+
+    "I, Gilbert de Nesville, was in the forest when the
+    Empress of the French fell ill. When separated from the
+    others she called to Morny, and bade him drive for the
+    love of Heaven! And they drove--they drove to the
+    Trianon, and there was no one there. And there the child
+    was born. Morny held it in his arms. He came out to the
+    colonnade holding it in his arms, and calling for a
+    messenger. I came, and when I was close to Morny I
+    struck him in the face and he fell senseless. I took the
+    child and wrapped it in my cloak. This is the truth!
+
+    "They dared not tell it; they dared not, for fear and
+    for shame. They said that an heir had been born dead;
+    and they mourned for their dead son. It was only a
+    daughter. She is alive; she loves me, and, God forgive
+    me, I hate her for defeating my just vengeance.
+
+    "And I call her Lorraine de Nesville."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE SHADOW OF POMP
+
+
+The long evening shadows were lengthening among the trees; sleepy
+birds twitted in dusky thickets; Lorraine slept.
+
+Jack still stood staring at the paper in his hands, trying to
+understand the purport of what he read and reread, until the page
+became a blur and his hot eyes burned.
+
+All the significance of the situation rose before him. This
+child, the daughter of the oath-breaker, the butcher of December,
+the sly, slow diplomate of Europe, the man of Rome, of Mexico,
+the man now reeling back to Châlons under the iron blows of an
+aroused people. In Paris, already, they cursed his name; they
+hurled insults at the poor Empress, that mother in despair.
+Thiers, putting his senile fingers in the porridge, stirred a
+ferment that had not even germinated since the guillotine towered
+in the Place de la Concorde and the tumbrils rattled through the
+streets. He did not know what he was stirring. The same impulse
+that possessed Gladstone to devastate trees animated Thiers. He
+stirred the dangerous mess because he liked to stir, nothing
+more. But from that hell's broth the crimson spectre of the
+Commune was to rise, when the smoke of Sedan had drifted clear of
+a mutilated nation.
+
+Through the heavy clouds of death which were already girdling
+Paris, that flabby Cyclops, Gambetta, was to mouth his monstrous
+platitudes, and brood over the battle-smoke, a nightmare of
+pomposity and fanfaronade--in a balloon. All France was bowed
+down in shame at the sight of the grotesque convoy, who were
+proclaiming her destiny among nations, and their destiny to lead
+her to victory and "la gloire." A scorched, blood-soaked land, a
+pall of smoke through which brave men bared their breasts to the
+blast from the Rhine, and died uncomplainingly, willingly,
+cheerfully, for the mother-land--was it not pitiful?
+
+The sublime martyrdom of the men who marched, who shall write it?
+And who shall write of those others--Bazaine, Napoleon, Thiers,
+Gambetta, Favre, Ollivier?
+
+If Bazaine died, cursed by a nation, his martyrdom, for martyrdom
+it was, was no greater than that of the humblest French peasant,
+who, dying, knew at last that he died, not for France, but
+because the men who sent him were worse than criminal--they were
+imbecile.
+
+The men who marched were sublime; they were the incarnation of
+embattled France; the starving people of Metz, of Strassbourg, of
+Paris, were sublime. But there was nothing sublime about Monsieur
+Adolphe Thiers, nothing heroic about Hugo, nothing respectable
+about Gambetta. The marshal with the fat neck and Spanish
+affiliations, the poor confused, inert, over-fed marshal caged in
+Metz by the Red Prince, harassed, bewildered, stunned by the
+clashing of politics and military strategy, which his meagre
+brain was unable to reconcile or separate--this unfortunate
+incapable was deserving of pity, perhaps of contempt. His cup
+was to be bitterer than that--it was to be drained, too, with the
+shouts of "Traitor" stunning his fleshy ears.
+
+He was no traitor. Cannot France understand that this single word
+"traitor" has brought her to contempt in the eyes of the world?
+There are two words that mar every glorious, sublime page of the
+terrible history of 1870-71, and these two words are "treason"
+and "revenge." Let the nation face the truth, let the people
+write "incapacity" for "treason," and "honour" for "revenge," and
+then the abused term "la gloire" will be justified in the eyes of
+men.
+
+As for Thiers, let men judge him from his three revolutions, let
+the unknown dead in the ditches beyond the enceinte judge him,
+let the spectres of the murdered from Père Lachaise to the
+bullet-pitted terrace of the Luxembourg judge this meddler, this
+potterer in epoch-making cataclysms. Bismarck, gray, imbittered,
+without honour in an unenlightened court, can still smile when he
+remembers Jules Favre and his prayer for the National Guard.
+
+And these were the men who formed the convoy around the chariot
+of France militant, France in arms!--a cortège at once hideous,
+shameful, ridiculous, grotesque.
+
+What was left of the Empire? Metz still held out; Strassbourg
+trembled under the shock of Prussian mortars; Paris strained its
+eyes for the first silhouette of the Uhlan on the heights of
+Versailles; and through the chill of the dying year the sombre
+Emperor, hunted, driven, threatened, tumbled into the snare of
+Sedan as a sick buzzard flutters exhausted to earth under a
+shower of clubs and stones.
+
+The end was to be brutal: a charge or two of devoted men, a crush
+at the narrow gates, a white flag, a brusque gesture from
+Bismarck, nothing more except a "guard of honour," an imperial
+special train, and Belgian newsboys shrieking along the station
+platform, "Extra! Fall of the Empire! Paris proclaims the
+Republic! Flight of the Empress! Extra!"
+
+Jack, sitting with the paper in his hands, read between the
+lines, and knew that the prophecy of evil days would be
+fulfilled. But as yet the writing on the wall of Alsatian hills
+had not spelled "Sedan," nor did he know of the shambles of
+Mars-la-Tour, the bloody work at Buzancy, the retreat from
+Châlons, and the evacuation of Vitry.
+
+Buzancy marked the beginning of the end. It was nothing but a
+skirmish; the 3d Saxon Cavalry, a squadron or two of the 18th
+Uhlans, and Zwinker's Battery fought a half-dozen squadrons of
+chasseurs. But the red-letter mark on the result was unmistakable.
+Bazaine's correspondence was captured. On the same day the second
+sortie occurred from Strassbourg. It was time, for the trenches
+and parallels had been pushed within six hundred paces of the
+glacis. And so it was everywhere, the whole country was in a
+ferment of disorganized but desperate resistance of astonishment,
+indignation, dismay.
+
+The nation could not realize that it was too late, that it was
+not conquest but invasion which the armies of France must prepare
+for. Blow after blow fell, disaster after disaster stunned the
+country, while the government studied new and effective forms of
+lying and evasion, and the hunted Emperor drifted on to his doom
+in the pitfall of Sedan.
+
+All Alsace except Belfort, Strassbourg, Schlettstadt, and Neuf
+Brisac was in German hands, under German power, governed by
+German law. The Uhlans scoured the country as clean as possible,
+but the franc-tireurs roamed from forest to forest, sometimes
+gallantly facing martyrdom, sometimes looting, burning,
+pillaging, and murdering. If Germans maintain that the only good
+franc-tireur is a dead franc-tireur, they are not always
+justified. Let them sit first in judgment on Andreas Hofer.
+England had Hereward; America, Harry Lee; and, when the South is
+ready to acknowledge Mosby and Quantrell of the same feather, it
+will be time for France to blush for her franc-tireurs. Noble and
+ignoble, patriots and cowards, the justified and the misguided
+wore the straight képi and the sheepskin jacket. All figs in
+Spain are not poisoned.
+
+With the fall of the Château Morteyn, the war in Lorraine would
+degenerate into a combat between picquets of Uhlans and roving
+franc-tireurs. There would be executions of spies, vengeance on
+peasants, examples made of franc-tireurs, and all the horrors of
+irregular warfare. Jack knew this; he understood it perfectly
+when the muddy French infantry tramped out of the Château Morteyn
+and vanished among the dark hills in the rain.
+
+For himself, had he been alone, there would have been nothing to
+keep him in the devastated province. Indeed, considering his
+peculiarly strained relations with the Uhlans of Rickerl's
+regiment, it behooved him to get across the Belgian frontier
+very promptly.
+
+Now he not only had Lorraine, he had the woman who loved him and
+who was ready to sacrifice herself and him too for the honour of
+France. She lived for one thing--the box, with its pitiful
+contents, its secrets of aërial navigation and destruction, must
+be placed at the service of France. The government was France
+now, and the Empress was the government. Lorraine knew nothing of
+the reasons her father had had for his hatred of the Emperor and
+the Empire. Personal grievances, even when those grievances were
+her father's, even though they might be justified, would never
+deter her from placing the secrets that might aid, might save,
+France with the man who, at that moment, in her eyes, represented
+the safety, security, the very existence of the land she loved.
+
+Jack knew this. Whether she was right or not did not occur to him
+to ask. But the irony of it, the grim necessity of such a fate,
+staggered him--a daughter seeking her father at the verge of his
+ruin--a child, long lost, forgotten, unrecognized, unclaimed,
+finding the blind path to a father who, when she had been torn
+from him, dared not seek for her, dared not whisper of her
+existence except to Morny in the cloaked shadows of secret
+places.
+
+For good or ill Jack made up his mind; he had decided for himself
+and for her. Her loveless, lonely childhood had been enough of
+sorrow for one young life; she should have no further storm, no
+more heartaches, nothing but peace and love and the strong arm of
+a man to shield her. Let her remember the only father she had
+ever known--let her remember him with faithful love and sorrow
+as she would. For the wrong he had done, let him account to
+another tribunal; her, the echo of that crime and hate and
+passion must never reach.
+
+Why should he, the man who loved her, bring to her this heritage
+of ruin? Why should he tear the veil from her trusting eyes and
+show her a land bought with blood and broken oaths, sold in blood
+and infamy? Why should he show her this, and say, "This is the
+work of your imperial family! There is your father!--some call
+him the Assassin of December! There is your mother!--read the
+pages of an Eastern diary! There, too, is your brother, a sick
+child of fifteen, baptized at Saarbrück, endowed at Sedan?"
+
+It was enough that France lay prostrate, that the wounded
+screamed from the blood-wet fields, that the quiet dead lay under
+the pall of smoke from the nation's funeral pyre. It was enough
+that the parents suffer, that the son drag out an existence among
+indifferent or hostile people in an alien land. The daughter
+should never know, never weep when they wept, never pray when
+they prayed. This was retribution--not his, he only watched in
+silence the working of divine justice.
+
+He tore the paper into fragments and ground them under his heel
+deep into the soft forest mould.
+
+Lorraine slept.
+
+He stood a long while in silence looking down at her. She was
+breathing quietly, regularly; her long, curling lashes rested on
+curved cheeks, delicate as an infant's.
+
+Half fearfully he stooped to arouse her. A footfall sounded on
+the dead leaves behind him, and a franc-tireur touched him on the
+shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+ÇA IRA!
+
+
+"What do you want?" asked Jack, in a voice that vibrated
+unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips
+grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped
+from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the
+subdued afternoon haze--wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless
+sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and
+trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him
+without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering their
+gunlocks, bayoneted rifles unslung.
+
+"Your name?" said the man who had touched him on the shoulder.
+
+He did not reply at once. One of the men began to laugh.
+
+"He's the vicomte's nephew," said another; and, pointing at
+Lorraine, who, now aroused, sat up on the moss beside Jack, he
+continued: "And that is the little châtelaine of the Château de
+Nesville." He took off his straight-visored cap.
+
+The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine
+stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were
+doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground.
+
+"Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she
+said. "Oh, and there is le Père Passerat, and little Émile Brun!
+Émile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?" The dark
+faces lighted up; somebody snickered; Brun, the conscript of the
+class of '71 who had been hauled by the heels from under his
+mother's bed, looked confused and twiddled his thumbs.
+
+One by one the franc-tireurs came shambling up to pay their
+awkward respects to Lorraine and to Jack, while Tricasse pulled
+his bristling mustache and clattered his sabre in its sheath
+approvingly. When his men had acquitted themselves with all the
+awkward sincerity of Lorraine peasants, he advanced with a superb
+bow and flourish, lifting his cap from his gray head:
+
+"In my quality of ex-pompier and commandant of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn'--my battalion"--here he made a sweeping gesture as
+though briefly reviewing an army corps instead of a dozen
+wolfish-eyed peasants--"I extend to our honoured and beloved
+Châtelaine de Nesville, and to our honoured guest, Monsieur
+Marche, the protection and safe-conduct of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn.'"
+
+As he spoke his expression became exalted. He, Tricasse,
+ex-pompier and exempt, was posing as the saviour of his province,
+and he felt that, though German armies stretched in endless ranks
+from the Loire to the Meuse, he, Tricasse, was the man of
+destiny, the man of the place and the hour when beauty was in
+distress.
+
+Lorraine, her eyes dim with gentle tears, held out both slender
+hands; Tricasse bent low and touched them with his grizzled
+mustache. Then he straightened up, frowned at his men, and said
+"Attention!" in a very fierce voice.
+
+The half-starved fellows shuffled into a single rank; their faces
+were wreathed in sheepish smiles. Jack noticed that a Bavarian
+helmet and side-arm hung from the knapsack of one, a mere
+freckled lad, downy and dimpled. Tricasse drew his sabre, turned,
+marched solemnly along the front, wheeled again, and saluted.
+
+Jack lifted his cap; Lorraine, her arm in his, bowed and smiled
+tearfully.
+
+"The dear, brave fellows!" she cried, impulsively, whereat every
+man reddened, and Tricasse grew giddy with emotion. He tried to
+speak; his emotion was great.
+
+"In my capacity of ex-pompier," he gasped, then went to pieces,
+and hid his eyes in his hands. The "Terrors of Morteyn" wept with
+him to a man.
+
+Presently, with a gesture to Tricasse, Jack led Lorraine down the
+slope, past the spring, and on through the forest, three
+"Terrors" leading, rifles poised, Tricasse and the others
+following, alert and balancing their cocked rifles.
+
+"How far is your camp?" asked Jack. "We need food and the warmth
+of a fire. Tell me, Monsieur Tricasse, what is left of the two
+châteaux?"
+
+Lorraine bent nearer as the old man said: "The Château de Nesville
+is a mass of cinders; Morteyn, a stone skeleton. Pierre is dead.
+There are many dead there--many, many dead. The Prussians burned
+Saint-Lys yesterday; they shot Bosquet, the letter-carrier; they
+hung his boy to the railroad trestle, then shot him to pieces. The
+Curé is a prisoner; the Mayor of Saint-Lys and the Notary have
+been sent to the camp at Strassbourg. We, my 'Terrors of Morteyn'
+and I, are still facing the vandals; except for us, the Province
+of Lorraine is empty of Frenchmen in armed resistance."
+
+The old man, in his grotesque uniform, touched his bristling
+mustache and muttered: "Nom d'une pipe!" several times to steady
+his voice.
+
+Lorraine and Jack pressed on silently, sorrowfully, hand in hand,
+watching the scouts ahead, who were creeping on through the
+trees, heads turning from side to side, rifles raised. They
+passed along the back of a thickly wooded ridge for some
+distance, perhaps a mile, before the thin blue line of a
+smouldering camp-fire rose almost in their very faces. A low
+challenge from a clump of birch-trees was answered, there came
+the sound of rifles dropping, the noise of feet among the leaves,
+a whisper, and before they knew it they were standing at the
+mouth of a hole in the bank, from which came the odour of
+beef-broth simmering. Two or three franc-tireurs passed them,
+looking up curiously into their faces. Tricasse dragged a
+dilapidated cane-chair from the dirt-cave and placed it before
+Lorraine as though he were inviting her to an imperial throne.
+
+"Thank you," she said, sweetly, and seated herself, not
+relinquishing Jack's hand.
+
+Two tin basins of soup were brought to them; they ate it, soaking
+bits of crust in it.
+
+The men pretended not to watch them. With all their instinctive
+delicacy these clumsy peasants busied themselves in guard-mounting,
+weapon cleaning, and their cuisine, as though there was no such
+thing as a pretty woman within miles. But it tried their gallantry
+as Frenchmen and their tact as Lorraine peasants. Furtive glances,
+deprecatory and timid, were met by the sweetest of smiles from
+Lorraine or a kindly nod from Jack. Tricasse, utterly unbalanced by
+his new rôle of protector of beauty, gave orders in fierce, agitated
+whispers, and made sudden aimless promenades around the birch thicket.
+In one of these prowls he discovered a toad staring at the camp-fire,
+and he drew his sword with a furious gesture, as though no living
+toad were good enough to intrude on the Châtelaine of the Château de
+Nesville; but the toad hopped away, and Tricasse unbent his brows
+and resumed his agitated prowl.
+
+When Lorraine had finished her soup, Jack took both plates into
+the cave and gave them to a man who, squatted on his haunches,
+was washing dishes. Lorraine followed him and sat down on a
+blanket, leaning back against the side of the cave.
+
+"Wait for me," said Jack. She drew his head down to hers.
+
+They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the
+amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and
+found Tricasse, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad
+ridge.
+
+A road ran under the overhanging bank.
+
+"I didn't know we were so near a road," said Jack, startled.
+Tricasse laid his finger on his lips.
+
+"It is the high-road to Saint-Lys. We have settled more than one
+Uhlan dog on that curve there by the oak-tree. Look! Here comes
+one of our men. See! He's got something, too."
+
+Sure enough, around the bend in the road slunk a franc-tireur,
+loaded down with what appeared to be mail-sacks. Cautiously he
+reconnoitred the bank, the road, the forest on the other side,
+whistled softly, and, at Tricasse's answering whistle, came
+puffing and blowing up the slope, and flung a mail-bag, a rifle,
+a Bavarian helmet, and a German knapsack to the ground.
+
+"The big police officer?" inquired Tricasse, eagerly.
+
+"Yes, the big one with the red beard. He died hard. I used the
+bayonet only," said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the
+dried blood on his hairy fists. "I got a Bavarian sentry, too;
+there's the proof."
+
+Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with
+his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal
+it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling
+them like cards.
+
+One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest
+into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.
+
+"There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going
+to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding
+the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail
+delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur
+Marche?"
+
+"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly.
+
+He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned
+his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the
+franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from
+Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.
+
+"Put out the fire, too," called Tricasse, softly. "I begin to
+smell it."
+
+When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Tricasse,
+folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the
+flat steel box was.
+
+"Letters from Paris," he said. "The Uhlans have appeared in the
+Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and
+enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege."
+
+"Paris!" blurted out Tricasse, aghast.
+
+Jack nodded, silently.
+
+After a moment he resumed: "The Emperor is said to be with the
+army near Mézières on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going
+to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do."
+
+Tricasse stared at him, incapable of speech.
+
+"Very well," said Jack, gently, "think it over. Tell me, at
+least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this
+evening."
+
+He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by
+the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously
+over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a
+careless footstep might perhaps be heard by passing Uhlans. In a
+few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow,
+where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.
+
+Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat
+down on the blankets beside her.
+
+"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In
+it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the
+other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my
+uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened
+because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The
+Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city
+is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or
+Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all
+going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know
+nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they
+need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my
+duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you
+must not go--it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to
+Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with
+a free heart."
+
+She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.
+
+"Hush," she said; "I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to
+try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our
+path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we
+tread it together, always together, Jack." He struggled to speak;
+she held him close, and laid her head against his breast,
+contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of
+France reconquered, of noble deeds and sacrifices, of the great
+bells of churches thundering God's praise to a humble, thankful
+nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay
+dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the
+sleeping echoes of the cave--the scuffling and thrashing of a
+shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a
+crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.
+
+Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly
+out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they
+hurried from the cave another franc-tireur came up, leading a
+riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his
+rifle, the butt dripping with blood.
+
+"Silence," he motioned to them, pointing to the wooded ridge
+beyond. Jack looked intently at the cavalry horse. The schabraque
+was blue, edged with yellow; the saddle-cloth bore the number
+"11."
+
+"Uhlan?" He formed the word with his lips.
+
+The franc-tireur nodded with a ghastly smile and glanced down at
+his dripping gunstock.
+
+Lorraine's hand closed on Jack's arm.
+
+"Come to the hill," she said; "I cannot stand that."
+
+On the crest of the wooded ridge crouched Tricasse, bared sabre
+stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around
+him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in
+the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts,
+their sinewy fingers played continually with the rifle-hammers.
+
+Jack hesitated, his arm around Lorraine's body, his eyes fixed
+nervously on the bend in the road.
+
+Something was coming; there were cries, the trample of horses,
+the shuffle of footsteps. Suddenly an Uhlan rode cautiously
+around the bend, glanced right and left, looked back, signalled,
+and started on. Behind him crowded a dozen more Uhlans, lances
+glancing, pennants streaming in the wind.
+
+"They've got a woman!" whispered Lorraine.
+
+They had a man, too--a powerful, bearded peasant, with a great
+livid welt across his bloodless face. A rope hung around his
+neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle-bow of an
+Uhlan. But what made Jack's heart fairly leap into his mouth was
+to see Siurd von Steyr suddenly wheel in his saddle and lash the
+woman across the face with his doubled bridle.
+
+She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his
+stirrup.
+
+"Get out, damn you!" roared Von Steyr. "Here--I'll settle this
+now. Shoot that French dog!"
+
+"My husband, O God!" screamed the woman, struggling in the dust.
+In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred
+forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around
+his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and
+tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to
+pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt,
+another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a
+wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan's face, deeper,
+deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.
+
+"Fire!" shrieked Tricasse--"the woman's dead!"
+
+Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering,
+sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure passed like a flash
+through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew
+back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the
+franc-tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene
+was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were
+torn from their frantic horses until only one remained--Von
+Steyr--drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head.
+They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot
+eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat
+him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck
+him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad
+cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when
+they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated
+the rabid thing that ran among them.
+
+But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road
+galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with
+harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the
+franc-tireurs were surrounded.
+
+Then Tricasse raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the
+dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the
+dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and
+the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the
+road:
+
+    "'Ça ira! Ça ira!'"
+
+It was the horrible song of the Terror.
+
+
+    "'Que faut-il au Républicain?
+    Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!
+
+    "'Du fer pour travailler,
+    Du plomb pour nous venger,
+    Et du pain pour nos frères!'"
+
+
+And the fierce voices sang:
+
+
+    "'Dansons la Carmagnole!
+    Dansons la Carmagnole!
+      Ça ira! Ça ira!
+    Tous les cochons à la lanterne!
+      Ça ira! Ça ira!
+    Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!'"
+
+
+The road trembled under the advancing cavalry; they surged around
+the bend, a chaos of rearing horses and levelled lances; a ring
+of fire around the little group of franc-tireurs, a cry from the
+whirl of flame and smoke:
+
+"France!"
+
+So they died.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE BRACONNIER
+
+
+Lorraine had turned ghastly white; Jack's shocked face was
+colourless as he drew her away from the ridge with him into the
+forest. The appalling horror had stunned her; her knees gave way,
+she stumbled, but Jack held her up by main force, pushing the
+undergrowth aside and plunging straight on towards the thickest
+depths of the woods. He had not the faintest idea where he was;
+he only knew that for the moment it was absolutely necessary for
+them to get as far away as possible from the Uhlans and their
+butcher's work. Lorraine knew it, too; she tried to recover her
+coolness and her strength.
+
+"Here is another road," she said, faintly; "Jack--I--I am not
+strong--I am--a--little--faint--" Tears were running over her
+cheeks.
+
+Jack peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road.
+Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and
+he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.
+
+"Who are you?" came the summons again in French. Jack did not
+answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip,
+stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of
+the slope.
+
+"Hallo!" he called, softly.
+
+Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly
+and puzzled smile.
+
+"What do you want?" asked Jack, suspiciously.
+
+"Parbleu! what do you want yourself?" asked the peasant, and
+showed his teeth in a frank laugh.
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+The peasant's eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her
+blanched face half hidden under the masses of her hair. "Oho!" he
+said--"a woman!"
+
+Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and
+close up to Jack.
+
+"Thought you might be one of those German spies," he said. "Is
+the lady ill? Coeur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has
+happened? I am Brocard--Jean Brocard; they know me here in the
+forest--"
+
+"Eh!" broke in Jack--"you say you are Brocard the poacher?"
+
+"Hey! That's it--Brocard, braconnier--at your service. And you
+are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the
+little châtelaine De Nesville! Coeur Dieu! Have the Prussians
+brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche--I know you and I
+know the little châtelaine--oh, I know!--I, who have watched you
+at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while
+I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must
+live! Yes, I am Brocard--I do not lie. I have taken enough game
+from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?"
+
+He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost
+impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told
+him the exact truth, word by word, slowly and without bitterness,
+his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.
+
+"Coeur Dieu!" muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine;
+"I've half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in
+the hides of these Prussian swine!"
+
+He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When
+they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and
+badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech
+growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing
+before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.
+
+"I have a guest," he said; "you need not fear him. Come!"
+
+In a dozen steps they entered the low doorway, Brocard leading,
+Lorraine leaning heavily on Jack's shoulder.
+
+"Pst! There is a thick-headed Englishman in the next room; let
+him sleep in peace," murmured Brocard.
+
+He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace
+with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the
+little flames began to rustle and snap.
+
+Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms;
+Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from
+Lorraine to Brocard.
+
+The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and
+leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes
+fixed on the reviving fire.
+
+"Morteyn! Morteyn!" he repeated; "it exists no longer. There are
+many dead there--dead in the garden, in the court, on the
+lawn--dead floating in the pond, the river--dead rotting in the
+thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them--I, Brocard the
+poacher."
+
+After a moment he resumed:
+
+"There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the
+Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as
+they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I
+saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges;
+I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought
+to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game--boars,
+deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched
+one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds--I really
+cannot tell."
+
+He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the
+next moment, and he continued: "I heard the fusillade on the
+Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing
+themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when God
+permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Tricasse at last. Zut!
+C'est embêtant! And poor old Passerat, too--and Brun, and all the
+rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I--but, no--no! I am doing very well--I,
+Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way."
+
+An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth--that
+was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably
+already sent more than one Prussian to his account.
+
+"That's all very well," he said, slowly--he had little sympathy
+with guerilla assassination--"but I'd rather hear how you are
+going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian
+lines."
+
+"You take much for granted," laughed the poacher. "Now, did I
+offer to do any such thing?"
+
+"But you will," said Jack, "for the honour of the Province and
+the vicomte, whose game, it appears, has afforded you both
+pleasure and profit."
+
+"Coeur Dieu!" cried Brocard, laughing until his bright eyes grew
+moist. "You have spoken the truth, Monsieur Marche. But you have
+not added what I place first of all; it is for the gracious
+châtelaine of the Château de Nesville that I, Jean Brocard, play
+at hazard with the Prussians, the stakes being my skin. I will
+bring you through the lines; leave it to me."
+
+Before Jack could speak again the door of the next room opened,
+and a man appeared, dressed in tweeds, booted and spurred, and
+carrying a travelling-satchel. There was a moment's astonished
+silence.
+
+"Marche!" cried Archibald Grahame; "what the deuce are you doing
+here?" They shook hands, looking questioningly at each other.
+
+"Times have changed since we breakfasted by candle-light at
+Morteyn," said Jack, trying to regain his coolness.
+
+"I know--I know," said Grahame, sympathetically. "It's devilish
+rough on you all--on Madame de Morteyn. I can never forget her
+charming welcome. Dear me, but this war is disgusting; isn't it
+now? And what the devil are you doing here? Heavens, man, you're
+a sight!"
+
+Lorraine sat up on the bed at the sound of the voices. When
+Grahame saw her, saw her plight--the worn shoes, the torn,
+stained bodice and skirt, the pale face and sad eyes--he was too
+much affected to speak. Jack told him their situation in a dozen
+words; the sight of Lorraine's face told the rest.
+
+"Now we'll arrange that," cried Grahame. "Don't worry, Marche.
+Pray do not alarm yourself, Mademoiselle de Nesville, for I have
+a species of post-chaise at the door and a pair of alleged
+horses, and the whole outfit is at your disposal; indeed it is,
+and so am I. Come now!--and so am I." He hesitated, and then
+continued: "I have passes and papers, and enough to get you
+through a dozen lines. Now, where do you wish to go?"
+
+"When are you to start?" replied Jack, gratefully.
+
+"Say in half an hour. Can Mademoiselle de Nesville stand it?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," said Lorraine, with a tired, quaint politeness
+that made them smile.
+
+"Then we wish to get as near to the French Army as we can," said
+Jack. "I have a mission of importance. If you could drive us to
+the Luxembourg frontier we would be all right--if we had any
+money."
+
+"You shall have everything," cried Grahame; "you shall be driven
+where you wish. I'm looking for a battle, but I can't seem to
+find one. I've been driving about this wreck of a country for the
+last three days; I missed Amonvillers on the 18th, and Rezonville
+two days before. I saw the battles of Reichshofen and Borney. The
+Germans lost three thousand five hundred men at Beaumont, and I
+was not there either. But there's a bigger thing on the carpet,
+somewhere near the Meuse, and I'm trying to find out where and
+when. I've wasted a lot of time loafing about Metz. I want to see
+something on a larger scale, not that the Metz business isn't
+large enough--two hundred thousand men, six hundred cannon--and
+the Red Prince--licking their chops and getting up an appetite
+for poor old Bazaine and his battered, diseased, starved,
+disheartened army, caged under the forts and citadel of a city
+scarcely provisioned for a regiment."
+
+Lorraine, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked at him silently,
+but her eyes were full of a horror and anguish that Grahame could
+not help seeing.
+
+"The Emperor is with the army yet," he said, cheerfully. "Who
+knows what may happen in the next twenty-four hours? Mademoiselle
+de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour
+of France."
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine.
+
+Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out
+into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young
+French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss
+plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg
+frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in
+the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.
+
+"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon;
+this cannot go on. We will find the Emperor and do our part.
+Don't look that way, Lorraine, my darling!" He took her in his
+arms. She put both arms around his neck, and hid her face.
+
+For a while he held her, watching the fire with troubled eyes.
+The room grew darker; a wind arose among the forest trees,
+stirring dried leaves on brittle stems; the ashes on the hearth
+drifted like gray snowflakes.
+
+Her stillness began to trouble him. He bent in the dusk to see
+her face. She was asleep. Terror, pity, anguish, the dreadful
+uncertainty, had strained her child's nerves to the utmost; after
+that came the deep fatigue that follows torture, and she lay in
+his arms, limp, pallid, exhausted. Her sleep was almost the
+unconsciousness of coma; she scarcely breathed.
+
+The fire on the hearth went out; the smoking embers glimmered
+under feathery ashes. Grahame entered, carrying a lantern.
+
+"Come," he whispered. "Poor little thing!--can't I help you,
+Marche? Wait; here's a rug. So--wrap it around her feet. Can you
+carry her? Then follow; here, touch my coat--I'm going to put out
+the light in my lantern. Now--gently. Here we are."
+
+Jack climbed into the post-chaise; Grahame, holding Lorraine in
+his arms, leaned in, and Jack took her again. She had not
+awakened.
+
+"Brocard and I are going to sit in front," whispered Grahame. "Is
+all right within?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Jack.
+
+The chaise moved on for a moment, then suddenly stopped with a
+jerk.
+
+Jack heard Grahame whisper, "Sit still, you fool! I've got
+passes; sit still!"
+
+"Let go!" murmured Brocard.
+
+"Sit still!" repeated Grahame, in an angry whisper; "it's all
+right, I tell you. Be silent!"
+
+There was a noiseless struggle, a curse half breathed, then a
+figure slipped from the chaise into the road.
+
+Grahame sank back. "Marche, that damned poacher will hang us all.
+What am I to do?"
+
+"What is it?" asked Jack, in a scarcely audible voice.
+
+"Can't you hear? There's an Uhlan in the road in front. That fool
+means to kill him."
+
+Jack strained his eyes in the darkness; the road ahead was black
+and silent.
+
+"You can't see him," whispered Grahame. "Brocard caught the
+distant rattle of his lance in the stirrup. He's gone to kill
+him, the bloodthirsty imbecile!"
+
+"To shoot him?" asked Jack, aghast.
+
+"No; he's got his broad wood-knife--that's the way these brutes
+kill. Hark! Good God!"
+
+A scream rang through the forest; something was coming towards
+them, too--a horse, galloping, galloping, pounding, thundering
+past--a frantic horse that tossed its head and tore on through
+the night, mane flying, bridle loose. And there, crouched on the
+saddle, two men swayed, locked in a death-clench--an Uhlan with
+ghostly face and bared teeth, and Brocard, the poacher, cramped
+and clinging like a panther to his prey, his broad knife flashing
+in the gloom.
+
+In a second they were gone; far away in the forest the hoof
+strokes echoed farther and farther, duller, duller, then ceased.
+
+"Drive on," muttered Jack, with lips that could barely form the
+words.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+THE MESSAGE OF THE FLAG
+
+
+It was dawn when Lorraine awoke, stifling a cry of dismay. At the
+same moment she saw Jack, asleep, huddled into a corner of the
+post-chaise, his bloodless, sunken face smeared with the fine red
+dust that drifted in from the creaking wheels. Grahame, driving
+on the front seat, heard her move.
+
+"Are you better?" he asked, cheerfully.
+
+"Yes, thank you; I am better. Where are we?"
+
+Grahame's face sobered.
+
+"I'll tell you the truth," he said; "I don't know, and I can't
+find out. One thing is certain--we've passed the last German
+post, that is all I know. We ought to be near the frontier."
+
+He looked back at Jack, smiled again, and lowered his voice:
+
+"It's fortunate we have passed the German lines, because that
+last cavalry outpost took all my papers and refused to return
+them. I haven't an idea what to do now, except to go on as far as
+we can. I wish we could find a village; the horses are not
+exhausted, but they need rest."
+
+Lorraine listened, scarcely conscious of what he said. She leaned
+over Jack, looking down into his face, brushing the dust from his
+brow with her finger-tips, smoothing his hair, with a timid,
+hesitating glance at Grahame, who understood and gravely turned
+his back.
+
+Jack slept. She nestled down, pressing her soft, cool cheek close
+to his; her eyes drooped; her lips parted. So they slept
+together, cheek to cheek.
+
+A mist drove across the meadows; from the plains, dotted with
+poplars, a damp wind blew in puffs, driving the fog before it
+until the blank vapour dulled the faint morning light and the
+dawn faded into a colourless twilight. Spectral poplars, rank on
+rank, loomed up in the mist, endless rows of them, fading from
+sight as the vapours crowded in, appearing again as the fog
+thinned in a current of cooler wind.
+
+Grahame, driving slowly, began to nod in the thickening fog. At
+moments he roused himself; the horses walked on and the wheels
+creaked in the red dust. Hour after hour passed, but it grew no
+lighter. Drowsy and listless-eyed the horses toiled up and down
+the little hills, and moved stiffly on along the interminable
+road, shrouded in a gray fog that hid the very road-side
+shrubbery from sight, choked thicket and grove, and blotted the
+grimy carriage windows.
+
+Jack was awakened with startling abruptness by Grahame, who shook
+his shoulders, leaning into the post-chaise from the driver's
+seat.
+
+"There's something in front, Marche," he said. "We've fallen in
+with a baggage convoy, I fancy. Listen! Don't you hear the
+camp-wagons? Confound this fog! I can't see a rod ahead."
+
+Lorraine, also now wide awake, leaned from the window. The blank
+vapour choked everything. Jack rubbed his eyes; his limbs ached;
+he could scarcely move. Somebody was running on the road in
+front--the sound of heavy boots in the dust came nearer and
+nearer.
+
+"Look out!" shouted Grahame, in French; "there's a team here in
+the road! Passez au large!"
+
+At the sound of his voice phantoms surged up in the mist around
+them; from every side faces looked into the carriage windows,
+passing, repassing, disappearing, only to appear again--ghostly,
+shadowy, spectral.
+
+"Soldiers!" muttered Jack.
+
+At the same instant Grahame seized the lines and wheeled his
+horses just in time to avoid collision with a big wagon in front.
+As the post-chaise passed, more wagons loomed up in the fog, one
+behind another; soldiers took form around them, voices came to
+their ears, dulled by the mist.
+
+Suddenly a pale shaft of light streamed through the fog above;
+the restless, shifting vapours glimmered; a dazzling blot grew
+from the mist. It was the sun. Little by little the landscape
+became more distinct; the pallid, watery sky lightened; a streak
+of blue cut the zenith. Everywhere in the road great, lumbering
+wagons stood, loaded with straw; the sickly morning light fell on
+silent files of infantry, lining the road on either hand.
+
+"It's a convoy of wounded," said Grahame. "We're in the middle of
+it. Shall we go back?"
+
+A wagon in front of them started on; at the first jolt a cry sounded
+from the straw, another, another--the deep sighs of the dying, the
+groans of the stricken, the muttered curses of teamsters--rose in
+one terrible plaint. Another wagon started--the wounded wailed;
+another started--another--another--and the long train creaked on, the
+air vibrating with the weak protestations of miserable, mangled
+creatures tossing their thin arms towards the sky. And now, too, the
+soldiers were moving out into the road-side bushes, unslinging rifles
+and fixing bayonets; a mounted officer galloped past, shouting
+something; other mounted officers followed; a bugle sounded
+persistently from the distant head of the column.
+
+Everywhere soldiers were running along the road now, grouping
+together under the poplar-trees, heads turned to the plain. Some
+teamsters pushed an empty wagon out beyond the line of trees and
+overturned it; others stood up in their wagons, reins gathered,
+long whips swinging. The wounded moaned incessantly; some sat up
+in the straw, heads turned also towards the dim, gray plain.
+
+"It's an attack," said Grahame, coolly. "Marche, we're in for it
+now!"
+
+After a moment, he added, "What did I tell you? Look there!"
+
+Out on the plain, where the mist was clearing along the edge of a
+belt of trees, something was moving.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lorraine, in a scarcely audible voice.
+
+Before Grahame could speak a tumult of cries and groans burst out
+along the line of wagons; a bugle clanged furiously; the
+teamsters shouted and pointed with their whips.
+
+Out of the shadow of the grove two glittering double lines of
+horsemen trotted, halted, formed, extended right and left, and
+trotted on again. To the right another darker and more compact
+square of horsemen broke into a gallop, swinging a thicket of
+lances above their heads, from which fluttered a mass of black
+and white pennons.
+
+"Cuirassiers and Uhlans!" muttered Grahame, under his breath. He
+stood up in his seat; Jack rose also, straining his eyes, but
+Lorraine hid her face in her hands and crouched in the chaise,
+her head buried in the cushions.
+
+The silence was enervating; even the horses turned their gentle
+eyes wonderingly to that line of steel and lances; even the
+wounded, tremulous, haggard, held their breath between clenched
+teeth and stiff, swollen lips.
+
+"Nom de Dieu! Serrez les rangs, tas de bleus!" yelled an officer,
+riding along the edge of the road, revolver in one hand, naked
+sabre flashing in the other.
+
+A dozen artillerymen were pushing a mitrailleuse up behind the
+overturned wagon. It stuck in the ditch.
+
+"À nous, la ligne!" they shouted, dragging at the wheels until a
+handful of fantassins ran out and pulled the little death machine
+into place.
+
+"Du calme! Du calme! Ne tirez pas trop vite, ménagez vos
+cartouches! Tenez ferme, mes enfants!" said an old officer,
+dismounting and walking coolly out beyond the line of trees.
+
+"Oui! oui! comptez sur nous! Vive le Colonel!" shouted the
+soldiers, shaking their chassepots in the air.
+
+On came the long lines, distinct now--the blue and yellow of the
+Uhlans, the white and scarlet of the cuirassiers, plain against
+the gray trees and grayer pastures. Suddenly a level sheet of
+flame played around the stalled wagons; the smoke gushed out
+over the dark ground; the air split with the crash of rifles. In
+the uproar bugles blew furiously and the harsh German cavalry
+trumpets, peal on peal, nearer, nearer, nearer, answered their
+clangour.
+
+"Hourra! Preussen!"
+
+The deep, thundering shout rose hoarsely through the rifles'
+roaring fusillade; horses reared; teamsters lashed and swore, and
+the rattle of harness and wheel broke out and was smothered in
+the sheeted crashing of the volleys and the shock of the coming
+charge.
+
+And now it burst like an ocean roller, smashing into the wagon
+lines, a turmoil of smoke and flashes, a chaos of maddened,
+plunging horses and bayonets, and the flashing downward strokes
+of heavy sabres. Grahame seized the reins, and lashed his horses;
+a cuirassier drove his bloody, foam-covered charger into the road
+in front and fell, butchered by a dozen bayonets.
+
+Three Uhlans followed, whirling their lances and crashing through
+the lines, their frantic horses crazed by blows and wounds. More
+cuirassiers galloped up; the crush became horrible. A horse and
+steel-clad rider were hurled bodily under the wagon-wheels--an
+Uhlan, transfixed by a bayonet, still clung to his shattered
+lance-butt, screaming, staggering in his stirrups. Suddenly the
+window of the post-chaise was smashed in and a horse and rider
+pitched under the wheels, almost overturning carriage and
+occupants.
+
+"Easy, Marche!" shouted Grahame. "Don't try to get out!"
+
+Jack heard him, but sprang into the road. For an instant he
+reeled about in the crush and smoke, then, stooping, he seized a
+prostrate man, lifted him, and with one tremendous effort pitched
+him into the chaise.
+
+Grahame, standing up in the driver's seat, watched him in
+amazement for a moment; but his horses demanded all his attention
+now, for they were backing under the pressure of the cart in
+front.
+
+As for Jack, once in the chaise again he pulled the unconscious
+man to the seat, calling Lorraine to hold him up. Then he tore
+the Uhlan's helmet from the stunned man's head and flung it out
+into the road; after it he threw sabre and revolver.
+
+"Give me that rug!" he cried to Lorraine, and he seized it and
+wrapped it around the Uhlan's legs.
+
+Grahame had managed to get clear of the other wagon now and was
+driving out into the pasture, almost obscured by rifle smoke.
+
+"Oh, Jack!" faltered Lorraine--"it is Rickerl!"
+
+It was Rickerl, stunned by the fall from his horse, lying back
+between them.
+
+"They'd kill him if they saw his uniform!" muttered Jack. "Hark!
+the French are cheering! They've repulsed the charge! Grahame, do
+you hear?--do you hear?"
+
+"I hear!" shouted Grahame. "These horses are crazy; I can't hold
+them."
+
+The troops around them, hidden in the smoke, began to cheer
+frantically; the mitrailleuse whirred and rolled out its hail of
+death.
+
+"Vive la France! Mort aux Prussiens!" howled the soldiers. A
+mounted officer, his cap on the point of his sabre, his face laid
+open by a lance-thrust, stood shouting, "Vive la Nation! Vive la
+Nation!" while a boyish bugler shook his brass bugle in the air,
+speechless with joy.
+
+Grahame drove the terrified horses along the line of wagons for a
+few paces, then, wheeling, let them gallop straight out into the
+pasture on the left of the road, where a double line of trees in
+the distance marked the course of a parallel road.
+
+The chaise lurched and jolted; Rickerl, unconscious still, fell
+in a limp heap, but Jack and Lorraine held him up and watched the
+horses, now galloping under slackened reins.
+
+"There are houses there! Look!" cried Grahame. "By Jove, there's
+a Luxembourg gendarme, too. I--I believe we're in Luxembourg,
+Marche! Upon my soul, we are! See! There is a frontier post!"
+
+He tried to stop the horses; two strange-looking soldiers,
+wearing glossy shakos and white-and-blue aiguillettes, began to
+bawl at him; a group of peasants before the cottages fled,
+screaming.
+
+Grahame threw all his strength into his arms and dragged the
+horses to a stand-still.
+
+"Are we in Luxembourg?" he called to the gendarmes, who ran up,
+gesticulating violently. "Are we? Good! Hold those horses, if you
+please, gentlemen. There's a wounded man here. Carry him to one
+of those houses. Marche, lift him, if you can. Hello! his arm is
+broken at the wrist. Go easy--you, I mean--Now!"
+
+Lorraine, aided by Jack, stepped from the post-chaise and stood
+shivering as two peasants came forward and lifted Rickerl. When
+they had taken him away to one of the stone houses she turned
+quietly to a gendarme and said: "Monsieur, can you tell me where
+the Emperor is?"
+
+"The Emperor?" repeated the gendarme. "The Emperor is with his
+army, below there along the Meuse. They are fighting--since four
+this morning--at Sedan."
+
+He pointed to the southeast.
+
+She looked out across the wide plain.
+
+"That convoy is going to Sedan," said the gendarme. "The army is
+near Sedan; there is a battle there."
+
+"Thank you," said Lorraine, quietly. "Jack, the Emperor is near
+Sedan."
+
+"Yes," he nodded; "we will go when you can stand it."
+
+"I am ready. Oh, we must not wait, Jack; did you not see how they
+even attacked the wounded?"
+
+He turned and looked into her eyes.
+
+"It is the first French cheer I have heard," she continued,
+feverishly. "They beat back those Prussians and cheered for
+France! Oh, Jack, there is time yet! France is rising now--France
+is resisting. We must do our part; we must not wait. Jack, I am
+ready!"
+
+"We can't walk," he muttered.
+
+"We will go with the convoy. They are on the way to Sedan, where
+the Emperor is. Jack, they are fighting at Sedan! Do you
+understand?"
+
+She came closer, looking up into his troubled eyes.
+
+"Show me the box," she whispered.
+
+He drew the flat steel box from his coat.
+
+After a moment she said, "Nothing must stop us now. I am ready!"
+
+"You are not ready," he replied, sullenly; "you need rest."
+
+"'Tiens ta Foy,' Jack."
+
+The colour dyed his pale cheeks and he straightened up. "Always,
+Lorraine."
+
+Grahame called to them from the cottage: "You can get a horse and
+wagon here! Come and eat something at once!"
+
+Slowly, with weary, drooping heads, they walked across the road,
+past a wretched custom-house, where two painted sentry-boxes
+leaned, past a squalid barnyard full of amber-coloured, unsavoury
+puddles and gaunt poultry, up to the thatched stone house where
+Grahame stood waiting. Over the door hung a withered branch of
+mistletoe, above this swung a sign:
+
+ESTAMINET.
+
+"Your Uhlan is in a bad way, I think," began Grahame; "he's got a
+broken arm and two broken ribs. This is a nasty little place to
+leave him in."
+
+"Grahame," said Jack, earnestly, "I've got to leave him. I am
+forced to go to Sedan as soon as we can swallow a bit of bread
+and wine. The Uhlan is my comrade and friend; he may be more than
+that some day. What on earth am I to do?"
+
+They followed Grahame into a room where a table stood covered by
+a moist, unpleasant cloth. The meal was simple--a half-bottle of
+sour red wine for each guest, a fragment of black bread, and a
+râgout made of something that had once been alive--possibly a
+chicken, possibly a sheep.
+
+Grahame finished his wine, bolted a morsel or two of bread and
+râgout, and leaned back in his chair with a whimsical glance at
+Lorraine.
+
+"Now, I'll tell you what I'll do, Marche," he said. "My horses
+need rest, so do I, so does our wounded Uhlan. I'll stay in this
+garden of Eden until noon, if you like, then I'll drive our
+wounded man to Diekirch, where the Hôtel des Ardennes is as good
+an inn as you can find in Luxembourg, or in Belgium either. Then
+I'll follow you to Sedan."
+
+They all rose from the table; Lorraine came and held out her
+hand, thanking Grahame for his kindness to them and to Rickerl.
+
+"Good-by," said Grahame, going with them to the door. "There's
+your dog-cart; it's paid for, and here's a little bag of French
+money--no thanks, my dear fellow; we can settle all that later.
+But what the deuce you two children are going to Sedan for is
+more than my old brains can comprehend."
+
+He stood, with handsome head bared, and bent gravely over
+Lorraine's hands--impulsive little hands, now trembling, as the
+tears of gratitude trembled on her lashes.
+
+And so they drove away in their dog-cart, down the flat,
+poplar-bordered road, silent, deeply moved, wondering what the
+end might be.
+
+The repeated shocks, the dreadful experiences and encounters, the
+indelible impressions of desolation and grief and suffering had
+deadened in Lorraine all sense of personal suffering or grief.
+For her land and her people her heart had bled, drop by drop--her
+sensitive soul lay crushed within her. Nothing of selfish despair
+came over her, because France still stood. She had suffered too
+much to remember herself. Even her love for Jack had become
+merely a detail. She loved as she breathed--involuntarily. There
+was nothing new or strange or sweet in it--nothing was left of
+its freshness, its grace, its delicacy. The bloom was gone.
+
+In her tired breast her heart beat faintly; its burden was the weary
+repetition of a prayer--an old, old prayer--a supplication--for
+mercy, for France, and for the salvation of its people. Where she
+had learned it she did not know; how she remembered it, why she
+repeated it, minute by minute, hour by hour, she could not tell.
+But it was always beating in her heart, this prayer--old, so
+old!--and half forgotten--
+
+    "'To Thee, Mary, exalted--
+    To Thee, Mary, exalted--'"
+
+Her tired heart took up the rhythm where her mind refused to
+follow, and she leaned on Jack's shoulder, looking out over the
+gray land with innocent, sorrowful eyes.
+
+Vaguely she remembered her lonely childhood, but did not grieve;
+vaguely she thought of her youth, passing away from a tear-drenched
+land through the smoke of battles. She did not grieve--the last sad
+tear for self had fallen and quenched the last smouldering spark of
+selfishness. The wasted hills of her province seemed to rise from
+their ashes and sear her eyes; the flames of a devastated land
+dazzled and pained her; every drop of French blood that drenched
+the mother-land seemed drawn from her own veins--every cry of
+terror, every groan, every gasp, seemed wrenched from her own
+slender body. The quiet, wide-eyed dead accused her, the stark
+skeletons of ravaged houses reproached her.
+
+She turned to the man she loved, but it was the voice of a dying
+land that answered, "Come!" and she responded with all a passion
+of surrender. What had she accomplished as yet? In the bitterness
+of her loneliness she answered, "Nothing." She had worked by the
+wayside as she passed--in the field, in the hospital, in the
+midst of beleaguered soldiers. But what was that? There was
+something else further on that called her--what she did not know,
+and yet she knew it was waiting somewhere for her. "Perhaps it is
+death," she mused, leaning on Jack's shoulder. "Perhaps it is
+_his_ death." That did not frighten her; if it was to be, it
+would be; but, through it, through the hideous turmoil of fire
+and blood and pounding guns and shouting--through death
+itself--somewhere, on the other side of the dreadful valley of
+terror, lay salvation for the mother-land. Thither they were
+bound--she and the man she loved.
+
+All around them lay the flat, colourless plains of Luxembourg; to
+the east, the wagon-train of wounded crawled across the landscape
+under a pallid sky. The road now bore towards the frontier again;
+Jack shook the reins listlessly; the horse loped on. Slowly they
+approached the border, where, on the French side, the convoy
+crept forward enveloped in ragged clouds of dust. Now they could
+distinguish the drivers, blue-bloused and tattered, swinging
+their long whips; now they saw the infantry, plodding on behind
+the wagons, stringing along on either flank, their officers
+riding with bent heads, the red legs of the fantassins blurred
+through the red dust.
+
+At the junction of the two roads stood a boundary post. A
+slovenly Luxembourg gendarme sat on a stone under it, smoking and
+balancing his rifle over both knees.
+
+"You can't pass," he said, looking up as Jack drew rein. A moment
+later he pocketed a gold piece that Jack offered, yawned,
+laughed, and yawned again.
+
+"You can buy contraband cigars at two sous each in the village
+below," he observed.
+
+"What news is there to tell?" demanded Jack.
+
+"News? The same as usual. They are shelling Strassbourg with
+mortars; the city is on fire. Six hundred women and children left
+the city; the International Aid Society demanded it."
+
+Presently he added: "A big battle was fought this morning along
+the Meuse. You can hear the guns yet."
+
+"I have heard them for an hour," replied Jack.
+
+They listened. Far to the south the steady intonation of the
+cannon vibrated, a vague sustained rumour, no louder, no lower,
+always the same monotonous measure, flowing like the harmony of
+flowing water, passionless, changeless, interminable.
+
+"Along the Meuse?" asked Jack, at last.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sedan?"
+
+"Yes, Sedan."
+
+The slow convoy was passing now; the creak of wheel and the harsh
+scrape of axle and spring grated in their ears; the wind changed;
+the murmur of the cannonade was blotted out in the trample of
+hoofs, the thud of marching infantry.
+
+Jack swung his horse's head and drove out across the boundary
+into the French road. On every side crowded the teams, where the
+low mutter of the wounded rose from the foul straw; on every side
+pressed the red-legged infantry, rifles _en bandoulière_,
+shrunken, faded caps pushed back from thin, sick faces.
+
+"My soldiers!" murmured Lorraine, sitting up straight. "Oh, the
+pity of it!--the pity!"
+
+An officer passed, followed by a bugler. He glanced vacantly at
+Jack, then at Lorraine. Another officer came by, leading his
+patient, bleeding horse, over which was flung the dusty body of a
+brother soldier.
+
+The long convoy was moving more swiftly now; the air trembled
+with the cries of the mangled or the hoarse groans of the dying.
+A Sister of Mercy--her frail arm in a sling--crept on her knees
+among the wounded lying in a straw-filled cart. Over all, louder,
+deeper, dominating the confusion of the horses and the tramp of
+men, rolled the cannonade. The pulsating air, deep-laden with the
+monstrous waves of sound, seemed to beat in Lorraine's face--the
+throbbing of her heart ceased for a moment. Louder, louder,
+nearer, more terrible sounded the thunder, breaking in long,
+majestic reverberations among the nearer hills; the earth began
+to shake, the sky struck back the iron-throated echoes--sounding,
+resounding, from horizon to horizon.
+
+And now the troops around them were firing as they advanced;
+sheeted mist lashed with lightning enveloped the convoy, through
+which rang the tremendous clang of the cannon. Once there came a
+momentary break in the smoke--a gleam of hills, and a valley
+black with men--a glimpse of a distant town, a river--then the
+stinging smoke rushed outward, the little flames leaped and sank
+and played through the fog. Broad, level bands of mist, fringed
+with flame, cut the pasture to the right; the earth rocked with
+the stupendous cannon shock, the ripping rifle crashes chimed a
+dreadful treble.
+
+There was a bridge there in the mist; an iron gate, a heavy wall
+of masonry, a glimpse of a moat below. The crowded wagons,
+groaning under their load of death, the dusty infantry, the
+officers, the startled horses, jammed the bridge to the parapets.
+Wheels splintered and cracked, long-lashed whips snapped and
+rose, horses strained, recoiled, leaped up, and fell scrambling
+and kicking.
+
+"Open the gates, for God's sake!" they were shouting.
+
+A great shell, moaning in its flight above the smoke, shrieked
+and plunged headlong among the wagons. There came a glare of
+blinding light, a velvety white cloud, a roar, and through the
+gates, no longer choked, rolled the wagon-train, a frantic
+stampede of men and horses. It caught the dog-cart and its
+occupants with it; it crushed the horse, seized the vehicle, and
+flung it inside the gates as a flood flings driftwood on the
+rocks.
+
+Jack clung to the reins; the wretched horse staggered out into
+the stony street, fell, and rolled over stone-dead.
+
+Jack turned and caught Lorraine in both arms, and jumped to a
+sidewalk crowded with soldiers, and at the same time the crush of
+wagons ground the dog-cart to splinters on the cobble-stones. The
+crowd choked every inch of the pavement--women, children,
+soldiers, shouting out something that seemed to move the masses
+to delirium. Jack, his arm around Lorraine, beat his way forward
+through the throng, murmuring anxiously, "Are you hurt, Lorraine?
+Are you hurt?" And she replied, faintly, "No, Jack. Oh, what is
+it? What is it?"
+
+Soldiers blocked his way now, but he pushed between them towards
+a cleared space on a slope of grass. Up the slope he staggered
+and out on to a stone terrace above the crush of the street. An
+officer stood alone on the terrace, pulling at some ropes around
+a pole on the parapet.
+
+"What--what is that?" stammered Lorraine, as a white flag shot up
+along the flag-staff and fluttered drearily over the wall.
+
+"Lorraine!" cried Jack; but she sprang to the pole and tore the
+ropes free. The white flag fell to the ground.
+
+The officer turned to her, his face whiter than the flag. The
+crowd in the street below roared.
+
+"Monsieur," gasped Lorraine, "France is not conquered! That flag
+is the flag of dishonour!"
+
+They stared at each other in silence, then the officer stepped to
+the flag-pole and picked up the ropes.
+
+"Not that!--not that!" cried Lorraine, shuddering.
+
+"It is the Emperor's orders."
+
+The officer drew the rope tight--the white flag crawled slowly up
+the staff, fluttered, and stopped.
+
+Lorraine covered her eyes with her hands; the roar of the crowd
+below was in her ears.
+
+"O God!--O God!" she whispered.
+
+"Lorraine!" whispered Jack, both arms around her.
+
+Her head fell forward on her breast.
+
+Overhead the white flag caught the breeze again, and floated out
+over the ramparts of Sedan.
+
+"By the Emperor's orders," said the officer, coming close to
+Jack.
+
+Then for the first time Jack saw that it was Georges Carrière who
+stood there, ghastly pale, his eyes fixed on Lorraine.
+
+"She has fainted," muttered Jack, lifting her. "Georges, is it
+all over?"
+
+"Yes," said Georges, and he walked over to the flag-pole, and
+stood there looking up at the white badge of dishonour.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
+
+
+Daylight was fading in the room where Lorraine lay in a stupor so
+deep that at moments the Sister of Mercy and the young military
+surgeon could scarcely believe her alive there on the pillows.
+
+Jack, his head on his arms, stood by the window, staring out
+vacantly at the streak of light in the west, against which, on
+the straight, gray ramparts, the white flag flapped black against
+the dying sun.
+
+Under the window, in the muddy, black streets, the packed throngs
+swayed and staggered and trampled through the filth, amid a crush
+of camp-wagons, artillery, ambulances, and crowding squadrons of
+cavalry. Riotous line soldiers cried out "Treason!" and hissed
+their generals or cursed their Emperor; the tall cuirassiers
+surged by in silence, sombre faces turned towards the west, where
+the white flag flew on the ramparts. Heavier, denser, more
+suffocating grew the crush; an ambulance broke down, a caisson
+smashed into a lamp-post, a cuirassier's horse slipped in the
+greasy depths of the filth, pitching its steel-clad rider to the
+pavement. Through the Place d'Alsace-Lorraine, through the Avenue
+du Collège and the Place d'Armes, passed the turbulent torrent of
+men and horses and cannon. The Grande Rue was choked from the
+church to the bronze statue in the Place Turenne; the Porte de
+Paris was piled with dead, the Porte de Balan tottered a mass of
+ruins.
+
+The cannonade still shook the hills to the south in spite of the
+white flag on the citadel. There were white flags, too, on the
+ramparts, on the Port des Capucins, and at the Gate of Paris. An
+officer, followed by a lancer, who carried a white pennon on his
+lance-point, entered the street from the north. A dozen soldiers
+and officers hacked it off with their sabres, crying, "No
+surrender! no surrender!" Shells continued to fall into the
+packed streets, blowing horrible gaps in the masses of struggling
+men. The sun set in a crimson blaze, reflecting on window and
+roof and the bloody waters of the river. When at last it sank
+behind the smoky hills, the blackness in the city was lighted by
+lurid flames from burning houses and the swift crimson glare of
+Prussian shells, still plunging into the town. Through the crash
+of crumbling walls, the hiss and explosion of falling shells, the
+awful clamour and din in the streets, the town clock struck
+solemnly six times. As if at a signal the firing died away; a
+desolate silence fell over the city--a silence full of rumours,
+of strange movements--a stillness pulsating with the death gasps
+of a nation.
+
+Out on the heights of La Moncelle, of Daigny, and Givonne
+lanterns glimmered where the good Sisters of Mercy and the
+ambulance corps passed among the dead and dying--the thirty-five
+thousand dead and dying! The plateau of Illy, where the cavalry
+had charged again and again, was twinkling with thousands of
+lanterns; on the heights of Frénois Prussian torches swung,
+signalling victory.
+
+But the spectacle in the interior of the town--a town of nineteen
+thousand people, into which now were crushed seventy thousand
+frantic soldiers, was dreadful beyond description. Horror
+multiplied on horror. The two bridges and the streets were so
+jammed with horses and artillery trains that it seemed impossible
+for any human being to move another inch. In the glare of the
+flames from the houses on fire, in the middle of the smoke,
+horses, cannon, fourgons, charrettes, ambulances, piles of dead
+and dying, formed a sickening pell-mell. In this chaos starving
+soldiers, holding lighted lanterns, tore strips of flesh from
+dead horses lying in the mud, killed by the shells. Arms, broken
+and foul with blood and mud--rifles, pistols, sabres, lances,
+casques, mitrailleuses--covered the pavements.
+
+The gates of the town were closed; the water in the fortification
+moats reflected the red light from the flames. The glacis of the
+ramparts was covered by black masses of soldiers, watching the
+placing of a cordon of German sentinels around the walls.
+
+All public buildings, all the churches, were choked with wounded;
+their blood covered everything. On the steps of the churches poor
+wretches sat bandaging their torn limbs with strips of bloody
+muslin.
+
+Strange sounds came from the stone walls along the street, where
+zouaves, turcos, and line soldiers, cursing and weeping with
+rage, were smashing their rifles to pieces rather than surrender
+them. Artillerymen were spiking their guns, some ran them into
+the river, some hammered the mitrailleuses out of shape with
+pickaxes. The cavalry flung their sabres into the river, the
+cuirassiers threw away revolvers and helmets. Everywhere
+officers were breaking their swords and cursing the surrender.
+The officers of the 74th of the Line threw their sabres and even
+their decorations into the Meuse. Everywhere, too, regiments were
+burning their colours and destroying their eagles; the colonel of
+the 52d of the Line himself burned his colours in the presence of
+all the officers of the regiment, in the centre of the street.
+The 88th and 30th, the 68th, the 78th, and 74th regiments
+followed this example. "Mort aux Vaches!" howled a herd of
+half-crazed reservists, bursting into the crush. "Mort aux
+Prussiens! À la lanterne, Badinguet! Vive la République!"
+
+Jack turned away from the window. The tall Sister of Mercy stood
+beside the bed where Lorraine lay.
+
+Jack made a sign.
+
+"She is asleep," murmured the Sister; "you may come nearer now.
+Close the window."
+
+Before he could reach the bed the door was opened violently from
+without, and an officer entered swinging a lantern. He did not
+see Lorraine at first, but held the door open, saying to Jack:
+"Pardon, monsieur; this house is reserved. I am very sorry to
+trouble you."
+
+Another officer entered, an old man, covered to the eyes by his
+crimson gold-brocaded cap. Two more followed.
+
+"There is a sick person here," said Jack. "You cannot have the
+intention of turning her out! It is inhuman--"
+
+He stopped short, stupefied at the sight of the old officer, who
+now stood bareheaded in the lantern-light, looking at the bed
+where Lorraine lay. It was the Emperor!--her father.
+
+Slowly the Emperor advanced to the bed, his dreary eyes fixed on
+Lorraine's pale cheeks.
+
+In the silence the cries from the street outside rose clear and
+distinct:
+
+"Vive la République! À bas l'Empereur!"
+
+The Emperor spoke, looking straight at Lorraine: "Gentlemen, we
+cannot disturb a woman. Pray find another house."
+
+After a moment the officers began to back out, one by one,
+through the doorway. The Emperor still stood by the bed, his
+vague, inscrutable eyes fixed on Lorraine.
+
+Jack moved towards the bed, trembling. The Emperor raised his
+colourless face.
+
+"Monsieur--your sister? No--your wife?"
+
+"My promised wife, sire," muttered Jack, cold with fear.
+
+"A child," said the Emperor, softly.
+
+With a vague gesture he stepped nearer, smoothed the coverlet,
+bent closer, and touched the sleeping girl's forehead with his
+lips. Then he stood up, gray-faced, impassive.
+
+"I am an old man," he said, as though to himself. He looked at
+Jack, who now came close to him, holding out something in one
+hand. It was the steel box.
+
+"For me, monsieur?" asked the Emperor.
+
+Jack nodded. He could not speak.
+
+The Emperor took the box, still looking at Jack.
+
+There was a moment's silence, then Jack spoke: "It may be too
+late. It is a plan of a balloon--we brought it to you from
+Lorraine--"
+
+The uproar in the streets drowned his voice--"Mort à l'Empereur!
+À bas l'Empire!"
+
+A staff-officer opened the door and peered in; the Emperor
+stepped to the threshold.
+
+"I thank you--I thank you both, my children," he said. His eyes
+wandered again towards the bed; the cries in the street rang out
+furiously.
+
+"Mort à l'Empereur!"
+
+The Sister of Mercy was kneeling by the bed; Jack shivered, and
+dropped his head.
+
+When he looked up the Emperor had gone.
+
+All night long he watched at the bedside, leaning on his elbow,
+one hand shading his eyes from the candle-flame. The Sister of
+Mercy, white and worn with the duties of that terrible day, slept
+upright in an arm-chair.
+
+Dawn brought the sad notes of Prussian trumpets from the ramparts
+pealing through the devastated city; at sunrise the pavements
+rang and shook with the trample of the White Cuirassiers. A Saxon
+infantry band burst into the "Wacht am Rhine" at the Paris Gate;
+the Place Turenne vomited Uhlans. Jack sank down by the bed,
+burying his face in the sheets.
+
+The Sister of Mercy rubbed her eyes and started up. She touched
+Jack on the shoulder.
+
+"I am going to be very ill," he said, raising a face burning with
+fever. "Never mind me, but stay with her."
+
+"I understand," said the Sister, gently. "You must lie in the
+room beyond."
+
+The fever seized Jack with a swiftness incredible.
+
+"Then--swear it--by the--by the Saviour there--there on your
+crucifix!" he muttered.
+
+"I swear," she answered, softly.
+
+His mind wandered a little, but he set his teeth and rose,
+staggering to the table. He wrote something on a bit of paper
+with shaking fingers.
+
+"Send for them," he said. "You can telegraph now. They are in
+Brussels--my sister--my family--"
+
+Then, blinded by the raging fever, he made his way uncertainly to
+the bed, groped for Lorraine's hand, pressed it, and lay down at
+her feet.
+
+"Call the surgeon!" he gasped.
+
+And it was very many days before he said anything else with as
+much sense in it.
+
+"God help them!" cried the Sister of Mercy, tearfully, her thin
+hands clasped to her lips. Alone she guided Jack into the room
+beyond.
+
+Outside the Prussian bands were playing. The sun flung a long,
+golden beam through the window straight across Lorraine's breast.
+
+She stirred, and murmured in her sleep, "Jack! Jack! 'Tiens ta
+Foy!'"
+
+But Jack was past hearing now; and when, at sundown, the young
+surgeon came into his room he was nearly past all aid.
+
+"Typhoid?" asked the Sister.
+
+"The Pest!" said the surgeon, gravely.
+
+The Sister started a little.
+
+"I will stay," she murmured. "Send this despatch when you go out.
+Can he live?"
+
+They whispered together a moment, stepping softly to the door of
+the room where Lorraine lay.
+
+"It can't be helped now," said the surgeon, looking at Lorraine;
+"she'll be well enough by to-morrow; she must stay with you. The
+chances are that he will die."
+
+The trample of the White Cuirassiers in the street outside filled
+the room; the serried squadrons thundered past, steel ringing on
+steel, horses neighing, trumpets sounding the "Royal March."
+Lorraine's eyes unclosed.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+The surgeon whispered to the Sister of Mercy: "Don't forget to
+hang out the pest flag."
+
+"Jack! Jack!" wailed Lorraine, sitting up in bed. Through the
+tangled masses of her heavy hair, gilded by the morning sunshine,
+her eyes, bright with fever, roamed around the room, startled,
+despairing. Under the window the White Cuirassiers were singing
+as they rode:
+
+    "Flieg', Adler, flieg'! Wir stürmen nach,
+    Ein einig Volk in Waffen,
+    Wir stürmen nach ob tausendfach
+    Des Todes Pforten Klaffen!
+    Und fallen wir, flieg', Adler, flieg'!
+    Aus unserm Blute mächst der Sieg!
+        Vorwärts!
+      Flieg', Adler, flieg'!
+        Victoria!
+        Victoria!
+      Mit uns ist Gott!"
+
+Terrified, turning her head from side to side, Lorraine stretched
+out her hands. She tried to speak, but her ears were filled with
+the deep voices shouting the splendid battle-hymn--
+
+    "Fly, Eagle! fly!
+    With us is God!"
+
+She crept out of bed, her bare feet white with cold, her bare
+arms flushed and burning. Blinded by the blaze of the rising sun,
+she felt her way around the room, calling, "Jack! Jack!" The
+window was open; she crept to it. The street was a surging,
+scintillating torrent of steel.
+
+    "God with us!"
+
+The White Cuirassiers shook their glittering sabres; the
+melancholy trumpet's blast swept skyward; the standards flapped.
+Suddenly the stony street trembled with the outcrash of drums;
+the cuirassiers halted, the steel-mailed squadrons parted right
+and left; a carriage drove at a gallop through the opened ranks.
+Lorraine leaned from the window; the officer in the carriage
+looked up.
+
+As the fallen Emperor's eyes met Lorraine's, she stretched out
+both little bare arms and cried: "Vive la France!"--and he was
+gone to his captivity, the White Cuirassiers galloping on every
+side.
+
+The Sister of Mercy opened the door behind, calling her.
+
+"He is dying," she said. "He is in here. Come quickly!"
+
+Lorraine turned her head. Her eyes were sweet and serene, her
+whole pale face transfigured.
+
+"He will live," she said. "I am here."
+
+"It is the pest!" muttered the Sister.
+
+Lorraine glided into the hall and unclosed the door of the silent
+room.
+
+He opened his eyes.
+
+"There is no death!" she whispered, her face against his. "There
+is neither death nor sorrow nor dying."
+
+The clamour in the street died out; the wind was still; the pest
+flag under the window hung motionless.
+
+He sighed; his eyes closed.
+
+She stretched out beside him, her body against his, her bare arms
+around his neck.
+
+His heart fluttered; stopped; fluttered; was silent; moved once
+again; ceased.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+Again his heart stirred--or was it her own?
+
+When the morning sun broke over the ramparts of Sedan she fell
+asleep in his arms, lulled by the pulsations of his heart.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE PROPHECY OF LORRAINE
+
+
+When the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn arrived in Sedan from
+Brussels the last of the French prisoners had been gone a week;
+the foul city was swept clean; the corpse-choked river no longer
+flung its dead across the shallows of the island of Glaires; the
+canal was untroubled by the ghastly freight of death that had
+collected like logs on a boom below the village of Iges.
+
+All day the tramp of Prussian patrols echoed along the stony
+streets; all day the sinister outburst of the hoarse Bavarian
+bugles woke the echoes behind the ramparts. Red Cross flags
+drooped in the sunshine from churches, from banks, from every
+barrack, every depot, every public building. The pest flags waved
+gaily over the Asylum and the little Museum. A few appeared along
+the Avenue Philippoteaux, others still fluttered on the Gothic
+church and the convent across the Viaduc de Torcy. Three miles
+away the ruins of the village of Bazeilles lay in the bright
+September sunshine. Bavarian soldiers in greasy corvée lumbered
+among the charred chaos searching for their dead.
+
+The plain of Illy, the heights of La Moncelle, Daigny, Givonne,
+and Frénois were vast cemeteries. Dredging was going on along the
+river, whither the curious small boys of Sedan betook themselves
+and stayed from morning till night watching the recovering of
+rusty sabres, bayonets, rifles, cannon, and often more grewsome
+flotsam. It was probably the latter that drew the small boys like
+flies; neither the one nor the other are easily glutted with
+horrors.
+
+The silver trumpets of the Saxon Riders were chorusing the noon
+call from the Porte de Paris when a long train crept into the
+Sedan station and pulled up in the sunshine, surrounded by a
+cordon of Hanover Riflemen. One by one the passengers passed into
+the station, where passports were shown and apathetic commissaires
+took charge of the baggage.
+
+There were no hacks, no conveyances of any kind, so the tall,
+white-bearded gentleman in black, who stood waiting anxiously for
+his passport, gave his arm to an old lady, heavily veiled, and
+bowed down with the sudden age that great grief brings. Beside
+her walked a young girl, also in deep mourning.
+
+A man on crutches directed them to the Place Turenne, hobbling
+after them to murmur his thanks for the piece of silver the girl
+slipped into his hands.
+
+"The number on the house is 31," he repeated; "the pest flag is
+no longer outside."
+
+"The pest?" murmured the old man under his breath.
+
+At that moment a young girl came out of the crowded station,
+looking around her anxiously.
+
+"Lorraine!" cried the white-haired man.
+
+She was in his arms before he could move. Madame de Morteyn clung
+to her, too, sobbing convulsively; Dorothy hid her face in her
+black-edged handkerchief.
+
+After a moment Lorraine stepped back, drying her sweet eyes.
+Dorothy kissed her again and again.
+
+"I--I don't see why we should cry," said Lorraine, while the
+tears ran down her flushed cheeks. "If he had died it would have
+been different."
+
+After a silence she said again:
+
+"You will see. We are not unhappy--Jack and I. Monsieur Grahame
+came yesterday with Rickerl, who is doing very well."
+
+"Rickerl here, too?" whispered Dorothy.
+
+Lorraine slipped an arm through hers, looking back at the old
+people.
+
+"Come," she said, serenely, "Jack is able to sit up." Then in
+Dorothy's ear she whispered, "I dare not tell them--you must."
+
+"Dare not tell them--"
+
+"That--that I married Jack--this morning."
+
+The girls' arms pressed each other.
+
+German officers passed and repassed, rigid, supercilious, staring
+at the young girls with that half-sneering, half-impudent,
+near-sighted gaze peculiar to the breed. Their insolent eyes,
+however, dropped before the clear, mild glance of the old
+vicomte.
+
+His face was furrowed by care and grief, but he held his white
+head high and stepped with an elasticity that he had not known in
+years. Defeat, disaster, sorrow, could not weaken him; he was of
+the old stock, the real beau-sabreur, a relic of the old régime,
+that grew young in the face of defeat, that died of a broken
+heart at the breath of dishonour. There had been no dishonour, as
+he understood it--there had been defeat, bitter defeat. That was
+part of his trade, to face defeat nobly, courteously, chivalrously;
+to bow with a smile on his lips to the more skilful adversary who
+had disarmed him.
+
+Bitterness he knew, when the stiff Prussian officers clanked past
+along the sidewalk of this French city; despair he never dreamed
+of. As for dishonour--that is the cry of the pack, the refuge of
+the snarling mob yelping at the bombastic vociferations of some
+mean-souled demagogue; and in Paris there were many, and the pack
+howled in the Republic at the crack of the lash.
+
+"Lady Hesketh is here, too," said Lorraine. "She appears to be a
+little reconciled to her loss. Dorothy, it breaks my heart to see
+Rickerl. He lies in his room all day, silent, ghastly white. He
+does not believe that Alixe--did what she did--and died there at
+Morteyn. Oh, I am glad you are here. Jack says you must tell
+Rickerl nothing about Sir Thorald; nobody is to know that--now
+all is ended."
+
+"Yes," said Dorothy.
+
+When they came to the house, Archibald Grahame and Lady Hesketh
+met them at the door. Molly Hesketh had wept a great deal at
+first. She wept still, but more moderately.
+
+"My angel child!" she said, taking Dorothy to her bosom. Grahame
+took off his hat.
+
+The old people hurried to Jack's room above; Dorothy, guided by
+Lorraine, hastened to Rickerl; Archibald Grahame looked genially
+at Molly and said:
+
+"Now don't, Lady Hesketh--I beg you won't. Try to be cheerful. We
+must find something to divert you."
+
+"I don't wish to," said Molly.
+
+"There is a band concert this afternoon in the Place Turenne,"
+suggested Grahame.
+
+"I'll never go," said Molly; "I haven't anything fit to wear."
+
+In the room above, Madame de Morteyn sat with Jack's hand in
+hers, smiling through her tears. The old vicomte stood beside
+her, one arm clasping Lorraine's slender waist.
+
+"Children! children! wicked ones!" he repeated, "how dare you
+marry each other like two little heathen?"
+
+"It comes, my dear, from your having married an American wife,"
+said Madame de Morteyn, brushing away the tears; "they do those
+things in America."
+
+"America!" grumbled the vicomte, perfectly delighted--"a nice
+country for young savages. Lorraine, you at least should have
+known better."
+
+"I did," said Lorraine; "I ought to have married Jack long ago."
+
+The vicomte was speechless; Jack laughed and pressed his aunt's
+hands.
+
+They spoke of Morteyn, of their hope that one day they might
+rebuild it. They spoke, too, of Paris, cuirassed with steel,
+flinging defiance to the German floods that rolled towards the
+walls from north, south, west, and east.
+
+"There is no death," said Lorraine; "the years renew their life.
+We shall all live. France will be reborn."
+
+"There is no death," repeated the old man, and kissed her on the
+brow.
+
+So they stood there in the sunlight, tearless, serene, moved by the
+prophecy of their child Lorraine. And Lorraine sat beside her husband,
+her fathomless blue eyes dreaming in the sunlight--dreaming of her
+Province of Lorraine, of the Honour of France, of the Justice of
+God--dreaming of love and the sweetness of her youth, unfolding like
+a fresh rose at dawn, there on her husband's breast.
+
+
+ THE END
+
+
+
+
+ BOOKS BY
+    ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    LORRAINE. Post 8vo                             $1.25
+
+    THE CONSPIRATORS. Ill'd. Post 8vo               1.50
+
+    A YOUNG MAN IN A HURRY. Ill'd. Post 8vo         1.50
+
+    CARDIGAN. Illustrated. Post 8vo                 1.50
+
+    THE MAID-AT-ARMS. Illustrated. Post 8vo         1.50
+
+    THE KING IN YELLOW. Post 8vo                    1.50
+
+    THE MAIDS OF PARADISE. Ill'd. Post 8vo          1.50
+
+    IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN. Ill'd. Post 8vo       1.50
+
+    OUTDOORLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net      1.50
+
+    ORCHARDLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net      1.50
+
+    RIVERLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net        1.50
+
+    THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE. 16mo                     1.25
+
+    HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 24181-8.txt or 24181-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/8/24181/
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/24181-8.zip b/24181-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a06488d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24181-8.zip
diff --git a/24181-h/24181-h.htm b/24181-h/24181-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b46148
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24181-h/24181-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,12246 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+
+    .linenum  {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+
+    hr.dashed         {width: 100%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; border:none; border-bottom:1px dashed;}
+    hr.chapter        {width: 100%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em; border:none; border-bottom:1px dashed;}
+    td.tdright        {vertical-align: top; text-align: right;}
+    td.tdleft         {vertical-align: top; text-align: left; padding-left: 2em;}
+    td.tdleft2         {vertical-align: top; text-align: left;}
+    .poem             {margin-left:35%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem br          {display: none;}
+    .poem .stanza     {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .poem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i2     {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+   // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lorraine
+       A romance
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: January 6, 2008 [EBook #24181]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 397px;">
+<img src="images/001.jpg" width="405" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<hr class='dashed' />
+
+
+<p style='font-size:2.4em; text-align:center; margin-top:2em;'>LORRAINE</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.4em; text-align:center; margin-bottom:1em;'>A ROMANCE</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.4em; text-align:center; margin-bottom:2em;'>By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-top:0.3em;'>Author of "Cardigan,"</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-top:0.3em;'>"The Maid at Arms,"</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-top:0.3em;'>"The Maids of Paradise,"</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-bottom:2em;'>"The Fighting Chance," etc.</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-top:1em;'>A. L. BURT COMPANY</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-top:1em;'>Publishers&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; New York</p>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em; text-align:center; margin-top:1em;'>Published by arrangement with Harper &amp; Brothers</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-top:2em;'>Copyright, 1897, by Harper &amp; Brothers.</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:center; margin-bottom:4em;'><i>All rights reserved.</i></p>
+
+<hr class='dashed' />
+<h4>TO</h4>
+<h4>MY FATHER</h4>
+<hr class='dashed' />
+
+<h4>LORRAINE!</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+<span class="i0"><i>When Yesterday shall dawn again,</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And the long line athwart the hill</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Shall quicken with the bugle's thrill,</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thine own shall come to thee, Lorraine!</i></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Then in each vineyard, vale, and plain,</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The quiet dead shall stir the earth</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And rise, reborn, in thy new birth&mdash;</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thou holy martyr-maid, Lorraine!</i></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Is it in vain thy sweet tears stain</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thy mother's breast? Her castled crest</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Is lifted now! God guide her quest!</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>She seeks thine own for thee, Lorraine!</i></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>So Yesterday shall live again,</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And the steel line along the Rhine</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Shall cuirass thee and all that's thine.</i></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>France lives&mdash;thy France&mdash;divine Lorraine!</i></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class= "i2">R. W. C.</span></div></div>
+<hr class= 'dashed' />
+
+<h3>ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h3>
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the
+valuable volumes of Messrs. Victor Duruy, Archibald Forbes,
+Sir William Fraser, Dr. J. von Pflugk-Harttung, G.
+Tissandier, Comdt. Grandin, and "Un Officier de Marine,"
+concerning (wholly or in part) the events of 1870-1871.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally the author has deemed it best to change the
+names of villages, officers, and regiments or battalions.</p>
+
+<p>The author believes that the romance separated from the
+facts should leave the historical basis virtually accurate.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p style='font-size:1.0em; text-align:right; margin-bottom:1em;'>R. W. C.</p>
+
+<p>New York, September, 1897.</p>
+<hr class= 'dashed' />
+
+<h2 class='toc'><span class="i2"><a name='Contents' id='Contents'></a>CONTENTS</span></h2>
+<table border='0' width='400' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents'
+style='font-variant:small-caps; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto'>
+<col style='width:8%;' />
+<col style='width:82%;' />
+<col style='width:10%;' />
+<tr>
+<td align='left'><span style='font-size:x-small'>CHAPTER</span></td>
+<td align='right'><span style='font-size:x-small'>PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>I</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>A Maker of Maps</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_I'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>II</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Telegrams for Two</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_II'>11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>III</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Summer Thunder</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_III'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>IV</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Farandole</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_IV'>30</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>V</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Cowards and Their Courage</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_V'>39</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>VI</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Trains East and West</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_VI'>51</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>VII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Road To Paradise</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_VII'>59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>VIII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Under the Yoke</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'>63</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>IX</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Saarbr&uuml;ck</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_IX'>79</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>X</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>An Unexpected Encounter</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_X'>95</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XI</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>"Keep Thy Faith"</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XI'>102</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>From the Frontier</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XII'>116</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XIII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Aide-de-camp</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'>131</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XIV</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Marquis Makes Himself Agreeable</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'>139</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XV</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Invasion of Lorraine</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XV'>157</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XVI</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>"In the Hollow of Thy Hand"</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'>171</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XVII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Keepers of the House</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'>179</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XVIII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Stretching of Necks</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'>190</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XIX</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Rickerl's Sabre</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'>205</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XX</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Sir Thorald Is Silent</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XX'>213</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXI</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The White Cross</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'>226</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>A Door Is Locked</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'>239</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXIII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Lorraine Sleeps</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'>250</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXIV</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Lorraine Awakes</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'>258</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXV</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>Princess Imperial</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'>270</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXVI</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Shadow of Pomp</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'>278</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXVII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>&Ccedil;a Ira!</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVII'>285</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXVIII</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Braconnier</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVIII'>297</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXIX</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Message of the Flag</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIX'>306</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXX</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Valley of the Shadow</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXX'>324</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdright'>XXXI</td>
+  <td class='tdleft'>The Prophecy of Lorraine</td>
+  <td class='tdright'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXXI'>334</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class= 'dashed' />
+
+<h1>LORRAINE</h1>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>A MAKER OF MAPS</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a
+soft foot-fall on the dead leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened.</p>
+
+<p>Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near,
+now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence,
+the silence that startles.</p>
+
+<p>He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly,
+striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a
+moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels,
+and listened again, pipe tightly clutched between his white
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>All around lay the beautiful Lorraine forests, dim and sweet,
+dusky as velvet in their leafy depths. A single sunbeam, striking
+obliquely through the brush tangle, powdered the forest mould
+with gold.</p>
+
+<p>He heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing, where green
+branches swept its placid surface with a thousand new-born
+leaves; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, far ahead, something gray shambled loosely across the
+path, leaped a brush heap, slunk under a fallen tree, and loped
+on again.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Marche refused to believe his own eyes. A wolf in
+Lorraine!&mdash;a big, gray timber-wolf, here, within a mile of the
+Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn! He could see it yet, passing like a shadow along
+the trees. Before he knew it he was following, running noiselessly
+over the soft, mossy path, holding his little shot-gun tightly. As
+he ran, his eyes fixed on the spot where the wolf had disappeared,
+he began to doubt his senses again, he began to believe that the
+thing he saw was some shaggy sheep-dog from the Moselle, astray in
+the Lorraine forests. But he held his pace, his pipe griped in his
+teeth, his gun swinging at his side. Presently, as he turned into
+a grass-grown carrefour, a mere waste of wild-flowers and tangled
+briers, he caught his ankle in a strand of ivy and fell headlong.
+Sprawling there on the moss and dead leaves, the sound of human
+voices struck his ear, and he sat up, scowling and rubbing his
+knees.</p>
+
+<p>The voices came nearer; two people were approaching the carrefour.
+Jack Marche, angry and dirty, looked through the bushes, stanching
+a long scratch on his wrist with his pocket-handkerchief. The people
+were in sight now&mdash;a man, tall, square-shouldered, striding swiftly
+through the woods, followed by a young girl. Twice she sprang
+forward and seized him by the arm, but he shook her off roughly
+and hastened on. As they entered the carrefour, the girl ran in
+front of him and pushed him back with all her strength.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come, now," said the man, recovering his balance, "you had
+better stop this before I lose patience. Go back!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl barred his way with slender arms out-stretched.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing in my woods?" she demanded. "Answer me! I
+will know, this time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me pass!" sneered the man. He held a roll of papers in one
+hand; in the other, steel compasses that glittered in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not let you pass!" she said, desperately; "you shall not
+pass! I wish to know what it means, why you and the others come
+into my woods and make maps of every path, of every brook, of
+every bridge&mdash;yes, of every wall and tree and rock! I have seen
+you before&mdash;you and the others. You are strangers in my country!"</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of my path," said the man, sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then give me that map you have made! I know what you are! You
+come from across the Rhine!"</p>
+
+<p>The man scowled and stepped towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a German spy!" she cried, passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"You little fool!" he snarled, seizing her arm. He shook her
+brutally; the scarlet skirts fluttered, a little rent came in the
+velvet bodice, the heavy, shining hair tumbled down over her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment Marche had the man by the throat. He held him there,
+striking him again and again in the face. Twice the man tried to
+stab him with the steel compasses, but Marche dragged them out of
+his fist and hammered him until he choked and spluttered and
+collapsed on the ground, only to stagger to his feet again and
+lurch into the thicket of second <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>growth. There he tripped and
+fell as Marche had fallen on the ivy, but, unlike Marche, he
+wriggled under the bushes and ran on, stooping low, never
+glancing back.</p>
+
+<p>The impulse that comes to men to shoot when anything is running
+for safety came over Marche for an instant. Instinctively he
+raised his gun, hesitated, lowered it, still watching the running
+man with cold, bright eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, turning to the girl behind him, "he's gone now.
+Ought I to have fired? Ma foi! I'm sorry I didn't! He has torn
+your bodice and your skirt!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl stood breathless, cheeks aflame, burnished tangled hair
+shadowing her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"We have the map," she said, with a little gasp.</p>
+
+<p>Marche picked up a crumpled roll of paper from the ground and
+opened it. It contained a rough topographical sketch of the
+surrounding country, a detail of a dozen small forest paths, a
+map of the whole course of the river Lisse from its source to its
+junction with the Moselle, and a beautiful plan of the Ch&acirc;teau de
+Nesville.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my house!" said the girl; "he has a map of my house! How
+dare he!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville?" asked Marche, astonished; "are you
+Lorraine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! I'm Lorraine. Didn't you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine de Nesville?" he repeated, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! How dares that German to come into my woods and make maps and
+carry them back across the Rhine! I have seen him before&mdash;twice&mdash;drawing
+and measuring along the park wall. I told my father, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>but he thinks only
+of his balloons. I have seen others, too&mdash;other strange men in the
+chase&mdash;always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do
+Germans want of maps of France? I thought of it all day&mdash;every day; I
+watched, I listened in the forest. And do you know what I think?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asked Marche.</p>
+
+<p>She pushed back her splendid hair and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"War!" she said, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"War?" he repeated, stupidly. She stretched out an arm towards
+the east; then, with a passionate gesture, she stepped to his
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"War! Yes! War! War! War! I cannot tell you how I know it&mdash;I ask
+myself how&mdash;and to myself I answer: 'It is coming! I, Lorraine,
+know it!'"</p>
+
+<p>A fierce light flashed from her eyes, blue as corn-flowers in
+July.</p>
+
+<p>"It is in dreams I see and hear now&mdash;in dreams; and I see the
+vineyards black with helmets, and the Moselle redder than the
+setting sun, and over all the land of France I see bayonets,
+moving, moving, like the Rhine in flood!"</p>
+
+<p>The light in her eyes died out; she straightened up; her lithe
+young body trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never before told this to any one," she said, faintly;
+"my father does not listen when I speak. You are Jack Marche, are
+you not?"</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer, but stood awkwardly, folding and unfolding the
+crumpled maps.</p>
+
+<p>"You are the vicomte's nephew&mdash;a guest at the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn?"
+she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Marche.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are Monsieur Jack Marche?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He took off his shooting-cap and laughed frankly. "You find me
+carrying a gun on your grounds," he said; "I'm sure you take me
+for a poacher."</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at his leggings.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he began, "I ask permission to explain; I am afraid that
+you will be inclined to doubt my explanation. I almost doubt it
+myself, but here it is. Do you know that there are wolves in
+these woods?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wolves?" she repeated, horrified.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw one; I followed it to this carrefour."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned against a tree; her hands fell to her sides.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence; then she said, "You will not believe what I
+am going to say&mdash;you will call it superstition&mdash;perhaps
+stupidity. But do you know that wolves have never appeared along
+the Moselle except before a battle? Seventy years ago they were
+seen before the battle of Colmar. That was the last time. And now
+they appear again."</p>
+
+<p>"I may have been mistaken," he said, hastily; "those shaggy
+sheep-dogs from the Moselle are very much like timber-wolves in
+colour. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Nesville, why should you believe
+that we are going to have a war? Two weeks ago the Emperor spoke
+of the perfect tranquillity of Europe." He smiled and added,
+"France seeks no quarrels. Because a brute of a German comes
+sneaking into these woods to satisfy his national thirst for
+prying, I don't see why war should result."</p>
+
+<p>"War did result," she said, smiling also, and glancing at his
+torn shooting-coat; "I haven't even thanked you yet, Monsieur
+Marche&mdash;for your victory."</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden gesture, proud, yet half shy, she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>held out one
+hand, and he took it in his own hands, bronzed and brier
+scratched.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," she said, withdrawing her fingers, "that I ought to
+give you an American 'shake hands.' I suppose you are wondering
+why we haven't met before. There are reasons."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down at her scarlet skirt, touched a triangular tear
+in it, and, partly turning her head, raised her arms and twisted
+the tangled hair into a heavy burnished knot at her neck.</p>
+
+<p>"You wear the costume of Lorraine," he ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not pretty? I love it. Alone in the house I always wear
+it, the scarlet skirts banded with black, the velvet bodice and
+silver chains&mdash;oh! he has broken my chain, too!"</p>
+
+<p>He leaned on his gun, watching her, fascinated with the grace of
+her white fingers twisting her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"To think that you should have first seen me so! What will they
+say at the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I shall tell nobody," laughed Marche.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are very honourable, and I thank you. Mon Dieu, they
+talk enough about me&mdash;you have heard them&mdash;do not deny it,
+Monsieur Marche. It is always, 'Lorraine did this, Lorraine did
+that, Lorraine is shocking, Lorraine is silly, Lorraine&mdash;' O
+Dieu! que sais'je! Poor Lorraine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Lorraine!" he repeated, solemnly. They both laughed
+outright.</p>
+
+<p>"I know all about the house-party at the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn," she
+resumed, mending a tear in her velvet bodice with a hair-pin. "I
+was invited, as you probably know, Monsieur Marche; but I did not
+go, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>doubtless the old vicomte is saying, 'I wonder why
+Lorraine does not come?' and Madame de Morteyn replies, 'Lorraine
+is a very uncertain quantity, my dear'&mdash;oh, I am sure that they
+are saying these things."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I heard some such dialogue yesterday," said Marche, much
+amused. Lorraine raised her head and looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You think I am a crazy child in tatters, neglected and wild as a
+falcon from the Vosges. I know you do. Everybody says so, and
+everybody pities me and my father. Why? Parbleu! he makes
+experiments with air-ships that they don't understand. Voil&agrave;! As
+for me, I am more than happy. I have my forest and my fields; I
+have my horses and my books. I dress as I choose; I go where I
+choose. Am I not happy, Monsieur Marche?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say," he admitted, "that you are."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she continued, with a pretty, confidential nod, "I can
+talk to you because you are the vicomte's American nephew, and I
+have heard all about you and your lovely sister, and it is all
+right&mdash;isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," said Marche, fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. Now I shall tell you why I did not go to the Ch&acirc;teau
+and meet your sister and the others. Perhaps you will not
+comprehend. Shall I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try to comprehend," said Marche, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, would you believe it? I&mdash;Lorraine de Nesville&mdash;have
+outgrown my clothes, monsieur, and my beautiful new gowns are
+coming from Paris this week, and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then!" repeated Marche.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then you shall see," said Lorraine, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Jack, bewildered, fascinated, stood leaning on his gun, watching
+every movement of the lithe figure before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Until your gowns arrive, I shall not see you again?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much!" he blurted out, and then, aware of the undue fervor
+he had shown, repeated: "Very much&mdash;if you don't mind," in a
+subdued but anxious voice.</p>
+
+<p>Again she raised her eyes to his, doubtfully, perhaps a little
+wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be right, would it&mdash;until you are presented?"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Still," she said, looking up into the sky, "I often come to the
+river below, usually after luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if there are any gudgeon there?" he said; "I could
+bring a rod&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but are you coming? Is that right? I think there are fish
+there," she added, innocently, "and I usually come after
+luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>"And when your gowns arrive from Paris&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then! Then you shall see! Oh! I shall be a very different
+person; I shall be timid and silent and stupid and awkward, and I
+shall answer, 'Oui, monsieur;' 'Non, monsieur,' and you will
+behold in me the jeune fille of the romances."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" he protested.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall!" she cried, shaking out her scarlet skirts full
+breadth. "Good-by!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In a second she had gone, straight away through the forest,
+leaving in his ears the music of her voice, on his finger-tips
+the touch of her warm hand.</p>
+
+<p>He stood, leaning on his gun&mdash;a minute, an hour?&mdash;he did not
+know.</p>
+
+<p>Presently earthly sounds began to come back to drown the
+delicious voice in his ears; he heard the little river Lisse,
+flowing, flowing under green branches; he heard a throstle
+singing in the summer wind; he heard, far in the deeper forest,
+something passing&mdash;patter, patter, patter&mdash;over the dead leaves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>TELEGRAMS FOR TWO</h3>
+
+
+<p>Jack Marche tucked his gun under his arm and turned away along
+the overgrown wood-road that stretched from the De Nesville
+forests to the more open woods of Morteyn.</p>
+
+<p>He walked slowly, puffing his pipe, pondering over his encounter with
+the ch&acirc;telaine of the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville. He thought, too, of the old
+Vicomte de Morteyn and his gentle wife, of the little house-party of
+which he and his sister Dorothy made two, of Sir Thorald and Lady
+Hesketh, their youthful and totally irresponsible chaperons on the
+journey from Paris to Morteyn.</p>
+
+<p>"They're lunching on the Lisse," he thought. "I'll not get a bite
+if Ricky is there."</p>
+
+<p>When Madame de Morteyn wrote to Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh on
+the first of July, she asked them to chaperon her two nieces and
+some other pretty girls in the American colony whom they might
+wish to bring, for a month, to Morteyn.</p>
+
+<p>"The devil!" said Sir Thorald when he read the letter; "am I to
+pick out the girls, Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Betty and I will select the men," said Lady Hesketh, sweetly;
+"you may do as you please."</p>
+
+<p>He did. He suggested a great many, and wrote <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>a list for his wife.
+That prudent young woman carefully crossed out every name, saying,
+"Thorald! I am ashamed of you!" and substituted another list. She
+had chosen, besides Dorothy Marche and Betty Castlemaine, the two
+nieces in question, Barbara Lisle and her inseparable little German
+friend, Alixe von Elster; also the latter's brother, Rickerl, or
+Ricky, as he was called in diplomatic circles. She closed the list
+with Cecil Page, because she knew that Betty Castlemaine, Madame
+de Morteyn's younger niece, looked kindly, at times, upon this
+blond giant.</p>
+
+<p>And so it happened that the whole party invaded three first-class
+compartments of an east-bound train at the Gare de l'Est, and
+twenty-two hours later were trooping up the terrace steps of the
+Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn, here in the forests and fragrant meadows of
+Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Morteyn kissed all the girls on both cheeks, and the
+old vicomte embraced his nieces, Betty Castlemaine and Dorothy
+Marche, and threatened to kiss the others, including Molly
+Hesketh. He desisted, he assured them, only because he feared Sir
+Thorald might feel bound to follow his example; to which Lady
+Hesketh replied that she didn't care and smiled at the vicomte.</p>
+
+<p>The days had flown very swiftly for all: Jack Marche taught
+Barbara Lisle to fish for gudgeon; Betty Castlemaine tormented
+Cecil Page to his infinitely miserable delight; Ricky von Elster
+made tender eyes at Dorothy Marche and rowed her up and down the
+Lisse; and his sister Alixe read sentimental verses under the
+beech-trees and sighed for the sweet mysteries that young German
+girls sigh for&mdash;heart-friendships, lovers, <i>Ewigkeit</i>&mdash;God knows
+what!&mdash;something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>or other that turns the heart to tears until
+everything slops over and the very heavens sob.</p>
+
+<p>They were happy enough together in the Ch&acirc;teau and out-of-doors.
+Little incidents occurred that might as well not have occurred,
+but apparently no scars were left nor any incurable pang. True,
+Molly Hesketh made eyes at Ricky von Elster; but she reproved him
+bitterly when he kissed her hand in the orangery one evening;
+true also that Sir Thorald whispered airy nothings into the
+shell-like ear of Alixe von Elster until that German maiden could
+not have repeated her German alphabet. But, except for the
+chaperons, the unmarried people did well enough, as unmarried
+people usually do when let alone.</p>
+
+<p>So, on that cloudless day of July, 1870, Rickerl von Elster sat
+in the green row-boat and tugged at the oars while Sir Thorald
+smoked a cigar placidly and Lady Hesketh trailed her pointed
+fingers over the surface of the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky, my son," said Sir Thorald, "you probably gallop better
+than you row. Who ever heard of an Uhlan in a boat? Molly, take
+his oars away."</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky shall row me if he wishes," replied Molly Hesketh; "and
+you do, don't you, Ricky? Thorald will set you on shore if you
+want."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no confidence in Uhlan officers," said her spouse,
+darkly.</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl looked pleased; perspiration stood on his blond eyebrows
+and his broad face glowed.</p>
+
+<p>"As an officer of cavalry in the Prussian army," he said, "and as
+an attach&eacute; of the German Embassy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>in Paris, I suggest that we
+return to first principles and rejoin our base of supplies."</p>
+
+<p>"He's thirsty," said Molly, gravely. "The base of supplies, so
+long cut loose from, is there under the willows, and I see six
+feet two of Cecil Page carrying a case of bottles."</p>
+
+<p>"Row, Ricky!" urged Sir Thorald; "they will leave nothing for
+Uhlan foragers!"</p>
+
+<p>The boat rubbed its nose against the mossy bank; Lady Hesketh
+placed her fair hands in Ricky's chubby ones and sprang to the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Cecil Page," she said, "I am thirsty. Where are the others?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty and Dorothy looked out from their seat in the tall grass.</p>
+
+<p>"Charles brought the hamper; there it is," said Cecil.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara Lisle and sentimental little Alixe von Elster strolled up
+and looked lovingly upon the sandwiches.</p>
+
+<p>Cecil Page stood and sulked, until Dorothy took pity and made
+room on the moss beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you have a little mercy, Betty?" she whispered; "Cecil
+moons like a wounded elephant."</p>
+
+<p>So Betty smiled at him and asked for more salad, and Cecil
+brought it and basked in her smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Jack Marche?" asked Molly Hesketh. "Dorothy, your
+brother went into the chase with a gun, and where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"What does he want to shoot in July? It's too late for rooks,"
+said Sir Thorald, pouring out champagne-cup for Barbara Lisle.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know where Jack went," said Dorothy. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>"He heard one of
+the keepers complain of the hawks, so, I suppose, he took a gun.
+I wonder why that strange Lorraine de Nesville doesn't come to
+call. I am simply dying to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her once," observed Sir Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>"You generally do," added his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"See what others don't."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald, a trifle disconcerted, applied himself to caviare
+and, later, to a bottle of Moselle.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a beauty, they say&mdash;" began Ricky, and might have
+continued had he not caught the danger-signal in Molly Hesketh's
+black eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine de Nesville," said Lady Hesketh, "is only a child of
+seventeen. Her father makes balloons."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the little, red, squeaky kind," added Sir Thorald; "Molly,
+he is an amateur aeronaut."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd much better take care of Lorraine. The poor child runs wild
+all over the country. They say she rides like a witch on a
+broom&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Astride?" cried Sir Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>"For shame!" said his wife; "I&mdash;I&mdash;upon my word, I have heard
+that she has done that, too. Ricky! what do you mean by yawning?"</p>
+
+<p>Ricky had been listening, mouth open. He shut it hurriedly and
+grew pink to the roots of his colourless hair.</p>
+
+<p>Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil, and Dorothy Marche laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"What of it?" she said; "there is nobody here who would dare to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shocking!" said little Alixe, and tried to look as though
+she meant it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At that moment Sir Thorald caught sight of Jack Marche, strolling
+up through the trees, gun tucked under his left arm.</p>
+
+<p>"No luncheon, no salad, no champagne-cup, no cigarette!" he
+called; "all gone! all gone! Molly's smoked my last&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Marche, where have you been?" demanded Molly Hesketh. "No,
+you needn't dodge my accusing finger! Barbara, look at him!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pretty finger&mdash;if Sir Thorald will permit me to say so,"
+said Jack, laughing and setting his gun up against a tree.
+"Dorrie, didn't you save any salad? Ricky, you devouring scourge,
+there's not a bit of caviare! I'm hungry&mdash;Oh, thanks, Betty, you
+did think of the prodigal, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was Cecil," she said, slyly; "I was saving it for him. What
+did you shoot, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now you people listen and I'll tell you what I didn't shoot."</p>
+
+<p>"A poor little hawk?" asked Betty.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;a poor little wolf!"</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of cries of astonishment and exclamations Sir
+Thorald arose, waving a napkin.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it!" he said&mdash;"I knew I saw a wolf in the woods day
+before yesterday, but I didn't dare tell Molly; she never
+believes me."</p>
+
+<p>"And you deliberately chose to expose us to the danger of being eaten
+alive?" said Lady Hesketh, in an awful voice. "Ricky, I'm going to
+get into that boat at once; Dorothy&mdash;Betty Castlemaine&mdash;bring Alixe
+and Barbara Lisle. We are going to embark at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky and his boat-load of beauty," laughed Sir <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>Thorald.
+"Really, Molly, I hesitated to tell you because&mdash;I was afraid&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What, you horrid thing?&mdash;afraid he'd bite me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Afraid you'd bite the wolf, my dear," he whispered so that
+nobody but she heard it; "I say, Ricky, we ought to have a wolf
+drive! What do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>The subject started, all chimed in with enthusiasm except Alixe
+von Elster, who sat with big, soulful eyes fixed on Sir Thorald
+and trembled for that bad young man's precious skin.</p>
+
+<p>"We have two weeks to stay yet," said Cecil, glancing
+involuntarily at Betty Castlemaine; "we can get up a drive in a
+week."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going, Cecil," said Betty, in a low voice, partly to
+practise controlling him, partly to see him blush.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hesketh, however, took enough interest in the sport to
+insist, and Jack Marche promised to see the head-keeper at once.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I see him now," said Sir Thorald&mdash;"no, it's Bosquet's
+boy from the post-office. Those are telegrams he's got."</p>
+
+<p>The little postman's son came trotting across the meadow, waving
+two blue envelopes.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le Capitaine Rickerl von Elster and Monsieur Jack
+Marche&mdash;two telegrams this instant from Paris, messieurs! I
+salute you." And he took off his peaked cap, adding, as he saw
+the others, "Messieurs, mesdames," and nodded his curly, blond
+head and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't apologize&mdash;read your telegrams!" said Lady <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>Hesketh; "dear
+me! dear me! if they take you two away and leave Thorald, I
+shall&mdash;I shall yawn!"</p>
+
+<p>Ricky's broad face changed as he read his despatch; and Molly
+Hesketh, shamelessly peeping over his shoulder, exclaimed, "It's
+cipher! How stupid! Can you understand it, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Rickerl von Elster understood it well enough. He paled a
+little, thrust the crumpled telegram into his pocket, and looked
+vaguely at the circle of faces. After a moment he said, standing
+very straight, "I must leave to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Recalled? Confound your ambassador, Ricky!" said Sir Thorald.
+"Recalled to Paris in midsummer! Well, I'm&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not to Paris," said Rickerl, with a curious catch in his
+voice&mdash;"to Berlin. I join my regiment at once."</p>
+
+<p>Jack Marche, who had been studying his telegram with puzzled
+eyes, held it out to Sir Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't make head or tail of it; can you?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald took it and read aloud: "New York <i>Herald</i> offers you
+your own price and all expenses. Cable, if accepted."</p>
+
+<p>"'Cable, if accepted,'" repeated Betty Castlemaine; "accept
+what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly! What?" said Jack. "Do they want a story? What do
+'expenses' mean? I'm not going to Africa again if I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds as though the <i>Herald</i> wanted you for some expedition;
+it sounds as if everybody knew about the expedition, except you.
+Nobody ever hears any news at Morteyn," said Molly Hesketh,
+dejectedly. "Are you going, Jack?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Going? Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does your telegram throw any light on Jack's, Ricky?" asked Sir
+Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>But Rickerl von Elster turned away without answering.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>SUMMER THUNDER</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the old vicomte was well enough to entertain anybody at all,
+which was not very often, he did it skilfully. So when he filled
+the Ch&acirc;teau with young people and told them to amuse themselves
+and not bother him, the house-party was necessarily a success.</p>
+
+<p>He himself sat all day in the sunshine, studying the week's Paris
+newspapers with dim, kindly eyes, or played interminable chess
+games with his wife on the flower terrace.</p>
+
+<p>She was sixty; he had passed threescore and ten. They never
+strayed far from each other. It had always been so from the
+first, and the first was when Helen Bruce, of New York City,
+married Georges Vicomte de Morteyn. That was long ago.</p>
+
+<p>The chess-table stood on the terrace in the shadow of the
+flower-crowned parapets; the old vicomte sat opposite his wife,
+one hand touching the black knight, one foot propped up on a pile
+of cushions. He pushed the knight slowly from square to square
+and twisted his white imperial with stiff fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen," he asked, mildly, "are you bored?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear."</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Morteyn smiled at her husband and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>lifted a pawn in her
+thin, blue-veined hand; but the vicomte had not finished, and she
+replaced the pawn and leaned back in her chair, moving the two
+little coffee-cups aside so that she could see what her husband
+was doing with the knight.</p>
+
+<p>From the lawn below came the chatter and laughter of girls. On
+the edge of the lawn the little river Lisse glided noiselessly
+towards the beech woods, whose depths, saturated with sunshine,
+rang with the mellow notes of nesting thrushes.</p>
+
+<p>The middle of July had found the leaves as fresh and tender as
+when they opened in May, the willow's silver green cooled the
+richer verdure of beach and sycamore; the round poplar leaves,
+pale yellow and orange in the sunlight, hung brilliant as lighted
+lanterns where the sun burned through.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not at all certain what to do with my queen's knight. May I
+have another cup of coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Morteyn poured the coffee from the little silver
+coffee-pot.</p>
+
+<p>"It is hot; be careful, dear."</p>
+
+<p>The vicomte sipped his coffee, looking at her with faded eyes.
+She knew what he was going to say; it was always the same, and
+her answer was always the same. And always, as at that first
+breakfast&mdash;their wedding-breakfast&mdash;her pale cheeks bloomed again
+with a subtle colour, the ghost of roses long dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, are you thinking of that morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Georges."</p>
+
+<p>"Of our wedding-breakfast&mdash;here&mdash;at this same table?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Georges."</p>
+
+<p>The vicomte set his cup back in the saucer and, trembling, poured
+a pale, golden liquid from a decanter into two tiny glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"A glass of wine?&mdash;I have the honour, my dear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The colour touched her cheeks as their glasses met; the still air
+tinkled with the melody of crystal touching crystal; a golden
+drop fell from the brimming glasses. The young people on the lawn
+below were very noisy.</p>
+
+<p>She placed her empty glass on the table; the delicate glow in her
+cheeks faded as skies fade at twilight. He, with grave head
+leaning on his hand, looked vaguely at the chess-board, and saw,
+mirrored on every onyx square, the eyes of his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have the journals, dear?" she asked presently. She
+handed him the <i>Gaulois</i>, and he thanked her and opened it,
+peering closely at the black print.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he read: "M. Ollivier declared, in the Corps
+L&eacute;gislatif, that 'at no time in the history of France has the
+maintenance of peace been more assured than to-day.' Oh, that
+journal is two weeks' old, Helen.</p>
+
+<p>"The treaty of Paris in 1856 assured peace in the Orient, and the
+treaty of Prague in 1866 assures peace in Germany," continued the
+vicomte; "I don't see why it should be necessary for Monsieur
+Ollivier to insist."</p>
+
+<p>He dropped the paper on the stones and touched his white
+mustache.</p>
+
+<p>"You are thinking of General Chanzy," said his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>wife,
+laughing&mdash;"you always twist your mustache like that when you're
+thinking of Chanzy."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, for he was thinking of Chanzy, his sword-brother; and
+the hot plains of Oran and the dusty columns of cavalry passed
+before his eyes&mdash;moving, moving across a world of desert into the
+flaming disk of the setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Is to-day the 16th of July, Helen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Chanzy is coming back from Oran. I know you dread it. We
+shall talk of nothing but Abd-el-Kader and Spahis and Turcos, and
+how we lost our Kabyle tobacco at Bou-Youb."</p>
+
+<p>She had heard all about it, too; she knew every &eacute;tape of the 48th
+of the Line&mdash;from the camp at Sathonay to Sidi-Bel-Abb&egrave;s, and
+from Daya to Djebel-Mikaidon. Not that she cared for sabres and
+red trousers, but nothing that concerned her husband was
+indifferent to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope General Chanzy will come," she said, "and tell you all
+about those poor Kabyles and the Legion and that horrid 2d
+Zouaves that you and he laugh over. Are you tired, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Shall we play? I believe it was my move. How warm it is in
+the sun&mdash;no, don't stir, dear&mdash;I like it, and my gout is better
+for it. What do you suppose all those young people are doing?
+Hear Betty Castlemaine laugh! It is very fortunate for them,
+Helen, that I married an American with an American's disregard of
+French conventionalities."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very strict," said his wife, smiling; "I can survey them en
+chaperone."</p>
+
+<p>"If you turn around. But you don't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I do when it is necessary," said Madame de Morteyn, indignantly;
+"Molly Hesketh is there."</p>
+
+<p>The vicomte laughed and picked up the knight again.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he said, waving it in the air, "that I also have
+become a very good American. I think no evil until it comes, and
+when it comes I say, 'Shocking!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Georges!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I say, my dear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Georges!"</p>
+
+<p>"There, dear, I won't tease. Hark! What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Morteyn leaned over the parapet.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Jean Bosquet. Shall I speak to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he has the Paris papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Jean!" she called; and presently the little postman came
+trotting up the long stone steps from the drive. Had he anything?
+Nothing for Monsieur le Vicomte except a bundle of the week's
+journals from Paris. So Madame de Morteyn took the papers, and
+the little postman doffed his cap again and trotted away, blue
+blouse fluttering and sabots echoing along the terrace pavement.</p>
+
+<p>"I am tired of chess," said the old vicomte; "would you mind
+reading the <i>Gaulois</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"The politics, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the weekly summary&mdash;if it won't bore you."</p>
+
+<p>"Tais toi! &Eacute;coute. This is dated July 3d. Shall I begin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Helen."</p>
+
+<p>She held the paper nearer and read: "'A Paris journal publishes a
+despatch through l'agence Havas <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>which declares that a deputation
+from the Spanish Government has left Madrid for Berlin to offer
+the crown of Spain to Leopold von Hohenzollern.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried the vicomte, angrily. Two chessmen tipped over and
+rolled among the others.</p>
+
+<p>"It's what it says, mon ami; look&mdash;see&mdash;it is exactly as I read
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Are those Spaniards crazy?" muttered the vicomte, tugging at his
+imperial. "Look, Helen, read what the next day's journal says."</p>
+
+<p>His wife unfolded the paper dated the 4th of July and found the
+column and read: "'The press of Paris unanimously accuses the
+Imperial Government of allowing Prim and Bismarck to intrigue
+against the interests of France. The French ambassador, Count
+Benedetti, interviewed the King of Prussia at Ems and requested
+him to prevent Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern's acceptance. It
+is rumoured that the King of Prussia declined to interfere.'"</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Morteyn tossed the journal on to the terrace and opened
+another.</p>
+
+<p>"'On the 12th of July the Spanish ambassador to Paris informed
+the Duc de Gramont, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the Prince
+von Hohenzollern renounces his candidacy to the Spanish throne.'"</p>
+
+<p>"&Agrave; la bonheur!" said the vicomte, with a sigh of relief; "that
+settles the Hohenzollern matter. My dear, can you imagine France
+permitting a German prince to mount the throne of Spain? It was
+more than a menace&mdash;it was almost an insult. Do you remember
+Count Bismarck when he was ambassador to France? He is a man who
+fascinates me. How he used to watch the Emperor! I can see him
+yet&mdash;those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>puffy, pale eyes! You saw him also, dear&mdash;you
+remember, at Saint-Cloud?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I thought him brusque and malicious."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he is at the bottom of this. I'm glad it is over. Did you
+finish the telegraphic news?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost all. It says&mdash;dear me, Georges!&mdash;it says that the Duc de
+Gramont refuses to accept any pledge from the Spanish ambassador
+unless that old Von Werther&mdash;the German ambassador, you
+know&mdash;guarantees that Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern will never
+again attempt to mount the Spanish throne!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. The old vicomte stirred restlessly and
+knocked over some more chessmen.</p>
+
+<p>"Sufficient unto the day&mdash;" he said, at last; "the Duc de Gramont
+is making a mistake to press the matter. The word of the Spanish
+ambassador is enough&mdash;until he breaks it. General Leb&oelig;uf might
+occupy himself in the interim&mdash;profitably, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"General Leb&oelig;uf is minister of war. What do you mean, Georges?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear, Leb&oelig;uf is minister of war."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think this German prince may some time again&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I think France should be ready if he does. Is she ready? Not if
+Chanzy and I know a Turco from a Kabyle. Perhaps Count Bismarck
+wants us to press his king for guarantees. I don't trust him. If
+he does, we should not oblige him. Gramont is making a grave
+mistake. Suppose the King of Prussia should refuse and say it is
+not his affair? Then we would be obliged to accept that answer,
+or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or what, Georges?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or&mdash;well, my dear&mdash;or fight. But Gramont is not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>wicked enough,
+nor is France crazy enough, to wish to go to war over a
+contingency&mdash;a possibility that might never happen. I foresee a
+snub for our ambassador at Ems, but that is all. Do you care to
+play any more? I tipped over my king and his castles."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is an omen&mdash;the King of Prussia, you know, and his
+fortresses. I feel superstitious, Georges!"</p>
+
+<p>The vicomte smiled and set the pieces up on their proper squares.</p>
+
+<p>"It is settled; the Spanish ambassador pledges his word that
+Prince Hohenzollern will not be King of Spain. France should be
+satisfied. It is my move, I believe, and I move so&mdash;check to you,
+my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"I resign, dearest. Listen! Here come the children up the terrace
+steps."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;Helen, you must not resign so soon. Why should you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are already beaten," she laughed, gently&mdash;"your king
+and his castles and all his men! How headstrong you Chasseurs
+d'Afrique are!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not beaten!" said the old man, stoutly, and leaned closer
+over the board. Then he also laughed, and said, "Tiens! tiens!
+tiens!" and his wife rose and gave him her arm. Two pretty girls
+came running up the terrace, and the old vicomte stood up,
+crying: "Children! Naughty ones! I see you coming! Madame de
+Morteyn has beaten me at chess. Laugh if you dare! Betty
+Castlemaine, I see you smiling!"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" laughed that young lady, turning her flushed face from her
+aunt to her uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you did," repeated the vicomte, "and you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>are not the niece
+that I love any more. Where have you been? And you, Dorothy
+Marche?&mdash;your hair is very much tangled."</p>
+
+<p>"We have been lunching by the Lisse," said Dorothy, "and Jack
+caught a gudgeon; here it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said the old vicomte; "I must show them how to fish.
+Helen, I shall go fishing&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Some time," said his wife, gently. "Betty, where are the men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jack and Barbara Lisle are fishing; Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh
+are in the green boat, and Ricky is rowing them. The others are
+somewhere. Ricky got a telegram, and must go to Berlin."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Rickerl von Elster that his king is making mischief,"
+laughed the vicomte, "and he may go back to Berlin when he
+chooses." Then, smiling at the young, flushed faces, he leaned on
+his wife's arm and passed slowly along the terrace towards the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder why Lorraine has not come?" he said to his wife. "Won't
+she come to-night for the dance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine is a very sweet but a very uncertain girl," replied
+Madame de Morteyn. She led him through the great bay-window
+opening on the terrace, drew his easy-chair before his desk,
+placed the journals before him, and, stooping, kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want me, send Charles. I really ought to be with the
+young people a moment. I wonder why Ricky must leave?"</p>
+
+<p>"How far away are you going, Helen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only to the Lisse."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall read about Monsieur Bismarck and his Spanish
+friends until you come. The day is long without you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They smiled at each other, and she sat down by the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Read," she said; "I can see my children from here. I wonder why
+Ricky is leaving?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, in the silence of the summer noon, far in the east, a
+dull sound shook the stillness. Again they heard it&mdash;again, and
+again&mdash;a deep boom, muttering, reverberating like summer thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should they fire cannon to-day, Helen?" asked the old man,
+querulously. "Why should they fire cannon beyond the Rhine?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is thunder," she said, gently; "it will storm before long."</p>
+
+<p>"I am tired," said the vicomte. "Helen, I shall sleep. Sit by
+me&mdash;so&mdash;no&mdash;nearer yet! Are the children happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"When the cannon cease, I shall fall asleep. Listen! what is
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"A blackbird singing in the pear-tree."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that&mdash;that sound of galloping? Look out and see,
+Helen."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a gendarme riding fast towards the Rhine."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FARANDOLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>That evening Dorothy Marche stood on the terrace in the moonlight
+waving her plumed fan and listening to the orchestra from the
+hamlet of Saint-Lys. The orchestra&mdash;two violins, a reed-pipe, a
+biniou, and a harp&mdash;were playing away with might and main.
+Through the bay-window she could see the crystal chandeliers
+glittering with prismatic light, the slender gilded chairs, the
+cabinets and canap&eacute;s, golden, backed with tapestry; and
+everywhere massed banks of ferns and lilies. They were dancing in
+there; she saw Lady Hesketh floating in the determined grip of
+Cecil Page, she saw Sir Thorald proudly prancing to the air of
+the farandole; Betty Castlemaine, Jack, Alixe, Barbara Lisle
+passed the window only to re-pass and pass again in a whirl of
+gauze and filmy colour; and the swish! swish! swish! of silken
+petticoats, and the rub of little feet on the polished floor grew
+into a rhythmic, monotonous cadence, beating, beating the measure
+of the farandole.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy waved her fan and looked at Rickerl, standing in the
+moonlight beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why won't you dance, Ricky?" she asked; "it is your last
+evening, if you are determined to leave to-morrow." He turned to
+her with an abrupt gesture; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>she thought he was going to speak,
+but he did not, and after a moment she said: "Do you know what
+that despatch from the New York <i>Herald</i> to my brother means?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. His voice was dull, almost indifferent.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Is&mdash;is it anything dangerous that they want him to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky&mdash;tell me, then! You frighten me."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow&mdash;perhaps to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I receive another telegram. I expect to."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if you receive another despatch, we shall all know?"</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl von Elster bent his head and laid a gloved hand lightly
+on her own.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very unhappy," he said, simply. "May we not speak of other
+things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ricky," she said, faintly. He looked almost handsome there
+in the moonlight, but under his evening dress the square build of
+the Prussian trooper, the rigid back, and sturdy limbs were
+perhaps too apparent for ideal civilian elegance. Dorothy looked
+into his serious young face. He touched his blond mustache, felt
+unconsciously for the sabre that was not dangling from his left
+hip, remembered, coloured, and stood up even straighter.</p>
+
+<p>"We are thinking of the same thing," said Dorothy; "I was trying
+to recall that last time we met&mdash;do you remember? In Paris?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He nodded; eyes fixed on hers.</p>
+
+<p>"At the Diplomatic Ball?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And you were in uniform, and your sabre was very beautiful,
+but&mdash;do you remember how it clashed and banged on the marble
+stairway, and how the other attach&eacute;s teased you until you tucked
+it under your left arm? Dear me! I was fascinated by your
+patent-leather sabre-tache, and your little spurs, that rang like
+tiny chimes when you walked. What sentimental creatures young
+girls are! Ne c'est pas, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have never forgotten that evening," he said, in a voice so low
+that she leaned involuntarily nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"We were very young then," she said, waving her fan.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not a year ago."</p>
+
+<p>"We were young," she repeated, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I shall never forget, Dorothy."</p>
+
+<p>She closed her fan and began to examine the fluffy plumes. Her
+cheeks were red, and she bit her lips continually.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you particularly admire Molly Hesketh's hand?" she asked,
+indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>He turned crimson. How could she know of the episode in the
+orangery? Know? There was no mystery in that; Molly Hesketh had
+told her. But Rickerl von Elster, loyal in little things, saw but
+one explanation&mdash;Dorothy must have seen him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I kissed her hand," he said. He did not add that Molly had
+dared him.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy raised her head with an icy smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it honourable to confess such a thing?" she asked, in steady
+tones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but you knew it, for you saw me&mdash;" he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not!" she flashed out, and walked straight into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Dorrie!" cried her brother as she swept by him, "what do you
+think? Lorraine de Nesville is coming this evening!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine?" said his sister&mdash;"dear me, I am dying to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then turn around," whispered Betty Castlemaine, leaning across
+from Cecil's arm. "Oh, Dorrie! what a beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment the old vicomte rose from his gilded chair and
+stepped forward to the threshold, saying, "Lorraine! Lorraine!
+Then you have come at last, little bad one?" And he kissed her
+white hands and led her to his wife, murmuring, "Helen, what
+shall we do with the little bad one who never comes to bid two
+old people good-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Lorraine!" said Madame de Morteyn; "kiss me, my child."</p>
+
+<p>There she stood, her cheeks faintly touched with colour, her
+splendid eyes shining like azure stars, the candle-light setting
+her heavy hair aglow till it glistened and burned as molten ore
+flashes in a crucible. They pressed around her; she saw, through
+the flare of yellow light, a sea of rosy faces; a vague mist of
+lace set with jewels; and she smiled at them while the colour
+deepened in her cheeks. There was music in her ears and music in
+her heart, and she was dancing now&mdash;dancing with a tall, bronzed
+young fellow who held her strong and safe, and whose eyes
+continually sought her own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You see," she said, demurely, "that my gowns came to-day from
+Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a dream&mdash;this one," he said, smiling back into her eyes,
+"but I shall never forget the scarlet skirt and little bodice of
+velvet, and the silver chains, and your hair&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My hair? It is still on my head."</p>
+
+<p>"It was tangled across your face&mdash;then."</p>
+
+<p>"Taisez-vous, Monsieur Marche!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you seem to have grown taller&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is my ball-gown."</p>
+
+<p>"And you do not cast down your eyes and say, 'Oui, monsieur,'
+'Non, monsieur'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Non, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Again they laughed, looking into each other's eyes, and there was
+music in the room and music in their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the candle-light gave place to moonlight, and they
+found themselves on the terrace, seated, listening to the voice
+of the wind in the forest; and they heard the little river Lisse
+among the rushes and the murmur of leaves on the eaves.</p>
+
+<p>When they became aware of their own silence they turned to each
+other with the gentle haste born of confusion, for each feared
+that the other might not understand. Then, smiling, half fearful,
+they reassured each other with their silence.</p>
+
+<p>She was the first to break the stillness, hesitating as one who
+breaks the seal of a letter long expected, half dreaded: "I came
+late because my father was restless, and I thought he might need
+me. Did you hear cannon along the Rhine?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Some German f&ecirc;te. I thought at first it might be thunder.
+Give me your fan."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not hold it right&mdash;there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you feel the breeze? Your fan is perfumed&mdash;or is it the
+lilies on the terrace? They are dancing again; must we go back?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a
+nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat
+darted by, turned, rose, dipped, and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"They are dancing," she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Must we go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>In the stillness the nightingale grew bolder; the woods seemed
+saturated with song.</p>
+
+<p>"My father is restless; I must return soon," she said, with a
+little sigh. "I shall go in presently and make my adieux. I wish
+you might know my father. Will you? He would like you. He speaks
+to few people except me. I know all that he thinks, all that he
+dreams of. I know also all that he has done, all that he is
+doing, all that he will do&mdash;God willing. Why is it I tell you
+this? Ma foi, I do not know. And I am going to tell you more.
+Have you heard that my father has made a balloon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;everybody speaks of it," he answered, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;ah, this is the wonderful part!&mdash;he has made a balloon that
+can be inflated in five seconds! Think! All other balloons
+require a long, long while, and many tubes; and one must take
+them to a usine de gaz. My father's balloon needs no gas&mdash;that
+is, it needs no common illuminating gas."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A montgolfier?" asked Marche, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, pooh! The idea! No, it is like other balloons, except
+that&mdash;well&mdash;there is needed merely a handful of silvery dust&mdash;to
+which you touch a drop of water&mdash;piff! puff! c'est fini! The
+balloon is filled."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is this silvery dust?" he asked, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Voil&agrave;! Do you not wish you knew? I&mdash;Lorraine de Nesville&mdash;I know!
+It is a secret. If the time ever should come&mdash;in case of war, for
+instance&mdash;my father will give the secret to France&mdash;freely&mdash;without
+recompense&mdash;a secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy!
+Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"And you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations
+get wind of this they might kidnap you."</p>
+
+<p>"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain,
+Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my father&mdash;as though he
+bought and sold the welfare of his country!"</p>
+
+<p>"And that map-making fellow this morning&mdash;do you suppose he might
+have been hanging about after that sort of thing&mdash;trying to pry
+and pick up some scrap of information?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said, quietly; "I only saw him making maps.
+Listen! there are two secrets that my father possesses, and they
+are both in writing. I do not know where he keeps them, but I
+know what they are. Shall I tell you? Then listen&mdash;I shall
+whisper. One is the chemical formula for the silvery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>dust, the
+gas of which can fill a balloon in five seconds. The other
+is&mdash;you will be astonished&mdash;the plan for a navigable balloon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Has he tried it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A dozen times. I went up twice. It steers like a ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Do people know this, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Germany does. Once we sailed, papa and I, up over our forest and
+across the country to the German frontier. We were not very high;
+we could see the soldiers at the custom-house, and they saw us,
+and&mdash;would you believe it?&mdash;they fired their horrid guns at
+us&mdash;pop! pop! pop! But we were too quick; we simply sailed back
+again against the very air-currents that brought us. One bullet
+made a hole in the silk, but we didn't come down. Papa says a
+dozen bullets cannot bring a balloon down, even when they pierce
+the silk, because the air-pressure is great enough to keep the
+gas in. But he says that if they fire a shell, that is what is to
+be dreaded, for the gas, once aflame!&mdash;that ends all. Dear me! we
+talk a great deal of war&mdash;you and I. It is time for me to go."</p>
+
+<p>They rose in the moonlight; he gave her back her fan. For a full
+minute they stood silent, facing each other. She broke a lily
+from its stem, and drew it out of the cluster at her breast. She
+did not offer it, but he knew it was his, and he took it.</p>
+
+<p>"Symbol of France," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Symbol of Lorraine," he said, aloud.</p>
+
+<p>A deep boom, sullen as summer thunder, shook the echoes awake
+among the shrouded hills, rolling, reverberating, resounding,
+until the echoes carried it on from valley to valley, off into
+the world of shadows.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The utter silence that followed was broken by a call, a gallop of
+hoofs on the gravel drive, the clink of stirrups, the snorting of
+hard-run horses.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody cried, "A telegram for you, Ricky!" There was a patter
+of feet on the terrace, a chorus of voices: "What is it, Ricky?"
+"Must you go at once?" "Whatever is the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>The young German soldier, very pale, turned to the circle of
+lamp-lit faces.</p>
+
+<p>"France and Germany&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" cried Sir Thorald, violently.</p>
+
+<p>"War was declared at noon to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine gave a gasp and reached out one hand. Jack Marche took
+it in both of his.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the ballroom the orchestra was still playing the
+farandole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>COWARDS AND THEIR COURAGE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Rickerl took the old vicomte's withered hand; he could not speak;
+his sister Alixe was crying.</p>
+
+<p>"War? War? Allons donc!" muttered the old man. "Helen! Ricky says
+we are to have war. Helen, do you hear? War!"</p>
+
+<p>Then Rickerl hurried away to dress, for he was to ride to the
+Rhine, nor spare whip nor spur; and Barbara Lisle comforted
+little Alixe, who wept as she watched the maids throwing
+everything pell-mell into their trunks; for they, too, were to
+leave at daylight on the Moselle Express for Cologne.</p>
+
+<p>Below, a boy appeared, leading Rickerl's horse from the stables;
+there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures
+passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the
+messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a
+sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the
+rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War
+was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!"
+And always the burden of the busy voices was the same, menacing,
+incredulous, half-whispered, but always the same&mdash;"War! war!
+war!"</p>
+
+<p>Booted and spurred, square-shouldered and muscular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>in his corded
+riding-suit, Rickerl passed the terrace again after the last
+adieux. The last? No, for as his heavy horse stamped out across
+the drive a voice murmured his name, a hand fell on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Dorothy," he whispered, bending from his saddle.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you, Ricky," she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>And they say women are cowards!</p>
+
+<p>He lifted her to his breast, held her crushed and panting; she
+put both hands before her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"There has never been any one but you; do you believe it?" he
+stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are mine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. May God spare you!"</p>
+
+<p>And Rickerl, loyal in little things, swung her gently to the
+ground again, unkissed.</p>
+
+<p>There was a flurry of gravel, a glimpse of a horse rearing,
+plunging, springing into the darkness&mdash;that was all. And she
+crept back to the terrace with hot, tearless lids, that burned
+till all her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She
+passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel
+drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian
+pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little
+biniou man from the C&ocirc;te-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating
+at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone
+was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence
+that her little slippered feet echoed along the gravel&mdash;War! war!</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the steps which skirted the terrace she met her
+brother and Lorraine watching the groom rubbing down the
+messengers' horses. A lantern, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>glimmering on the ground, shed a
+sickly light under their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Dorrie," said Jack, "Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh think that we all
+should start for Paris by the early train. They have already sent
+some of our trunks to Saint-Lys; Mademoiselle de Nesville"&mdash;he
+turned with a gesture almost caressing to Lorraine&mdash;"Mademoiselle
+de Nesville has generously offered her carriage to help transport
+the luggage, and she is going to wait until it returns."</p>
+
+<p>"And uncle&mdash;and our aunt De Morteyn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay at Morteyn until they decide whether to close the
+house and go to Paris or to stay until October. Dorrie, dear, we
+are very near the frontier here."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be no invasion," said Lorraine, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"The Rhine is very near," repeated Dorothy. She was thinking of
+Rickerl.</p>
+
+<p>"So you and Betty and Cecil," continued Jack, "are to go with the
+Heskeths to Paris. Poor little Alixe is crying her eyes out
+up-stairs. She and Barbara Lisle are going to Cologne, where
+Ricky will either find them or have his father meet them."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he added, "It seems incredible, this news. They
+say, in the village, that the King of Prussia insulted the French
+ambassador, Count Benedetti, on the public promenade of Ems. It's
+all about that Hohenzollern business and the Spanish succession.
+Everybody thought it was settled, of course, because the Spanish
+ambassador said so, and Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern withdrew
+his claim. I can't understand it; I can scarcely believe it."</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy stood a moment, looking at the stars in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>the midnight
+sky. Then she turned with a sigh to Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night," she said, and they kissed each other, these two
+young girls who an hour before had been strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I see you again? We leave by the early train," whispered
+Dorothy.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I must return when my carriage comes back from the village.
+Good-by, dear&mdash;good-by, dear Dorothy."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, Dorothy, flinging her short ermine-edged cloak
+from her shoulders, entered the empty ballroom and threw herself
+upon the gilded canap&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the candles spluttered, glimmered, flashed up, and
+went out, leaving a trail of smoke in the still air. Up-stairs
+little Alixe was sobbing herself to sleep in Barbara's arms; in
+his own chamber the old vicomte paced to and fro, and to and fro,
+and his sweet-faced wife watched him in silence, her thin hand
+shading her eyes in the lamplight. In the next room Sir Thorald
+and Lady Hesketh sat close together, whispering. Only Betty
+Castlemaine and Cecil Page had lost little of their cheerfulness,
+perhaps because neither were French, and Cecil was not going to
+the war, and&mdash;after all, war promised to be an exciting thing,
+and well worth the absorbed attention of two very young lovers.
+Arm in arm, they promenaded the empty halls and galleries,
+meeting no one save here and there a pale-faced maid or scared
+flunky; and at length they entered the gilded ballroom where
+Dorothy lay, flung full length on the canap&eacute;.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She submitted to Betty's caresses, and went away to bed with her,
+saying good-night to Cecil in a tear-choked voice; and a moment
+later Cecil sought his own chamber, lighted a pipe, and gave
+himself up to delightful visions of Betty, protected from several
+Prussian army-corps by the single might of his strong right arm.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the terrace, Lorraine de Nesville stood with Jack,
+watching the dark drive for the lamps of the returning carriage.
+Her maid loitered near, exchanging whispered gossip with the
+groom, who now stood undecided, holding both horses and waiting
+for orders. Presently Jack asked him where the messengers were,
+and he said he didn't know, but that they had perhaps gone to the
+kitchens for refreshments.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and find them, then; here, give me the bridles," said Jack;
+"if they are eating, let them finish; I'll hold their horses. Why
+doesn't Mademoiselle de Nesville's carriage come back from
+Saint-Lys? When you leave the kitchens, go down the road and look
+for it. Tell them to hurry."</p>
+
+<p>The groom touched his cap and hastened away.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish the carriage would come&mdash;I wish the carriage would
+hurry," repeated Lorraine, at intervals. "My father is alone; I
+am nervous, I don't know why. What are you reading?"</p>
+
+<p>"My telegram from the New York <i>Herald</i>," he answered,
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"It is easy to understand now," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, easy to understand. They want me for war correspondent."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;" He hesitated, trying to see her eyes in the
+darkness. "I don't know; shall you stay here in the Moselle
+Valley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very near the Rhine."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be&mdash;there shall be no invasion," she said,
+feverishly. "France also ends at the Rhine; let them look to
+their own!"</p>
+
+<p>She moved impatiently, stepped from the stones to the damp
+gravel, and walked slowly across the misty lawn. He followed,
+leading the horses behind him and holding his telegram open in
+his right hand. Presently she looked back over her shoulder, saw
+him following, and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, will you go as war correspondent?" she asked when he came
+up, leading the saddled horses.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; I was on the <i>Herald</i> staff in New York; they gave
+me a roving commission, which I enjoyed so much that I resigned
+and stayed in Paris. I had not dreamed that I should ever be
+needed&mdash;I did not think of anything like this."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never seen war?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to speak of. I was the <i>Herald's</i> representative at
+Sadowa, and before that I saw some Kabyles shot in Oran. Where
+are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the river. We can hear the carriage when it comes, and I want
+to see the lights of the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville."</p>
+
+<p>"From the river? Can you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;the trees are cut away north of the boat-house. Look! I
+told you so. My father is there alone."</p>
+
+<p>Far away in the night the lights of the Ch&acirc;teau de <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>Nesville
+glimmered between the trees, smaller, paler, yellower than the
+splendid stars that crowned the black vault above the forest.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence she reached out her hand abruptly and took the
+telegram from between his fingers. In the starlight she read it,
+once, twice; then raised her head and smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, and tore the telegram into bits.</p>
+
+<p>One by one she tossed the pieces on to the bosom of the placid
+Lisse, where they sailed away towards the Moselle like dim, blue
+blossoms floating idly with the current.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you angry?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>He saw that she was trembling, and that her face had grown very
+pale.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" he asked, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"The matter&mdash;the matter is this: I&mdash;I&mdash;Lorraine de Nesville&mdash;am
+afraid! I am afraid! It is fear&mdash;it is fear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fear?" he asked, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" she cried. "Yes, it is fear! I cannot help it&mdash;I never
+before knew it&mdash;that I&mdash;I could be afraid. Don't&mdash;don't leave
+us&mdash;my father and me!" she cried, passionately. "We are so alone
+there in the house&mdash;I fear the forest&mdash;I fear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She trembled violently; a wolf howled on the distant hill.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall gallop back to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville with you," he said;
+"I shall be close beside you, riding by your carriage-window. Don't
+tremble so&mdash;Mademoiselle de Nesville."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is terrible," she stammered; "I never knew I was a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"You are anxious for your father," he said, quietly; "you are no
+coward!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am&mdash;I tremble&mdash;see! I shiver."</p>
+
+<p>"It was the wolf&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes&mdash;the wolf that warned us of war! and the men&mdash;that one who
+made maps; I never could do again what I did! Then I was afraid of
+nothing; now I fear everything&mdash;the howl of that beast on the hill,
+the wind in the trees, the ripple of the Lisse&mdash;C'est plus fort que
+moi&mdash;I am a coward. Listen! Can you hear the carriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen&mdash;ah, listen!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the noise of the river."</p>
+
+<p>"The river? How black it is! Hark!"</p>
+
+<p>"The wind."</p>
+
+<p>"Hark!"</p>
+
+<p>"The wind again&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" She seized his arm frantically. "Look! Oh, what&mdash;what was
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>The report of a gun, faint but clear, came to their ears.
+Something flashed from the lighted windows of the Ch&acirc;teau de
+Nesville&mdash;another flash broke out&mdash;another&mdash;then three dull
+reports sounded, and the night wind spread the echoes broadcast
+among the wooded hills.</p>
+
+<p>For a second she stood beside him, white, rigid, speechless; then
+her little hand crushed his arm and she pushed him violently
+towards the horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Mount!" she cried; "ride! ride!"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely conscious of what he did, he backed one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>of the horses,
+seized the gathered bridle and mane, and flung himself astride.
+The horse reared, backed again, and stood stamping. At the same
+instant he swung about in his saddle and cried, "Go back to the
+house!"</p>
+
+<p>But she was already in the saddle, guiding the other horse, her
+silken skirts crushed, her hair flying, sawing at the bridle-bit
+with gloved fingers. The wind lifted the cloak on her shoulders,
+her little satin slipper sought one stirrup.</p>
+
+<p>"Ride!" she gasped, and lashed her horse.</p>
+
+<p>He saw her pass him in a whirl of silken draperies streaming in
+the wind; the swan's-down cloak hid her body like a cloud. In a
+second he was galloping at her bridle-rein; and both horses, nose
+to nose and neck to neck, pounded across the gravel drive,
+wheeled, leaped forward, and plunged down the soft wood road,
+straight into the heart of the forest. The lace from her corsage
+fluttered in the air; the lilies at her breast fell one by one,
+strewing the road with white blossoms. The wind loosened her
+heavy hair to the neck, seized it, twisted it, and flung it out
+on the wind. Under the clusters of ribbon on her shoulders there
+was a gleam of ivory; her long gloves slipped to the wrists; her
+hair whipped the rounded arms, bare and white below the riotous
+ribbons, snapping and fluttering on her shoulders; her cloak
+unclasped at the throat and whirled to the ground, trampled into
+the forest mould.</p>
+
+<p>They struck a man in the darkness; they heard him shriek; the
+horses staggered an instant, that was all, except a gasp from the
+girl, bending with whitened cheeks close to her horse's mane.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Look out! A lantern!&mdash;close ahead!" panted Marche.</p>
+
+<p>The sharp crack of a revolver cut him short, his horse leaped
+forward, the blood spurting from its neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hit?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"No! no! Ride!"</p>
+
+<p>Again and again, but fainter and fainter, came the crack! crack!
+of the revolver, like a long whip snapped in the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hit?" he asked again.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is nothing! Ride!"</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness and confusion of the plunging horses he managed
+to lean over to her where she bent in her saddle; and, on one
+white, round shoulder, he saw the crimson welt of a bullet, from
+which the blood was welling up out of the satin skin.</p>
+
+<p>And now, in the gloom, the park wall loomed up along the river,
+and he shouted for the lodge-keeper, rising in his stirrups; but
+the iron gate swung wide, and the broad, empty avenue stretched
+up to the Ch&acirc;teau.</p>
+
+<p>They galloped up to the door; he slipped from his horse, swung
+Lorraine to the ground, and sprang up the low steps. The door was
+open, the long hall brilliantly lighted.</p>
+
+<p>"It is I&mdash;Lorraine!" cried the girl. A tall, bearded man burst in
+from a room on the left, clutching a fowling-piece.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine! They've got the box! The balloon secret was in it!" he
+groaned; "they are in the house yet&mdash;" He stared wildly at Marche,
+then at his daughter. His face was discoloured with bruises, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+thick, blond hair fell in disorder across steel-blue eyes that
+gleamed with fury.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the same moment there came a crash of glass, a heavy
+fall from the porch, and then a shot.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Marche was at the door; he saw a game-keeper raise
+his gun and aim at him, and he shrank back as the report roared
+in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"You fool!" he shouted; "don't shoot at me! drop your gun and
+follow!" He jumped to the ground and started across the garden
+where a dark figure was clutching the wall and trying to climb to
+the top. He was too late&mdash;the man was over; but he followed,
+jumped, caught the tiled top, and hurled himself headlong into
+the bushes below.</p>
+
+<p>Close to him a man started from the thicket, and ran down the wet
+road&mdash;splash! splash! slop! slop! through the puddles; but Marche
+caught him and dragged him down into the mud, where they rolled
+and thrashed and spattered and struck each other. Twice the man
+tore away and struggled to his feet, and twice Marche fastened to
+his knees until the huge, lumbering body swayed and fell again.
+It might have gone hard with Jack, for the man suddenly dropped
+the steel box he was clutching to his breast and fell upon the
+young fellow with a sullen roar. His knotted, wiry fingers had
+already found Jack's throat; he lifted the young fellow's head
+and strove to break his neck. Then, in a flash, he leaped back
+and lifted a heavy stone from the wall; at the same instant
+somebody fired at him from the wall; he wheeled and sprang into
+the woods.</p>
+
+<p>That was all Jack Marche knew until a lantern <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>flared in his
+eyes, and he saw Lorraine's father, bright-eyed, feverish,
+dishevelled, beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Raise him!" said a voice that he knew was Lorraine's.</p>
+
+<p>They lifted Jack to his knees; he stumbled to his feet, torn,
+bloody, filthy with mud, but in his arms, clasped tight, was the
+steel box, intact.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine!&mdash;my box!&mdash;look!" cried her father, and the lantern
+shook in his hands as he clutched the casket.</p>
+
+<p>But Lorraine stepped forward and flung both arms around Jack
+Marche's neck.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was deadly pale; the blood oozed from the wounded
+shoulder. For the first time her father saw that she had been
+shot. He stared at her, clutching the steel box in his nervous
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>With all the strength she had left she crushed Jack to her and
+kissed him. Then, weak with the loss of blood, she leaned on her
+father.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to faint," she whispered; "help me, father."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>TRAINS EAST AND WEST</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was dawn when Jack Marche galloped into the court-yard of the
+Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn and wearily dismounted. People were already
+moving about the upper floors; servants stared at him as he
+climbed the steps to the terrace; his face was scratched, his
+clothes smeared with caked mud and blood.</p>
+
+<p>He went straight to his chamber, tore off his clothes, took a
+hasty plunge in a cold tub, and rubbed his aching limbs until
+they glowed. Then he dressed rapidly, donned his riding breeches
+and boots, slipped a revolver into his pocket, and went
+down-stairs, where he could already hear the others at breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Very quietly and modestly he told his story between sips of
+caf&eacute;-au-lait.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he ended, "that the country is full of spies, who
+hesitate at nothing. There were three or four of them who tried
+to rob the Ch&acirc;teau; they seem perfectly possessed to get at the
+secrets of the Marquis de Nesville's balloons. There is no doubt
+but that for months past they have been making maps of the whole
+region in most minute detail; they have evidently been expecting
+this war for a long time. Incidentally, now that war is declared,
+they have opened hostilities on their own account."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You did for some of them?" asked Sir Thorald, who had been
+fidgeting and staring at Jack through a gold-edged monocle.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I&mdash;we rode down and trampled a man in the dark; I should
+think it would have been enough to brain him, but when I galloped
+back just now he was gone, and I don't know how badly he was
+hit."</p>
+
+<p>"But the fellow that started to smash you with a
+paving-stone&mdash;the Marquis de Nesville fired at him, didn't he?"
+insisted Sir Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think he hit him, but it was a long shot. Lorraine was
+superb&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, colouring up a little.</p>
+
+<p>"She did it all," he resumed&mdash;"she rode through the woods like a
+whirlwind! Good heavens! I never saw such a cyclone incarnate!
+And her pluck when she was hit!&mdash;and then very quietly she went
+to her father and fainted in his arms."</p>
+
+<p>Jack had not told all that had happened. The part that he had not
+told was the part that he thought of most&mdash;Lorraine's white arms
+around his neck and the touch of her innocent lips on his
+forehead. In silent consternation the young people listened;
+Dorothy slipped out of her chair and came and rested her hands on
+her brother's shoulder; Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil with
+large, questioning eyes that asked, "Would you do something
+heroic for me?" and Cecil's eyes replied, "Oh, for a chance to
+annihilate a couple of regiments!" This pleased Betty, and she
+ate a muffin with appreciation. The old vicomte leaned heavily on
+his elbow and looked at his wife, who sat opposite, pallid and
+eating nothing. He had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>decided to remain at Morteyn, but this
+episode disquieted him&mdash;not on his own account.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen," he said, "Jack and I will stay, but you must go with the
+children. There is no danger&mdash;there can be no invasion, for our
+troops will be passing here by night; I only wish to be sure
+that&mdash;that in case&mdash;in case things should go dreadfully wrong,
+you would not be compelled to witness anything unpleasant."</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Morteyn shook her head gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why speak of it?" she said; "you know I will not go."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stay, too," said Sir Thorald, eagerly; "Cecil and Molly can
+take the children to Paris; Madame de Morteyn, you really should
+go also."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned back and shook her head decisively.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will both come, you and Madame de Morteyn?" urged Lady
+Hesketh of the vicomte.</p>
+
+<p>The old man hesitated. His wife smiled. She knew he could not
+leave in the face of the enemy; she had been the wife of this old
+African campaigner for thirty years, and she knew what she knew.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear, we will both stay; the city is too hot in July," she
+said; "Sir Thorald, some coffee? No more? Betty, you want another
+muffin?&mdash;they are there by Cecil. Children, I think I hear the
+carriages coming; you must not make Lady Hesketh wait."</p>
+
+<p>"I have half a mind to stay," said Molly Hesketh. Sir Thorald
+said she might if she wanted to enlist, and they all tried to
+smile, but the sickly gray of early morning, sombre, threatening,
+fell on faces <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>haggard with foreboding&mdash;young faces, too, lighted
+by the pale flames of the candles.</p>
+
+<p>Alixe von Elster and Barbara Lisle went first; there were tears
+and embraces, and au revoirs and aufwiedersehens.</p>
+
+<p>Little Alixe blanched and trembled when Sir Thorald bent over
+her, not entirely unconscious of the havoc his drooping mustache
+and cynical eyes had made in her credulous German bosom. Molly
+Hesketh kissed her, wishing that she could pinch her; and so they
+left, tearful, anxious, to be driven to Courtenay, and whirled
+from there across the Rhine to Cologne.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh lingered on the terrace after the
+others had returned to the breakfast-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Thorald," she said, "you are a brute!"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" cried Sir Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a brute!"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly, what the deuce is the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;if you ever see her again, I'll tell Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"I might say the same thing in regard to Ricky, my dear," said
+Sir Thorald, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not true," she said; "I did no damage to him; and you
+know&mdash;you know down in the depths of your fickle soul that&mdash;that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind!" said Molly, sharply; but she crimsoned when he
+kissed her, and held tightly to his sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"Good ged!" thought Sir Thorald; "what a devil I am with women!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But now the carriages drove up&mdash;coup&eacute;s, dog-carts, and a
+victoria.</p>
+
+<p>"They say we ought not to miss this train," said Cecil, coming
+from the stables and flourishing a whip; "they say the line may
+be seized for government use exclusively in a few hours."</p>
+
+<p>The old house-keeper, Madame Paillard, nodded and pointed to her
+son, the under-keeper.</p>
+
+<p>"Fran&ccedil;ois says, Monsieur Page, that six trains loaded with troops
+passed through Saint-Lys between midnight and dawn; dis,
+Fran&ccedil;ois, c'est le Sieur Bosz qui t'a renseign&eacute;&mdash;pas?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, mamam!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then hurry," said Lady Hesketh. "Thorald, call the others."</p>
+
+<p>"I," said Cecil, "am going to drive Betty in the dog-cart."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll probably take the reins," said Sir Thorald, cynically.</p>
+
+<p>Cecil brandished his whip and looked determined; but it was Betty
+who drove him to Saint-Lys station, after all.</p>
+
+<p>The adieux were said, even more tearfully this time. Jack kissed
+his sister tenderly, and she wept a little on his shoulder&mdash;thinking
+of Rickerl.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the vehicles rolled away down the gravel drive; and
+last of all came Molly Hesketh in the coup&eacute; with Jack Marche.</p>
+
+<p>Molly was sad and a trifle distraite. Those periodical mental
+illuminations during which she discovered for the thousandth and odd
+time that she loved her husband usually left her fairly innocuous.
+But she was a born flirt; the virus was bred in the bone,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> and after
+the first half-mile she opened her batteries&mdash;her eyes&mdash;as a matter
+of course on Jack.</p>
+
+<p>What she got for her pains was a little sermon ending, "See here,
+Molly&mdash;three years ago you played the devil with me until I
+kissed you, and then you were furious and threatened to tell Sir
+Thorald. The truth is, you're in love with him, and there is no
+more harm in you than there is in a china kitten."</p>
+
+<p>"Jack!" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"And," he resumed, "you live in Paris, and you see lots of things
+and you hear lots of things that you don't hear and see in
+Lincolnshire. But you're British, Molly, and you are domestic,
+although you hate the idea, and there will never be a desolated
+hearth in the Hesketh household as long as you speak your
+mother-tongue and read Anthony Trollope."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the road was traversed in silence. They rattled over
+the stones in the single street of Saint-Lys, rolled into the
+gravel oval behind the Gare, and drew up amid a hubbub of
+restless teams, market-wagons, and station-trucks.</p>
+
+<p>"See the soldiers!" said Jack, lifting Lady Hesketh to the
+platform, where the others were already gathered in a circle. A
+train was just gliding out of the station, bound eastward, and
+from every window red caps projected and sunburned, boyish faces
+expanded into grins as they saw Lady Hesketh and her charges.</p>
+
+<p>"Vive l'Angleterre!" they cried. "Vive Madame la Reine! Vive
+Johnbull et son rosbif!" the latter observation aimed at Sir
+Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald waved his eye-glass to them condescendingly; faster
+and faster moved the train; the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>red caps and fresh, tanned
+faces, the laughing eyes became a blur and then a streak; and far
+down the glistening track the faint cheers died away and were
+drowned in the roar of the wheels&mdash;little whirling wheels that
+were bearing them merrily to their graves at Wissembourg.</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes our train," said Cecil. "Jack, my boy, you'll
+probably see some fun; take care of your hide, old chap!" He
+didn't mean to be patronizing, but he had Betty demurely leaning
+on his arm, and&mdash;dear me!&mdash;how could he help patronizing the
+other poor devils in the world who had not Betty, and who never
+could have Betty?</p>
+
+<p>"Montez, madame, s'il vous plait!&mdash;Montez, messieurs!" cried the
+Chef de Gare; "last train for Paris until Wednesday! All aboard!"
+and he slammed and locked the doors, while the engineer, leaning
+impatiently from his cab, looked back along the line of cars and
+blew his whistle warningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, Dorrie!" cried Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, my darling Jack! Be careful; you will, won't you?" But
+she was still thinking of Rickerl, bless her little heart!</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hesketh waved him a demure adieu from the open window,
+relented, and gave his hand a hasty squeeze with her gloved
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of Lorraine," she said, solemnly; then laughed at his
+telltale eyes, and leaned back on her husband's shoulder, still
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>The cars were gliding more swiftly past the platform now; he
+caught a glimpse of Betty kissing her hand to him, of Cecil
+bestowing a gracious adieu, of Sir Thorald's eye-glass&mdash;then they
+were gone; and far <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>up the tracks the diminishing end of the last
+car dwindled to a dark square, a spot, a dot, and was ingulfed in
+a flurry of dust. As he turned away and passed along the platform
+to the dog-cart, there came a roar, a shriek of a locomotive, a
+rush, and a train swept by towards the east, leaving a blear of
+scarlet in his eyes, and his ears ringing with the soldiers'
+cheers: "Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! &Agrave; Berlin! &Agrave; Berlin! &Agrave;
+Berlin!" A furtive-eyed young peasant beside him shrugged his
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Bismarck has called for the menu; his cannon are hungry," he
+sneered; "there goes the bill of fare."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very funny," said a fierce little man with a gray
+mustache, "but the bill of fare isn't complete&mdash;the class of '71
+has just been called out!" and he pointed to a placard freshly
+pasted on the side of the station.</p>
+
+<p>"The&mdash;the class of '71?" muttered the furtive-eyed peasant,
+turning livid.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly&mdash;the bill of fare needs the hors d'&oelig;uvres; you'll go as
+an olive, and probably come back a sardine&mdash;in a box."</p>
+
+<p>And the fierce little man grinned, lighted a cigarette, and
+sauntered away, still grinning.</p>
+
+<p>What did he care? He was a pompier and exempt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ROAD TO PARADISE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The road between Saint-Lys and Morteyn was not a military road,
+but it was firm and smooth, and Jack drove back again towards the
+Ch&acirc;teau at a smart trot, flicking at leaves and twigs with
+Cecil's whip.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had brushed the veil of rain from the horizon; the
+leaves, fresh and tender, stirred and sparkled with dew in the
+morning breeze, and all the air was sweet-scented. In the
+stillness of the fields, where wheat stretched along the road
+like a green river tinged with gold, there was something that
+troubled him. Silence is oppressive to sinners and prophets. He
+concluded he was the former, and sighed restlessly, looking out
+across the fields, where, deep in the stalks of the wheat,
+blood-red poppies opened like raw wounds. At other times he had
+compared them to little fairy camp-fires; but his mood was
+pessimistic, and he saw, in the furrows that the plough had
+raised, the scars on the breast of a tortured earth; and he read
+sermons in bundles of fresh-cut fagots; and death was written
+where a sickle lay beside a pile of grass, crisping to hay in the
+splendid sun of Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>What he did not see were the corn-flowers peeping at him with
+dewy blue eyes; the vineyards, where the fruit hung faintly
+touched with bloom; the field <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>birds, the rosy-breasted finches,
+the thrush, as speckled as her own eggs&mdash;no, nor did he hear
+them; for the silence that weighed on his heart came from his
+heart. Yet all the summer wind was athrill with harmony.
+Thousands of feathered throats swelled and bubbled melody, from
+the clouds to the feathery heath, from the scintillating azure in
+the zenith to the roots of the glittering wheat where the
+corn-flowers lay like bits of blue sky fallen to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>As he drove he thought of Lorraine, of her love for her father
+and her goodness. He already recognized that dominant passion in
+her, her unselfish adoration of her father&mdash;a father who sat all
+day behind bolted doors trifling with metals and gases and little
+spinning, noiseless wheels. The selfish to the unselfish, the
+dead to the living, the dwarf to the giant, and the sinner to the
+saint&mdash;this is the world and they that dwell therein.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of her as he had seen her last, smiling up into the
+handsome, bearded face that questioned her. No, the wound was
+nothing&mdash;a little blood lost&mdash;enough to make her faint at his
+feet&mdash;that was all. But his precious box was safe&mdash;and she had
+flung her loyal arms about the man who saved it and had kissed
+him before her father, because he had secured what was dearer to
+her than life&mdash;her father's happiness&mdash;a little metal box full of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Her father was very grateful and very solicitous about her
+wounded shoulder; but he opened his box before he thought about
+bandages. Everything was intact, except the conservatory window
+and his daughter's shoulder. Both could be mended&mdash;but his box!
+ah, that, if lost, could never be replaced.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jack's throat was hard and dry. A lump came into it, and he
+swallowed with a shrug, and flicked at a fly on the headstall. A
+vision of Sir Thorald, bending over little Alixe, came before his
+eyes. "Pah!" he muttered, in disgust. Sir Thorald was one of
+those men who cease to care for a woman when she begins to care
+for them. Jack knew it; that was why he had been so gentle with
+Molly Hesketh, who had turned his head when he was a boy and
+given him his first emotions&mdash;passion, hate&mdash;and then knowledge;
+for of all the deep emotions that a man shall know before he dies
+the first consciousness of knowledge is the most profound; it
+sounds the depths of heaven and hell in the space of time that
+the heart beats twice.</p>
+
+<p>He was passing through the woods now, the lovely oak and beech
+woods of Lorraine. An ancient dame, bending her crooked back
+beneath a load of fagots, gave him "God bless you!" and he drew
+rein and returned the gift&mdash;but his was in silver, with the head
+of his imperial majesty stamped on one side.</p>
+
+<p>As he drove, rabbits ran back into the woods, hoisting their
+white signals of conciliation. "Peace and good will" they seemed
+to read, "but a wise rabbit takes to the woods." Pheasants, too,
+stepped daintily from under the filbert bushes, twisting their
+gorgeous necks curiously as he passed. Once, in the hollow of a
+gorge where a little stream trickled under layers of wet leaves,
+he saw a wild-boar standing hock-deep in the ooze, rooting under
+mosses and rotten branches, absorbed in his rooting. Twice deer
+leaped from the young growth on the edge of the fields and
+bounded lazily into denser cover, only to stop when half
+concealed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>and stare back at him with gentle, curious eyes. The
+horse pricked up his ears at such times and introduced a few
+waltz steps into his steady if monotonous repertoire, but Jack
+let him have his fling, thinking that the deer were as tame as
+the horse, and both were tamer than man.</p>
+
+<p>Excepting the black panther, man has learned his lesson slowest
+of all, the lesson of acquiescence in the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never learn it," said Jack, aloud. His voice startled
+him&mdash;it was trembling.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine! Lorraine! Life has begun for a very young man. Teach
+him to see and bring him to accept existence in the innocence of
+your knowledge; for, if he and the world collide, he fears the
+result to the world.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later he drove into Paradise, which is known to
+some as the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>UNDER THE YOKE</h3>
+
+
+<p>During the next two weeks Jack Marche drove into Paradise
+fourteen times, and fourteen times he drove out of Paradise, back
+to the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn. Heaven is nearer than people suppose; it
+was three miles from the road shrine at Morteyn.</p>
+
+<p>Our Lady of Morteyn, sculptured in the cold stone above the
+shrine, had looked with her wide stone eyes on many lovers, and
+had known they were lovers because their piety was as sudden as
+it was fervid.</p>
+
+<p>Twice a day Jack's riding-cap was reverently doffed as he drew
+bridle before the shrine, going and coming from Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>At evening, too, when the old vicomte slept on his pillow and the
+last light went out in the stables, Our Lady of Morteyn saw a
+very young man sitting, with his head in his hands, at her feet;
+and he took no harm from the cold stones, because Our Lady of
+Morteyn is gentle and gracious, and the summer nights were hot in
+the province of Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>There had been little stir or excitement in Morteyn. Even in
+Saint-Lys, where all day and all night the troop-trains rushed
+by, the cheers of the war-bound soldiers leaning from the flying
+cars were becoming monotonous in the ears of the sober villagers.
+When <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>the long, flat cars, piled with cannon, passed, the people
+stared at the slender guns, mute, canvas-covered, tilted skyward.
+They stared, too, at the barred cars, rolling past in interminable
+trains, loaded with horses and canvas-jacketed troopers who peered
+between the slats and shouted to the women in the street. Other
+trains came and went, trains weighted with bellowing cattle or
+huddled sheep, trains choked with small square boxes marked
+"Cartouches" or "Obus&mdash;7^me"; trains piled high with grain or
+clothing, or folded tents packed between varnished poles and piles
+of tin basins. Once a little excitement came to Saint-Lys when a
+battalion of red-legged infantry tramped into the village square
+and stacked rifles and jeered at the mayor and drank many bottles
+of red wine to the health of the shy-eyed girls peeping at them
+from every lattice. But they were only waiting for the next train,
+and when it came their bugles echoed from the bridge to the square,
+and they went away&mdash;went where the others had gone&mdash;laughing,
+singing, cheering from the car-windows, where the sun beat down
+on their red caps, and set their buttons glittering like a million
+swarming fire-flies.</p>
+
+<p>The village life, the daily duties, the dull routine from the
+vineyard to the grain-field, and from the &eacute;tang to the forest had
+not changed in Saint-Lys.</p>
+
+<p>There might be war somewhere; it would never come to Saint-Lys.
+There might be death, yonder towards the Rhine&mdash;probably beyond
+it, far beyond it. What of it? Death comes to all, but it comes
+slowly in Saint-Lys; and the days are long, and one must eat to
+live, and there is much to be done between the rising and the
+setting of a peasant's sun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There, below in Paris, were wise heads and many soldiers. They,
+in Paris, knew what to do, and the war might begin and end with
+nothing but a soiled newspaper in the Caf&eacute; Saint-Lys to show for
+it&mdash;as far as the people of Saint-Lys knew.</p>
+
+<p>True, at the summons of the mayor, the National Guard of
+Saint-Lys mustered in the square, seven strong and a bugler. This
+was merely a display of force&mdash;it meant nothing&mdash;but let those
+across the Rhine beware!</p>
+
+<p>The fierce little man with the gray mustache, who was named
+Tricasse, and who commanded the Saint-Lys Pompiers, spoke gravely
+of Francs-corps, and drank too much eau-de-vie every evening. But
+these warlike ebullitions simmered away peacefully in the
+sunshine, and the tranquil current of life flowed as smoothly
+through Saint-Lys as the river Lisse itself, limpid, noiseless,
+under the village bridge.</p>
+
+<p>Only one man had left the village, and that was Brun, the
+furtive-eyed young peasant, the sole representative in Saint-Lys
+of the conscript class of 1871. And he would never have gone had
+not a gendarme pulled him from under his mother's bed and hustled
+him on to the first Paris-bound train, which happened to be a
+cattle train, where Brun mingled his lamentations with the
+bleating of sheep and the desolate bellow of thirsty cows.</p>
+
+<p>Jack Marche heard of these things but saw little of them. The
+great war wave rolling through the provinces towards the Rhine
+skirted them at Saint-Lys, and scarcely disturbed them. They
+heard that Douay was marching through the country somewhere, some
+said towards Wissembourg, some said towards <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Saarbr&uuml;ck. But these
+towns were names to the peasants of Saint-Lys&mdash;tant pis for the
+two towns! And General Douay&mdash;who was he? Probably a fat man in
+red breeches and polished boots, wearing a cocked-hat and a cross
+on his breast. Anyway, they would chase the Prussians and kill a
+few, as they had chased the Russians in the Crimea, and the
+Italians in Rome, and the Kabyles in Oran. The result? Nothing
+but a few new colours for the ribbons in their sweethearts'
+hair&mdash;like that pretty Magenta and Solferino and Sebastopol gray.
+"Fichtre! Faut-il gaspiller tout de m&ecirc;me! mais, &agrave; la guerre comme
+&agrave; la guerre!" which meant nothing in Saint-Lys.</p>
+
+<p>It meant more to Jack Marche, riding one sultry afternoon through
+the woods, idly drumming on his spurred boots with a battered
+riding-crop.</p>
+
+<p>It was his daily afternoon ride to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville; the
+shy wood creatures were beginning to know him, even the younger
+rabbits of the most recent generation sat up and mumbled their
+prehensile lips, watching him with large, moist eyes. As for the
+red squirrels in the chestnut-trees, and the dappled deer in the
+carrefours, and the sulky boars that bristled at him from the
+overgrown sentiers, they accepted him on condition that he kept
+to the road. And he did, head bent, thoughtful eyes fixed on his
+saddle-bow, drumming absently with his riding-crop on his spurred
+boots, his bridle loose on his horse's neck.</p>
+
+<p>There was little to break the monotony of the ride; a sudden gush
+of song from a spotted thrush, the rustle of a pheasant in the
+brake, perhaps the modest greeting of a rare keeper patrolling
+his beat&mdash;nothing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>more. He went armed; he carried a long Colt's
+six-shooter in his holster, not because he feared for his own
+skin, but he thought it just as well to be ready in case of
+trouble at the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville. However, he did not fear
+trouble again; the French armies were moving everywhere on the
+frontier, and the spies, of course, had long ago betaken
+themselves and their projects to the other bank of the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis de Nesville himself felt perfectly secure, now that
+the attempt had been made and had failed.</p>
+
+<p>He told Jack so on the few occasions when he descended from his
+room during the young fellow's visits. He made not the slightest
+objections to Jack's seeing Lorraine when and where he pleased,
+and this very un-Gallic behaviour puzzled Jack until he began to
+comprehend the depths of the man's selfish absorption in his
+balloons. It was more than absorption, it was mania pure and
+simple, an absolute inability to see or hear or think or
+understand anything except his own devices in the little bolted
+chamber above.</p>
+
+<p>He did care for Lorraine to the extent of providing for her every
+want&mdash;he did remember her existence when he wanted something
+himself. Also it was true that he would not have permitted a
+Frenchman to visit Lorraine as Jack did. He hated two persons;
+one of these was Jack's uncle, the Vicomte de Morteyn. On the
+other hand, he admired him, too, because the vicomte, like
+himself, was a royalist and shunned the Tuileries as the devil
+shuns holy water. Therefore he was his equal, and he liked him
+because he could hate him without loss of self-respect. The
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>reason he hated him was this&mdash;the Vicomte de Morteyn had
+pooh-poohed the balloons. That occurred years ago, but he never
+forgot it, and had never seen the old vicomte since. Whether or
+not Lorraine visited the old people at Morteyn, he had neither
+time nor inclination to inquire.</p>
+
+<p>This was the man, tall, gentle, clean-cut of limb and feature,
+and bearded like Jove&mdash;this was the man to whom Lorraine devoted
+her whole existence. Every heart-beat was for him, every thought,
+every prayer. And she was very devout.</p>
+
+<p>This also was why she came to Jack so confidently and laid her
+white hands in his when he sprang from his saddle, his heart in
+flames of adoration.</p>
+
+<p>He knew this, he knew that her undisguised pleasure in his
+company was, for her, only another link that welded her closer to
+her father. At night, often, when he had ridden back again, he
+thought of it, and paled with resentment. At times he almost
+hated her father. He could have borne it easier if the Marquis de
+Nesville had been a loving father, even a tyrannically solicitous
+father; but to see such love thrown before a marble-faced man,
+whose expression never changed except when speaking of his
+imbecile machines! "How can he! How can he!" muttered Jack,
+riding through the woods. His face was sombre, almost stern; and
+always he beat the devil's tattoo on his boot with the battered
+riding-crop.</p>
+
+<p>But now he came to the park gate, and the keeper touched his cap
+and smiled, and dragged the heavy grille back till it creaked on
+its hinges.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine came down the path to meet him; she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>had never before
+done that, and he brightened and sprang to the ground, radiant
+with happiness.</p>
+
+<p>She had brought some sugar for the horse; the beautiful creature
+followed her, thrusting its soft, satin muzzle into her hand,
+ears pricked forward, wise eyes fixed on her.</p>
+
+<p>"None for me?" asked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Sugar?"</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden gesture she held a lump out to him in the centre of
+her pink palm.</p>
+
+<p>Before she could withdraw the hand he had touched it with his
+lips, and, a little gravely, she withdrew it and walked on in
+silence by his side.</p>
+
+<p>Her shoulder had healed, and she no longer wore the silken
+support for her arm. She was dressed in black&mdash;the effect of her
+glistening hair and blond skin was dazzling. His eyes wandered
+from the white wrist, dainty and rounded, to the full curved
+neck&mdash;to the delicate throat and proud little head. Her body,
+supple as perfect Greek sculpture; her grace and gentle dignity;
+her innocence, sweet as the light in her blue eyes, set him
+dreaming again as he walked at her side, preoccupied, almost
+saddened, a little afraid that such happiness as was his should
+provoke the gods to end it.</p>
+
+<p>He need not have taken thought for the gods, for the gods take
+thought for themselves; and they were already busy at Saarbr&uuml;ck.
+Their mills are not always slow in grinding; nor, on the other
+hand, are they always sure. They may have been ages ago, but now
+the gods are so out of date that saints and sinners have a chance
+about equally.</p>
+
+<p>They traversed the lawn, skirted the tall wall of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>solid masonry
+that separated the chase from the park, and, passing a gate at
+the hedge, came to a little stone bridge, beneath which the Lisse
+ran dimpling. They watched the horse pursuing his own way
+tranquilly towards the stables, and, when they saw a groom come
+out and lead him in, they turned to each other, ready to begin
+another day of perfect contentment.</p>
+
+<p>First of all he asked about her shoulder, and she told him
+truthfully that it was well. Then she inquired about the old
+vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, and intrusted pretty little
+messages to him for them, which he, unlike most young men,
+usually remembered to deliver.</p>
+
+<p>"My father," she said, "has not been to breakfast or dinner since
+the day before yesterday. I should have been alarmed, but I
+listened at the door and heard him moving about with his
+machinery. I sent him some very nice things to eat; I don't know
+if he liked them, for he sent no message back. Do you suppose he
+is hungry?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jack; "if he were he would say so." He was careful not
+to speak bitterly, and she noticed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," she said, "that he is about to make another
+ascension. He often stays a long time in his room, alone, before
+he is ready. Will it not be delightful? I shall perhaps be
+permitted to go up with him. Don't you wish you might go with
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jack, with a little more earnestness than he
+intended.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you do? If you are very good, perhaps&mdash;perhaps&mdash;but I dare
+not promise. If it were my balloon I would take you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Would you&mdash;really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;you know it. But it isn't my balloon, you know."
+After a moment she went on: "I have been thinking all day how
+noble and good it is of my father to consecrate his life to a
+purpose that shall be of use to France. He has not said so, but I
+know that, if the next ascension proves that his discovery is
+beyond the chance of failure, he will notify the government and
+place his invention at their disposal. Monsieur Marche, when I
+think of his unselfish nobleness, the tears come&mdash;I cannot help
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"You, too, are noble," said Jack, resentfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I? Oh, if you knew! I&mdash;I am actually wicked! Would you believe
+it, I sometimes think and think and wish that my father could
+spend more time with me&mdash;with me!&mdash;a most silly and thoughtless
+girl who would sacrifice the welfare of France to her own
+caprice. Think of it! I pray&mdash;very often&mdash;that I may learn to be
+unselfish; but I must be very bad, for I often cry myself to
+sleep. Is it not wicked?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very," said Jack, but his smile faded and there was a catch in
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she said, with a gesture of despair, "even you feel
+it, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really wish to know what I do think&mdash;of you?" he asked,
+in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the tip of her tongue to say "Yes." She checked
+herself, lips apart, and her eyes became troubled.</p>
+
+<p>There was something about Jack Marche that she had not been able
+to understand. It occupied her&mdash;it took up a good share of her
+attention, but she did not know where to begin to philosophize,
+nor yet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>where to end. He was different from other men&mdash;that she
+understood. But where was that difference?&mdash;in his clear, brown
+eyes, sunny as brown streams in October?&mdash;in his serious young
+face?&mdash;in his mouth, clean cut and slightly smiling under his
+short, crisp mustache, burned blond by the sun? Where was the
+difference?&mdash;in his voice?&mdash;in his gestures?&mdash;in the turn of his
+head?</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine did not know, but as often as she gave the riddle up she
+recommenced it, idly sometimes, sometimes piqued that the
+solution seemed no nearer. Once, the evening she had met him
+after their first encounter in the forest carrefour&mdash;that evening
+on the terrace when she stood looking out into the dazzling
+Lorraine moonlight&mdash;she felt that the solution of the riddle had
+been very near. But now, two weeks later, it seemed further off
+than ever. And yet this problem, that occupied her so, must
+surely be worth the solving. What was it, then, in Jack Marche
+that made him what he was?&mdash;gentle, sweet-tempered, a delightful
+companion&mdash;yes, a companion that she would not now know how to do
+without.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, at times, there came into his eyes and into his voice
+something that troubled her&mdash;she could not tell why&mdash;something
+that mystified and checked her, and set her thinking again on the
+old, old problem that had seemed so near solution that evening on
+the moonlit terrace.</p>
+
+<p>That was why she started to say "Yes" to his question, and did
+not, but stood with lips half parted and blue eyes troubled.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her in silence for a moment, then, with a
+half-impatient gesture, turned to the river.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Shall we sit down on the moss?" she asked, vaguely conscious
+that his sympathies had, for a moment, lost touch with hers.</p>
+
+<p>He followed her down the trodden foot-path to the bank of the
+stream, and, when she had seated herself at the foot of a
+linden-tree, he threw himself at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>They were silent. He picked up a faded bunch of blue corn-flowers
+which they had left there, forgotten, the day before. One by one
+he broke the blossoms from the stalks and tossed them into the
+water.</p>
+
+<p>She, watching them floating away under the bridge, thought of the
+blue bits of paper&mdash;the telegram&mdash;that she had torn up and tossed
+upon the water two weeks before. He was thinking of the same
+thing, for, when she said, abruptly: "I should not have done
+that!" he knew what she meant, and replied: "Such things are
+always your right&mdash;if you care to use it."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed. "Then you believe still in the feudal system? I do
+not; I am a good republican."</p>
+
+<p>"It is easy," he said, also laughing, "for a young lady with
+generations of counts and vicomtes behind her to be a republican.
+It is easier still for a man with generations of republicans
+behind him to turn royalist. It is the way of the world,
+mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you shall say: 'Long live the king!'" she said; "say it
+this instant!"</p>
+
+<p>"Long live&mdash;your king!"</p>
+
+<p>"My king?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm his subject if you are; I'll shout for no other king."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, whatever is he talking about?" thought Lorraine, and the
+suspicion of a cloud gathered in her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>clear eyes again, but was
+dissipated at once when he said: "I have answered the <i>Herald's</i>
+telegram."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?" she asked, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I accepted&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>There was resentment in her voice. She felt that he had done
+something which was tacitly understood to be against her wishes.
+True, what difference did it make to her? None; she would lose a
+delightful companion. Suddenly, something of the significance of
+such a loss came to her. It was not a revelation, scarcely an
+illumination, but she understood that if he went she should be
+lonely&mdash;yes, even unhappy. Then, too, unconsciously, she had
+assumed a mental attitude of interest in his movements&mdash;of
+partial proprietorship in his thoughts. She felt vaguely that she
+had been overlooked in the decision he had made; that even if she
+had not been consulted, at least he might have told her what he
+intended to do. Lorraine was at a loss to understand herself. But
+she was easily understood. For two weeks her attitude had been
+that of every innocent, lovable girl when in the presence of the
+man whom she frankly cares for; and that attitude was one of
+mental proprietorship. Now, suddenly finding that his sympathies
+and ideas moved independently of her sympathies&mdash;that her mental
+influence, which existed until now unconsciously, was in reality
+no influence at all, she awoke to the fact that she perhaps
+counted for nothing with him. Therefore resentment appeared in
+the faintest of straight lines between her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care?" he asked, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"I? Why, no."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If she had smiled at him and said "Yes," he would have despaired;
+but she frowned a trifle and said "No," and Jack's heart began to
+beat.</p>
+
+<p>"I cabled them two words: 'Accept&mdash;provisionally,'" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what did you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Provisionally meant&mdash;with your consent."</p>
+
+<p>"My&mdash;my consent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;if it is your pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>Pleasure! Her sweet eyes answered what her lips withheld. Her
+little heart beat high. So then she did influence this cool young
+man, with his brown eyes faintly smiling, and his indolent limbs
+crossed on the moss at her feet. At the same moment her instinct
+told her to tighten her hold. This was so perfectly feminine, so
+instinctively human, that she had done it before she herself was
+aware of it. "I shall think it over," she said, looking at him,
+gravely; "I may permit you to accept."</p>
+
+<p>So was accomplished the admitted subjugation of Jack Marche&mdash;a
+stroke of diplomacy on his part; and he passed under the yoke in
+such a manner that even the blindest of maids could see that he
+was not vaulting over it instead.</p>
+
+<p>Having openly and admittedly established her sovereignty, she was
+happy&mdash;so happy that she began to feel that perhaps the victory
+was not unshared by him.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall think it over very seriously," she repeated, watching
+his laughing eyes; "I am not sure that I shall permit you to go."</p>
+
+<p>"I only wish to go as a special, not a regular correspondent. I
+wish to be at liberty to roam about and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>sketch or write what I
+please. I think my material will always be found in your
+vicinity."</p>
+
+<p>Her heart fluttered a little; this surprised her so much that her
+cheeks grew suddenly warm and pink. A little confused, she said
+what she had not dreamed of saying: "You won't go very far away,
+will you?" And before she could modify her speech he had
+answered, impetuously: "Never, until you send me away!"</p>
+
+<p>A mottled thrush on the top of the linden-tree surveyed the scene
+curiously. She had never beheld such a pitiably embarrassed young
+couple in all her life. It was so different in Thrushdom.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine's first impulse was to go away and close several doors
+and sit down, very still, and think. Her next impulse was to stay
+and see what Jack would do. He seemed to be embarrassed, too&mdash;he
+fidgeted and tossed twigs and pebbles into the river. She felt
+that she, who already admittedly was arbiter of his goings and
+comings, should do something to relieve this uneasy and strained
+situation. So she folded her hands on her black dress and said:
+"There is something I have been wishing to tell you for two
+weeks, but I did not because I was not sure that I was right, and
+I did not wish to trouble you unnecessarily. Now, perhaps, you
+would be willing to share the trouble with me. Would you?"</p>
+
+<p>Before the eager answer came to his lips she continued, hastily: "The
+man who made maps&mdash;the man whom you struck in the carrefour&mdash;is the
+same man who ran away with the box; I know it!"</p>
+
+<p>"That spy?&mdash;that tall, square-shouldered fellow with the pink
+skin and little, pale, pinkish eyes?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I know his name, too."</p>
+
+<p>Jack sat up on the moss and listened anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"His name is Von Steyr&mdash;Siurd von Steyr. It was written in pencil
+on the back of one map. The morning after the assault on the
+house, when they thought I was ill in bed, I got up and dressed
+and went down to examine the road where you caught the man and
+saved my father's little steel box. There I found a strip of
+cloth torn from your evening coat, and&mdash;oh, Monsieur Marche!&mdash;I
+found the great, flat stone with which he tried to crush you,
+just as my father fired from the wall!"</p>
+
+<p>The sudden memory, the thought of what might have happened, came
+to her in a flash for the first time. She looked at him&mdash;her
+hands were in his before she could understand why.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes met his half fearfully&mdash;she withdrew her fingers with a
+nervous movement and sat silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," he urged, and took one of her hands again. She did not
+withdraw it&mdash;she seemed confused; and presently he dropped her
+hand and sat waiting for her to speak, his heart beating
+furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"There is not much more to tell," she said at last, in a voice
+that seemed not quite under control. "I followed the broken
+bushes and his footmarks along the river until I came to a stone
+where I think he sat down. He was bleeding, too&mdash;my father shot
+him&mdash;and he tore bits of paper and cloth to cover the wound&mdash;he
+even tore up another map. I found part of it, with his name on
+the back again&mdash;not all of it, though, but enough. Here it is."</p>
+
+<p>She handed him a bit of paper. On one side were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>the fragments of
+a map in water-colour; on the other, written in German script, he
+read "Siurd von Steyr."</p>
+
+<p>"It's enough," said Jack; "what a plucky girl you are, anyway!"</p>
+
+<p>"I? You don't think so!&mdash;do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are the bravest, sweetest&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! You must not say that! You are sadly uneducated, and I
+see I must take you under my control at once. Man is born to
+obey! I have decided about your answer to the <i>Herald's</i>
+telegram."</p>
+
+<p>"May I know the result?" he asked, laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow. There is a brook-lily on the border of the sedge-grass.
+You may bring it to me."</p>
+
+<p>So began the education of Jack Marche&mdash;under the yoke. And
+Lorraine's education began, too&mdash;but she was sublimely unconscious
+of that fact.</p>
+
+<p>This also is a law in the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>SAARBR&Uuml;CK</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the first day of August, late in the afternoon, a peasant
+driving an exhausted horse pulled up at the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn,
+where Jack Marche stood on the terrace, smoking and cutting at
+leaves with his riding-crop.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Passerat?" asked Jack, good-humouredly; "are
+the Prussians in the valley?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Monsieur Marche&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Jack, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur&mdash;I saw them! They chased me&mdash;the Uhlans with their
+spears and devilish yellow horses."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" demanded Jack, with an incredulous shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"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, &agrave; prix r&eacute;duit. It would take all day; I did not care&mdash;I
+had bread and red wine&mdash;you understand, my cousin Passerat and I,
+we had been gay in Saint-Avold, too&mdash;dame! we see each other
+seldom. I may have had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>more eau-de-vie than another&mdash;it is
+permitted on f&ecirc;te-days! Monsieur, I was tired&mdash;I possibly
+slept&mdash;the road was hot. Then something awakes me; I rub my
+eyes&mdash;behold me awake!&mdash;staring dumfounded at what? Parbleu!&mdash;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!'"</p>
+
+<p>The man paused, overcome by emotions and eau-de-vie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jack, "go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I am here, monsieur," ended the peasant, hazily.</p>
+
+<p>"Passerat, you said you had taken too much eau-de-vie?" suggested
+Jack, with a smile of encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>"Much? Monsieur, you do not believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you had a dream."</p>
+
+<p>"Bon," said the peasant, "I want no more such dreams."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to inform the mayor of Saint-Lys?" asked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked after him.</p>
+
+<p>"There might be something in it," he mused, "but, dear me! his
+nose is unpleasantly&mdash;sunburned."</p>
+
+<p>That same morning, Lorraine had announced her decision. It was
+that Jack might accept the position <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>of special, or rather
+occasional, war correspondent for the New York <i>Herald</i> if 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.</p>
+
+<p>"However," he thought, "I might ride over to Saarbr&uuml;ck. Suppose I
+should be on hand at the first battle of the war?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He had lived, too, at headquarters, and shared the officers' mess
+where "cherba," "tadjines," "kous-kous," and "m&eacute;choin" 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 idle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>curiosity, but partly a sense
+of obligation, that made him think of riding to Saarbr&uuml;ck to see
+what he could see for his journal within the twenty-four-hour
+limit that Lorraine had set.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Saarbr&uuml;ck,
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>He called a groom and bade him drive to the Ch&acirc;teau 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.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner he played chess with his uncle until the old man
+fell asleep in his chair. There was an interval of silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," said his aunt, "you are a dear, good boy. Tell me, do you
+love our little Lorraine?"</p>
+
+<p>The suddenness of the question struck him dumb. His aunt smiled;
+her faded eyes were very tender <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>and kindly, and she laid both
+frail hands on his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;how did you know I wrote her?" he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"When a young man sends his aunt's servants on such very
+unorthodox errands, what can he expect, especially when those
+servants are faithful?"</p>
+
+<p>"That groom told you, Aunt Helen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Jack, these French servants don't understand such things.
+Be more careful, for Lorraine's sake."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;I will&mdash;but did the note reach her?"</p>
+
+<p>His aunt smiled. "Yes. I took the responsibility upon myself, and
+there will be no gossip."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The groom was already there, holding a note in one hand,
+gilt-banded cap in the other.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Beneath, in a girlish hand, a single line:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"I shall wait for you at dusk.&nbsp; &nbsp; Lorraine."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;he
+knew it even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>in his slumber. But he did not know how near to
+death that faith might lead him.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Ch&acirc;teau, the stillness was profound.</p>
+
+<p>As he left the park and cantered into the broad red highway, he
+turned in his saddle and looked towards the Ch&acirc;teau 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.</p>
+
+<p>The road to Saarbr&uuml;ck was a military road, and easy travelling.
+The character of the country had changed as suddenly as a
+drop-scene falls in a theatre; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>for now all around stretched
+fields cut into squares by hedges&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;in the stillness of dawn, where, below, among the
+shadowy plains, an army was awaking under dim tents.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jack laughed good-humouredly and fumbled in the breast of his
+Norfolk jacket for his papers.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only a special," he said; "I think you'll find the papers in
+order&mdash;if not, you've only to gallop back to the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn
+to verify them."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"You are from Morteyn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"A guest?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Vicomte de Morteyn is my uncle."</p>
+
+<p>The officer burst into a boyish laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Marche!"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh!" cried Jack, startled.</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked more closely at the young officer before him, who
+was laughing in his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, upon my word! No&mdash;it can't be little Georges Carri&egrave;re?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it can!" cried the other, briskly; "none of your damned
+airs, Jack! Embrace me, my son!"</p>
+
+<p>"My son, I won't!" said Jack, leaning forward joyously&mdash;"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up!" said Georges, giving him an impetuous hug; "what
+are you up to now&mdash;more war correspondence? For the same old
+<i>Herald</i>? Nom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>d'une pipe! It's cooler here than in Oran. It'll
+be hotter, too&mdash;in another way," with a gay gesture towards the
+valley below. "Jack Marche, tell me all about everything!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We can talk here a bit," he said; "you've lots of time to ride
+on. Now, fire ahead!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Georges burst into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't answer all that in a second! Wait! Do you want to know about
+Chanzy? Well, he's still in Bel-Abb&egrave;s, 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&mdash;<i>what</i>
+do you think of my mustache? Oh, that African sun sets things growing!
+I'm lieutenant, too."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Does the African sun also influence your growth in the line of
+promotion?" asked Jack, grinning.</p>
+
+<p>"Same old farceur, too!" mused Georges. "Now, what the mischief
+are you doing here? Oh, you are staying at Morteyn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;er&mdash;I used to visit another house&mdash;er&mdash;near by. You know the
+Marquis de Nesville?" asked Georges, innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"I? Oh yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You have&mdash;perhaps you have met Mademoiselle de Nesville?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jack, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Jack shuffled his booted toes in his
+stirrups; Georges looked out across the valley.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"Where are the Prussians?" asked Jack, breaking the silence.</p>
+
+<p>Georges laid his gloved hand on his companion's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that spire? That is Saarbr&uuml;ck. They are there."</p>
+
+<p>"This side of the Rhine, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Georges, reddening a little; "wait, my friend."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"This morning&mdash;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 Saarbr&uuml;ck. Except
+near Saarbr&uuml;ck 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 Saargem&uuml;nd, 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."</p>
+
+<p>"The same child&mdash;kicking, kicking, kicking!" observed Jack. "You
+ought to thank your luck that you are a spectator for once. Give
+me your glass."</p>
+
+<p>He raised the binoculars and levelled them at the valley.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello! I didn't see those troops before. Infantry, eh? And there
+goes a regiment&mdash;no, a brigade&mdash;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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Keep them&mdash;I know where they are. What time is it, Jack? My
+repeater is running wild&mdash;as if it were chasing Prussians."</p>
+
+<p>"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 Saarbr&uuml;ck! Georges, what's that big marquee in the
+wheat-field?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;he
+looks so tired and bewildered."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a spot of white vapour appeared over the spire of
+Saarbr&uuml;ck, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>infantry,
+dim red squares and oblongs, creeping across the landscape
+towards that line of silver, the Saar.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a flank movement on Wissembourg," said Jack, suddenly; "or
+are they swinging around to take Saint-Johann from the north?"</p>
+
+<p>"Watch Saarbr&uuml;ck," muttered Georges between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>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 Saarbr&uuml;ck rose, capped with the smoke of
+exploding shells.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Fichtre!" said Georges, with a shrug, "not only dancing, but
+music! What are you sketching, Jack? Let me see. Hm! Pretty
+good&mdash;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!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Kicking, kicking ever!" murmured Jack; "the same fierce
+Republican, eh? I've no sympathy with you&mdash;I'm too American."</p>
+
+<p>"Cheap cynicism," observed Georges. "Hello!&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>He pocketed sketch-book and pad and turned his horse out through
+the fields to the road.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Jack wheeled his horse and brought him alongside of Georges' wiry
+mount.</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't last long&mdash;eh, old chap?" laughed the youthful hussar;
+"only from ten o'clock till noon&mdash;eh? It's not quite noon yet.
+We're to join the regiment, but where we're going after that I
+don't know. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>They say the Prussians have quit Saarbr&uuml;ck in a
+hurry. I suppose we'll be in Germany to-night, and then&mdash;vlan!
+vlan! eh, old fellow? We'll be out for a long campaign. I'd like
+to see Berlin&mdash;I wish I spoke German."</p>
+
+<p>"They say," said Jack, "that most of the German officers speak
+French."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;bon-soir, Bismarck!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Vive l'Empereur!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that advertisement&mdash;the hand of Providence?" cried an
+impudent line soldier, leaning on his musket.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it the hand that spanked Bismarck?" yelled another. The
+Turcos grinned under their scarlet head-dresses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh&eacute;, Mustapha!" shouted the line soldiers, "Oh&eacute;, 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Petite riffa!" said the big standard-bearer, beaming&mdash;which was
+very good French for a Kabyle.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You want to send your despatches?" asked Georges. "You could
+ride on to Saarbr&uuml;ck 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>They nodded and clasped hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Au revoir!" laughed Georges. "What shall I bring you from
+Berlin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no Herod," replied Jack; "bring back your own feather-head
+safely&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>This was the terrible fever that burned the best blood out of the
+nation&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Jack touched spurs to his horse and galloped out into the
+Saarbr&uuml;ck road. He passed a heavy, fat-necked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>general, 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 Saarbr&uuml;ck, 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 Saarbr&uuml;ck.</p>
+
+<p>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 the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>cracking 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&mdash;clink!
+clank! clink! clank!&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>In the sea of faces around him he recognized the correspondent of
+the London <i>Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Williams!" he called; "where the devil is the telegraph?"</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman, red in the face and dripping with perspiration,
+waved his hand spasmodically.</p>
+
+<p>"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 H&ocirc;tel Post trying to mend the wires there. Archibald
+Grahame is with the Germans!"</p>
+
+<p>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 Saarbr&uuml;ck&mdash;he understood that at a glance. For a moment
+he thought of going to the H&ocirc;tel 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, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>he 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+&agrave; 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.</p>
+
+<p>He pushed his way past the H&ocirc;tel Post and into the garden, where,
+at a table, an old general sat reading letters.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Forbach</span>, 2d August, 1870.</p>
+
+<p>"The first shot of the war was fired this morning at ten
+o'clock. At that hour the French opened on Saarbr&uuml;ck
+with twenty-three pieces of artillery. The bombardment
+continued until twelve. At two o'clock the Germans,
+having evacuated Saarbr&uuml;ck, 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Reports vary, but it is probable that the losses on the
+German side will number four officers and seventy-nine
+men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> killed&mdash;wounded unknown. The French lost six
+officers and eighty men killed; wounded list not
+completed.</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor was present with the Prince Imperial."</p></div>
+
+<p>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 vis&eacute;d it and
+nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"A longer despatch is to follow&mdash;can I have the wires again in
+half an hour?" asked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Both operator and censor laughed and said, "No promises,
+monsieur; come and see." And Jack hastened back to the garden of
+the h&ocirc;tel and sat down once more under the trees, scarcely
+glancing at the old officer beside him. Again he wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"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&mdash;"</p></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Emperor, Napoleon III.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>"KEEP THY FAITH"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Jack was startled, and he instinctively stood up very straight,
+as he always did when surprised.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Emperor's crimson k&eacute;pi, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Sire!" protested Jack, flushing.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon III.'s eyes twinkled, and he picked up his letter again,
+still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Such good news, monsieur, should not be kept waiting. You are
+English? No? Then American? Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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
+Saarbr&uuml;ck?"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced obliquely at Jack, grave and impassible.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust so, sire," said Jack, seriously.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor laughed outright, crumpled the letter in his gloved
+hand, tossed the cigarette away, and rose painfully, leaning for
+support on the table.</p>
+
+<p>Jack rose, too.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said Napoleon, playfully, as though attempting to
+conceal intense physical suffering, "I am in search of a
+motto&mdash;for reasons. I shall have a regiment or two carry
+'Saarbr&uuml;ck' on their colours. What motto should they also carry?"</p>
+
+<p>Jack spoke before he intended it&mdash;he never knew why: "Sire, the
+only motto I know is this: 'Tiens ta Foy!'"</p>
+
+<p>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 h&ocirc;tel, the clash of presented carbines ringing
+in the still air behind him.</p>
+
+<p>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'&Eacute;tat, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>Very soberly he finished his despatch, picked up his gloves and
+crop, and again walked over to the telegraph station.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said Jack, pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+Saarbr&uuml;ck.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He passed Saint-Avold far to the south, too far to see anything
+of the division that lay encamped there; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>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&mdash;cars of all colours, marked on one end
+"Elsass-Lothringen," on the other "Alsace-Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;something that did
+not seem quite right&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of a mariner and the eyes of a soldier, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>They were Uhlans!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>woods 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" shouted a voice, in German&mdash;"halt! or we fire!" and again
+in French: "Halt! We shall fire!"</p>
+
+<p>They were not far from the road now, but he saw that he could
+pass them easily.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt! halt!" they shouted, breathless.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Tiens ta Foy," he muttered to himself, digging both spurs into
+his horse; "I'll not prove faithless to her first request&mdash;not if
+I know it. Good Lord! how near that Uhlan is!"</p>
+
+<p>Again he glanced behind, hesitated, and finally shouted: "Go
+back! I am no soldier! Go back!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you!" bellowed the Uhlan. "Stop your horse! or when I
+catch you&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>With a derisive yell the Uhlan banged away&mdash;once, twice, three
+times&mdash;and the bullets buzzed around Jack's ears till they sang.
+He swung around, crimson with fury, and raised the heavy
+six-shooter.</p>
+
+<p>"By God!" he shouted; "then take it yourself!" and he fired one
+shot, standing up in his stirrups to steady his aim.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>With sudden instinct, Jack drew bridle and wheeled his trembling
+mount&mdash;the riderless horse tore past him&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was a ride for life; he understood that thoroughly, and
+settled down to it, bending low in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>the 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 shoulder <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>where a long raw
+streak traced the flight of a grazing ball.</p>
+
+<p>His face was pale and serious when, at evening, he rode into the
+porte-coch&egrave;re of the Ch&acirc;teau 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I've kept my faith," he muttered to himself&mdash;"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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;he, this same cool young
+fellow, could not contemplate that dusty figure in the red road
+without a shudder of self-accusation&mdash;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 the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>end. 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?"</p>
+
+<p>He could not meet her eyes, he could scarcely reply to her shy
+questions.</p>
+
+<p>When she saw the wounded horse she grieved over its smarting
+shoulder, and insisted on stabling it herself.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 perfumed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>by blossoms pure and spotless and fragrant as the
+young breast that crushes them.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;that tireless, gossiping gadabout&mdash;conscience.
+Fatigue and remorse are enemies; slumber and the white flag of sleep
+stand truce between them.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Monsieur Jack, he is still locked up in the turret."</p>
+
+<p>"And the balloon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dame! Je n'en sais rien, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you care to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," she said.</p>
+
+<p>So he told her; not all, however&mdash;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 Carri&egrave;re.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I know him," she said, brightening with pleasure; "he is
+charming&mdash;isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said Jack; but for all he tried his voice sounded
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think so?" asked Lorraine, opening her blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;but he knew. This shamed him, and he began an elaborate
+eulogy on poor Georges, conscientious, self-effacing, but very,
+very unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Marche, do you think that Lieutenant Carri&egrave;re may come
+to Morteyn?"</p>
+
+<p>"He said he would; I&mdash;er&mdash;I hope he will. Don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I? Oh yes. When will he come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Jack, sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I thought you were very fond of him and that, of course, you
+would know when&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows; if he's gone with the army into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>Germany 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your dog-cart and go back to Morteyn," said Lorraine,
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me stay; I am ashamed," he said, turning red.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I do not wish to see you again&mdash;for a long, long
+time&mdash;forever."</p>
+
+<p>Her head was bent and her fingers were busy among the lilies in
+the gilded bowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you send me away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are more than rude."</p>
+
+<p>"I am ashamed; forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>"No."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She glanced up at him from her drooping lashes. She had pardoned
+him long ago.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she repeated, "I cannot forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is the dog-cart," she whispered, almost breathlessly. So
+he said good-night and went away.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>FROM THE FRONTIER</h3>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;how he ever
+dragged through those miserable hours&mdash;he himself never could
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," muttered Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said Madame de Morteyn, and closed the bedroom door; and
+Jack slept better that night.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast he wandered moodily out to the terrace, where his
+aunt found him half an hour later, mooning and contemplating his
+spotless gloves.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are not going to ride over to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville?"
+she asked, trying not to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" he said, with affected surprise, "did you wish me to go to
+the Ch&acirc;teau?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I shall walk&mdash;unless you are in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"No more than you are, dear," she said, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with sudden suspicion, but she was not smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>About eleven o'clock he had sauntered half the distance down the
+forest road that leads to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville. His heart
+seemed to tug and tug and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>urge 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>This train of thought depressed him again, but he resolutely put
+it from his mind, lighted a cigarette, and moved on.</p>
+
+<p>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 he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>turned the corner; the carrefour lay before him,
+overgrown, silent, deserted. A sudden tenderness filled his
+heart&mdash;ah, how we love those whom we have protected!&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood he could hear the river Lisse whispering, calling
+him. He would go&mdash;just to see the hidden rendezvous&mdash;for old
+love's sake; it was a step from the path, no more.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me," she said, very calmly, "I thought you had quite
+forgotten me. Why have you not been to the Ch&acirc;teau, Monsieur
+Marche?"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Therefore he was speechless.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," she said, with the air of an early Christian
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te with Nero&mdash;"and now you do not speak to me? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he blurted out, "I thought you did not care to have
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Surprise, sorrow, grief gave place to pity in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, he had a moment to spare&mdash;not many moments&mdash;he hoped she
+would understand that!&mdash;but he had one or two little ones at her
+disposal.</p>
+
+<p>She read this in his affected hesitation. She would make him pay
+dearly for it. Vengeance should be hers!</p>
+
+<p>He stood a moment, eying the water as though it had done him
+personal injury. Then he sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She looked wistfully across the river.</p>
+
+<p>Jack watched her. His heart ached for her, and he bent nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me for causing you any unhappiness," he said. "Will
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Oh! where was her vengeance now? So far beneath her!</p>
+
+<p>"These four days have been the most wretched days to me, the most
+unhappy I have ever lived," he said. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I will never again, as long as I live, give you one
+moment's&mdash;displeasure." He was going to say "pain," but he dared
+not.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;I also was
+unhappy&mdash;I was silly; we both are very silly&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you stories?" he asked again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;stories that never have really happened&mdash;but that should
+have happened."</p>
+
+<p>"Then listen! There was once&mdash;many, many years ago&mdash;a maid and a
+man&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Good gracious&mdash;but that story is as old as life itself! He did
+not realize it, nor did she. It seemed new to them.</p>
+
+<p>The sun of noon was moving towards the west when they remembered
+that they were hungry.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;this hope, that one day she should have her father to
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come?" she asked, shyly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Do you know it will be our first luncheon together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you brought me an ice at the dance that evening; don't
+you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but that was not a supper&mdash;I mean a luncheon together&mdash;with
+a table between us and&mdash;you know what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," she said, smiling dreamily; so he knew that she did.</p>
+
+<p>They hurried a little on the way to the Ch&acirc;teau, and he laughed
+at her appetite, which made her laugh, too, only she pretended
+not to like it.</p>
+
+<p>At the porch she left him to change her gown, and slipped away
+up-stairs, while he found old Pierre and was dusted and fussed
+over until he couldn't stand it another moment. Luckily he heard
+Lorraine calling her maid on the porch, and he went to her at
+once.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Papa says you may lunch here&mdash;I spoke to him through the
+key-hole. It is all ready; will you come?"</p>
+
+<p>A serious-minded maid served them with salad and thin
+bread-and-butter.</p>
+
+<p>"Tea!" exclaimed Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that very American?" asked Lorraine, timidly. "I thought
+you might like it; I understood that all Americans drank tea."</p>
+
+<p>"They do," he said, gravely; "it is a terrible habit&mdash;a national
+vice&mdash;but they do."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you are laughing at me!" she cried. "Marianne, please to
+remove that tea! No, no, I won't leave it&mdash;and you can suffer if
+you wish. And to think that I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>They were both laughing so that the maid's face grew more
+serious, and she removed the teapot as though she were bearing
+some strange and poisonous creature to a deserved doom.</p>
+
+<p>As they sat opposite each other, smiling, a little flurried at
+finding themselves alone at table together, but eating with the
+appetites of very young lovers, the warm summer wind, blowing
+through the open windows, bore to their ears the songs of forest
+birds. It bore another sound, too; Jack had heard it for the last
+two hours, or had imagined he heard it&mdash;a low, monotonous
+vibration, now almost distinct, now lost, now again discernible,
+but too vague, too indefinite to be anything but that faint
+summer harmony which comes from distant breezes, distant
+movements, mingling with the stir of drowsy field insects, half
+torpid in the heat of noon.</p>
+
+<p>Still it was always there; and now, turning his ear to the
+window, he laid down knife and fork to listen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have also noticed it," said Lorraine, answering his unasked
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;more distinctly now."</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later Jack leaned back in his chair and listened
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lorraine, "it seems to come nearer. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It comes from the southeast. I don't know," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>They rose and walked to the window. She was so near that he
+breathed the subtle fragrance of her hair, the fresh sweetness of
+her white gown, that rustled beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hark!" whispered Lorraine; "I can almost hear voices in the
+breezes&mdash;the murmur of voices, as if millions of tiny people were
+calling us from the ends and outer edges of the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a throbbing, too. Do you notice it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;like one's heart at night. Ah, now it comes nearer&mdash;oh,
+nearer! nearer! Oh, what can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>He knew now; he knew that indefinable battle&mdash;rumour that steals
+into the senses long before it is really audible. It is not a
+sound&mdash;not even a vibration; it is an immense foreboding that
+weights the air with prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>"From the south and east," he repeated; "from the Landesgrenze."</p>
+
+<p>"The frontier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Hark!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear."</p>
+
+<p>"From the frontier," he said again. "From the river Lauter and
+from Wissembourg."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she whispered, close beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannon!"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it was cannon&mdash;they knew it now&mdash;cannon throbbing,
+throbbing, throbbing along the horizon where the crags of the
+Geisberg echoed the dull thunder and shook it far out across the
+vineyards of Wissembourg, where the heights of Kapsweyer,
+resounding, hurled back the echoes to the mountains in the north.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why does it seem to come nearer?" asked Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"Nearer?" He knew it had come nearer, but how could he tell her
+what that meant?</p>
+
+<p>"It is a battle&mdash;is it not?" she asked again.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a battle."</p>
+
+<p>She said nothing more, but stood leaning along the wall, her white
+forehead pressed against the edge of the raised window-sash. Outside,
+the little birds had grown suddenly silent; there was a stillness
+that comes before a rain; the leaves on the shrubbery scarcely moved.</p>
+
+<p>And now, nearer and nearer swelled the rumour of battle,
+undulating, quavering over forest and hill, and the muttering of
+the cannon grew to a rumble that jarred the air.</p>
+
+<p>As currents in the upper atmosphere shift and settle north,
+south, east, west, so the tide of sound wavered and drifted, and
+set westward, flowing nearer and nearer and louder and louder,
+until the hoarse, crashing tumult, still vague and distant, was
+cut by the sharper notes of single cannon that spoke out,
+suddenly impetuous, in the dull din.</p>
+
+<p>The whole Ch&acirc;teau was awake now; maids, grooms, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>valets,
+gardeners, and keepers were gathering outside the iron grille of
+the park, whispering together and looking out across the fields.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to see except pastures and woods, and
+low-rounded hills crowned with vineyards. Nothing more except a
+single strangely shaped cloud, sombre, slender at the base, but
+spreading at the top like a palm.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going up to speak to your father," said Jack, carelessly;
+"may I?"</p>
+
+<p>Interrupt her father! Lorraine fairly gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here," he added, with the faintest touch of authority in
+his tone; and, before she could protest, he had sped away up the
+staircase and round and round the long circular stairs that led
+to the single turret.</p>
+
+<p>A little out of breath, he knocked at the door which faced the
+top step. There was no answer. He rapped again, impatiently. A
+voice startled him: "Lorraine, I am busy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Open," called Jack; "I must see you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am busy!" replied the marquis. Irritation and surprise were in
+his tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Open!" called Jack again; "there is no time to lose!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the door was jerked back and the marquis appeared, pale,
+handsome, his eyes cold and blue as icebergs.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Marche&mdash;" he began, almost discourteously.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon," interrupted Jack; "I am going into your room. I wish to
+look out of that turret window. Come also&mdash;you must know what to
+expect."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Astonished, almost angry, the Marquis de Nesville followed him to
+the turret window.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Jack, softly, staring out into the sunshine, "it is
+time, is it not, that we knew what was going on along the
+frontier? Look there!"</p>
+
+<p>On the horizon vast shapeless clouds lay piled, gigantic coils
+and masses of vapour, dark, ominous, illuminated by faint, pallid
+lights that played under them incessantly; and over all towered
+one tall column of smoke, spreading above like an enormous
+palm-tree. But this was not all. The vast panorama of hill and
+valley and plain, cut by roads that undulated like narrow satin
+ribbons on a brocaded surface, was covered with moving objects,
+swarming, inundating the landscape. To the south a green hill
+grew black with the human tide, to the north long lines and
+oblongs and squares moved across the land, slowly, almost
+imperceptibly&mdash;but they were moving, always moving east.</p>
+
+<p>"It is an army coming," said the marquis.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a rout," said Jack, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The marquis moved suddenly, as though to avoid a blow.</p>
+
+<p>"What troops are those?" he asked, after a silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the French army," replied Jack. "Have you not heard the
+cannonade?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;my machines make some noise when I'm working. I hear it now.
+What is that cloud&mdash;a fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the battle cloud."</p>
+
+<p>"And the smoke on the horizon?"</p>
+
+<p>"The smoke from the guns. They are fighting beyond
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>Saarbr&uuml;ck&mdash;yes, beyond Pfalzburg and W&ouml;rth; they are fighting
+beyond the Lauter."</p>
+
+<p>"Wissembourg?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. They are nearer now. Monsieur de Nesville, the
+battle has gone against the French."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" demanded the marquis, harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen battles. One need only listen and look at the army
+yonder. They will pass Morteyn; I think they will pass for miles
+through the country. It looks to me like a retreat towards Metz,
+but I am not sure. The throngs of troops below are fugitives, not
+the regular geometrical figures that you see to the north. Those
+are regiments and divisions moving towards the west in good
+order."</p>
+
+<p>The two men stepped back into the room and faced each other.</p>
+
+<p>"After the rain the flood, after the rout the invasion," said
+Jack, firmly. "You cannot know it too quickly. You know it now,
+and you can make your plans."</p>
+
+<p>He was thinking of Lorraine's safety when he spoke, but the
+marquis turned instinctively to a mass of machinery and chemical
+paraphernalia behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"You will have your hands full," said Jack, repressing an angry
+sneer; "if you wish, my aunt De Morteyn will charge herself with
+Mademoiselle de Nesville's safety."</p>
+
+<p>"True, Lorraine might go to Morteyn," murmured the marquis,
+absently, examining a smoky retort half filled with a silvery
+heap of dust.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, may I drive her over after dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the other, indifferently.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jack started towards the stairs, hesitated, and turned around.</p>
+
+<p>"Your inventions are not safe, of course, if the German army
+comes. Do you need my help?"</p>
+
+<p>"My inventions are my own affair," said the marquis, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>Jack flushed scarlet, swung on his heels, and marched out of the
+room and down the stairs. On the lower steps he met Lorraine's
+maid, and told her briefly to pack her mistress's trunks for a
+visit to Morteyn.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine was waiting for him at the window where he had left her,
+a scared, uncertain little maid in truth.</p>
+
+<p>"The battle is very near, isn't it?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, miles away yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you speak to papa? Did he send word to me? Does he want me?"</p>
+
+<p>He found it hard to tell her what message her father had sent,
+but he did.</p>
+
+<p>"I am to go to Morteyn? Oh, I cannot! I cannot! Papa will be
+alone here!" she said, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you had better see him," he said, almost bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>She hurried away up the stairs; he heard her little eager feet on
+the stone steps that led to the turret; climbing up, up, up,
+until the sound was lost in the upper stories of the house. He
+went out to the stables and ordered the dog-cart and a wagon for
+her trunks. He did not fear that this order might be premature,
+for he thought he had not misjudged the Marquis de Nesville. And
+he had not, for, before the cart was ready, Lorraine, silent,
+pale, tearless, came noiselessly down the stairs holding her
+little cloak over one arm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am to stay a week," she said; "he does not want me." She
+added, hastily, "He is so busy and worried, and there is much to
+be done, and if the Prussians should come he must hide the
+balloon and the box of plans and formula&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Jack, tenderly; "it will lift a weight from his
+mind when he knows you are safe with my aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"He is so good, he thinks only of my safety," faltered Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said Jack, in a voice that sounded husky; "the horse is
+waiting; I am to drive you. Your maid will follow with the trunks
+this evening. Are you ready? Give me your cloak. There&mdash;now, are
+you ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>He aided her to mount the dog-cart&mdash;her light touch was on his
+arm. He turned to the groom at the horse's head, sprang to the
+seat, and nodded. Lorraine leaned back and looked up at the
+turret where her father was.</p>
+
+<p>"Allons! En route!" cried Jack, cheerily, snapping his
+ribbon-decked whip.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant a horseless cavalryman, gray with dust and
+dripping with blood and sweat, staggered out on the road from
+among the trees. He turned a deathly face to theirs, stopped,
+tottered, and called out&mdash;"Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>"Georges!" cried Jack, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a horse, for God's sake!" he gasped. "I've just killed
+mine. I&mdash;I must get to Metz by midnight&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AIDE-DE-CAMP</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lorraine and Jack sprang to the road from opposite sides of the
+vehicle; Georges' drawn face was stretched into an attempt at a
+smile which was ghastly, for the stiff, black blood that had
+caked in a dripping ridge from his forehead to his chin cracked
+and grew moist and scarlet, and his hollow cheeks whitened under
+the coat of dust. But he drew himself up by an effort and saluted
+Lorraine with a punctilious deference that still had a touch of
+jauntiness to it&mdash;the jauntiness of a youthful cavalry officer in
+the presence of a pretty woman.</p>
+
+<p>Old Pierre, who had witnessed the episode from the butler's
+window, came limping down the path, holding a glass and a carafe
+of brandy.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Pierre," said Jack. "Georges, drink it up, old
+fellow. There, now you can stand on those pins of yours. What's
+that&mdash;a sabre cut?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, a scratch from an Uhlan's lance-tip. Cut like a razor,
+didn't it? I've just killed my horse, trying to get over a ditch.
+Can you give me a mount, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't a horse in the stable that can carry you to Metz,"
+said Lorraine, quietly; "Diable is lame and Porthos is not shod.
+I can give you my pony."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can't you get a train?" asked Jack, astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"No, the Uhlans are in our rear, everywhere. The railroad is torn
+up, the viaducts smashed, the wires cut, and general deuce to
+pay. I ran into an Uhlan or two&mdash;you notice it perhaps," he
+added, with a grim smile. "Could you drive me to Morteyn? Do you
+think the vicomte would lend me a horse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he would," said Jack; "come, then&mdash;there is room for
+three," with an anxious glance at Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, there is always room for a soldier of France!" cried
+Lorraine. At the same moment she instinctively laid one hand
+lightly on Jack's arm. Their eyes spoke for an instant&mdash;the
+generous appeal that shone in hers was met and answered by a
+response that brought the delicate colour into her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me hang on behind," pleaded Georges&mdash;"I'm so dirty, you
+know." But they bundled him into the seat between them, and Jack
+touched his beribboned whip to the horse's ears, and away they
+went speeding over the soft forest road in the cool of the fading
+day; old Pierre, bottle and glass in hand, gaping after them and
+shaking his gray head.</p>
+
+<p>Jack began to fire volleys of questions at the young hussar as
+soon as they entered the forest, and poor Georges replied as best
+he could.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know very much about it; I was detached yesterday and
+taken on General Douay's staff. We were at Wissembourg&mdash;you know
+that little town on the Lauter where the vineyards cover
+everything and the mountains are pretty steep to the north and
+west. All I know is this: about six o'clock this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>morning our
+outposts on the hills to the south began banging way in a great
+panic. They had been attacked, it seems, by the 4th Bavarian
+Division, Count Bothmer's, I believe. Our posts fell back to the
+town, where the 1st Turcos reinforced them at the railroad
+station. The artillery were at it on our left, too, and there was
+a most infernal racket. The next thing I saw was those crazy
+Bavarians, with their little flat drums beating, and their
+fur-crested helmets all bobbing, marching calmly up the Geisberg.
+Jack, those fellows went through the vineyards like fiends
+astride a tempest. That was at two o'clock. The Prussian
+Crown-Prince rode into the town an hour before; we couldn't hold
+it&mdash;Heaven knows why. That's all I saw&mdash;except the death of our
+general."</p>
+
+<p>"General Douay?" cried Lorraine, horrified.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he was killed about ten o'clock in the morning. The town
+was stormed through the Hagenauer Thor by the Bavarians. After
+that we still held the Geisberg and the Ch&acirc;teau. You should have
+seen it when we left it. I'll say it was a butcher's shambles.
+I'd say more if Mademoiselle de Nesville were not here." He was
+trying hard to bear up&mdash;to speak lightly of the frightful
+calamity that had overwhelmed General Abel Douay and his entire
+division.</p>
+
+<p>"The fight at the Ch&acirc;teau was worth seeing," said Georges,
+airily. "They went at it with drums beating and flags flying. Oh,
+but they fell like leaves in the gardens, there&mdash;the paths and
+shrubbery were littered with them, dead, dying, gasping, crawling
+about, like singed flies under a lamp. We had them beaten, too,
+if it hadn't been for their General von Kirchbach. He stood in
+the garden&mdash;he'd been hit, too&mdash;and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>bawled for the artillery.
+Then they came at us again in three divisions. Where they got all
+their regiments, I don't know, but their 7th Grenadier Guards
+were there, and their 47th, 58th, 59th, 80th, and 87th regiments
+of the line, not counting a J&auml;ger battalion and no end of
+artillery. They carried the Three Poplars&mdash;a hill&mdash;and they began
+devastating everything. We couldn't face their fire&mdash;I don't know
+why, Jack; it breaks my heart when I say it, but we couldn't hold
+them. Then they began howling for cannon, and, of course, that
+settled the Ch&acirc;teau. The town was in flames when I left."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence, Jack asked him whether it was a rout or a
+retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"We're falling back in very decent order," said Georges,
+eagerly&mdash;"really, we are. Of course, there were some troops that
+got into a sort of panic&mdash;the Uhlans are annoying us considerably.
+The Turcos fought well. We fairly riddled the 58th Prussians&mdash;their
+king's regiment, you know. It was the 2d Bavarian Corps that did
+for us. We will meet them later."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going&mdash;to Metz?" inquired Jack, soberly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I've a packet for Bazaine&mdash;I don't know what. They're
+trying to reach him by wire, but those confounded Uhlans are
+destroying everything. My dear fellow, you need not worry; we
+have been checked, that's all. Our promenade to Berlin is
+postponed in deference to King Wilhelm's earnest wishes."</p>
+
+<p>They all tried to laugh a little, and Jack chirped to his horse,
+but even that sober animal seemed to feel the depression, for he
+responded in fits and starts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>and jerks that were unpleasant and
+jarring to Georges' aching head.</p>
+
+<p>The sky had become covered with bands of wet-looking clouds, the
+leaves of the forest stirred noiselessly on their stems. Along
+the river willows quivered and aspens turned their leaves white
+side to the sky. In the querulous notes of the birds there was a
+prophecy of storms, the river muttered among its hollows of
+floods and tempests.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a great sombre raven sailed to the road, alighted,
+sidled back, and sat fearlessly watching them.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine shivered and nestled closer to Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she murmured, "I never saw one before&mdash;except in pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"They belong in the snow&mdash;they have no business here," said Jack;
+"they always make me think of those pictures of Russia&mdash;the
+retreat of the Grand Army, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Wolves and ravens," said Lorraine, in a low voice; "I know why
+they come to us here in France&mdash;Monsieur Marche, did I not tell
+you that day in the carrefour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered; "do you really think you are a prophetess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see wolves here?" asked Georges.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; before war was declared. I told Monsieur Marche&mdash;it is a
+legend of our country. He, of course, laughed at it. I also do not
+believe everything I am told&mdash;but&mdash;I don't know&mdash;I have alway
+believed that, ever since I was, oh, very, very small&mdash;like that."
+She held one small gloved hand about twelve inches from the floor
+of the cart.</p>
+
+<p>"At such a height and such an age it is natural <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>to believe
+anything," said Jack. "I, too, accepted many strange doctrines
+then."</p>
+
+<p>"You are laughing again," said Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>So they passed through the forest, trying to be cheerful, even
+succeeding at times. But Georges' face grew paler every minute,
+and his smile was so painful that Lorraine could not bear it and
+turned her head away, her hand tightening on the box-rail
+alongside.</p>
+
+<p>As they were about to turn out into the Morteyn road, where the
+forest ended, Jack suddenly checked the horse and rose to his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Lorraine. "Oh, I see! Oh, look!"</p>
+
+<p>The Morteyn road was filled with infantry, solid, plodding
+columns, pressing fast towards the west. The fields, too, were
+black with men, engineers, weighted down with their heavy
+equipments, resting in long double rows, eyes vacant, heads bent.
+Above the thickets of rifles sweeping past, mounted officers sat
+in their saddles, as though carried along on the surface of the
+serried tide. Standards fringed with gold slanted in the last
+rays of the sun, sabres glimmered, curving upward from the
+thronged rifles, and over all sounded the shuffle, shuffle of
+worn shoes in the dust, a mournful, monotonous cadence, a
+hopeless measure, whose burden was despair, whose beat was the
+rhythm of breaking hearts.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, but it cut Lorraine to see their boyish faces, dusty, gaunt,
+hollow-eyed, turn to her and turn away without a change, without
+a shade of expression. The mask of blank apathy stamped on every
+visage almost terrified her. On they came, on, on, and still <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>on,
+under a forest of shining rifles. A convoy of munitions crowded
+in the rear of the column, surrounded by troopers of the
+train-des-equipages; then followed more infantry, then cavalry,
+dragoons, who sat listlessly in their high saddles, carbines
+bobbing on their broad backs, whalebone plumes matted with dust.</p>
+
+<p>Georges rose painfully from his seat, stepped to the side, and
+climbed down into the road. He felt in the breast of his dolman
+for the packet, adjusted his sabre, and turned to Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a squadron of the Remount Cavalry over in that
+meadow&mdash;I can get a horse there," he said. "Thank you, Jack.
+Good-by, Mademoiselle de Nesville, you have been more than
+generous."</p>
+
+<p>"You can have a horse from the Morteyn stables," said Jack; "my
+dear fellow, I can't bear to see you go&mdash;to think of your riding
+to Metz to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"It's got to be done, you know," said Georges. He bowed; Lorraine
+stretched out her hand and he gravely touched it with his
+fingers. Then he exchanged a nervous gripe with Jack, and turned
+away hurriedly, crowding between the passing dragoons, traversing
+the meadows until they lost him in the throng.</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot get to the house by the road," said Jack; "we must
+take the stable path;" and he lifted the reins and turned the
+horse's head.</p>
+
+<p>The stable road was narrow, and crossed with sprays of tender
+leaves. The leaves touched Lorraine's eyes, they rubbed across
+her fair brow, robbing her of single threads of glittering hair,
+they brushed a single bright tear from her cheeks and held it,
+glimmering like a drop of dew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Behold the end of the world," said Lorraine&mdash;"I am weeping."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and looked into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that strange?" he asked, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have often wished to cry. I never could&mdash;except once
+before&mdash;and that was four days ago."</p>
+
+<p>The day of their quarrel! He thrilled from head to foot, but
+dared not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Four days ago," said Lorraine again. She thought of herself
+gliding from her bed to seek the stable where Jack's horse stood,
+she thought of her hot face pressed to the wounded creature's
+neck. Then, suddenly aware of what she had confessed, she leaned
+back and covered her face with her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine!" he whispered, brokenly.</p>
+
+<p>But they were already at the Ch&acirc;teau.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine, my child!" cried Madame de Morteyn, leaning from the
+terrace. Her voice was drowned in the crash of drums rolling,
+rolling, from the lawn below, and the trumpets broke out in harsh
+chorus, shrill, discordant, terrible.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor had arrived at Morteyn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MARQUIS MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Emperor dined with the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn that
+evening in the great dining-room. The Ch&acirc;teau, patrolled by
+doubled guards of the Cent Gardes, was surrounded by triple
+hedges of bayonets and a perfect pest of police spies, secret
+agents, and flunkys. In the breakfast-room General Frossard and
+his staff were also dining; and up-stairs, in a small gilded
+salon, Jack and Lorraine ate soberly, tenderly cared for by the
+old house-keeper.</p>
+
+<p>Outside they could hear the steady tramp of passing infantry
+along the dark road, the clank of artillery, and the muffled
+trample of cavalry. Frossard's Corps was moving rapidly, its back
+to the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the Prince Imperial," said Jack; "he was in the
+conservatory, writing to his mother, the Empress. Have you ever
+seen him, Mademoiselle de Nesville? He is young, really a mere
+child, but he looks very manly in his uniform. He has that same
+charm, that same delicate, winning courtesy that the Emperor is
+famous for. But he looks so pale and tired&mdash;like a school-boy in
+the Lyc&eacute;e."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been unfortunate if the Emperor had stopped at the
+Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville," said Lorraine, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>sipping her small glass of
+Moselle; "papa hates him."</p>
+
+<p>"Many Royalists do."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not that only; there is something else&mdash;something that I
+don't know about. It concerns my brother who died many years ago,
+before I was born. Have I never spoken of my brother? Has papa
+never said anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jack, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when my brother was alive, our family lived in Paris. That
+is all I know, except that my brother died shortly before the empire
+was proclaimed, and papa and mamma came to our country-place here,
+where I was born. Ren&eacute;'s&mdash;my brother's&mdash;death had something to do
+with my father's hatred of the empire, I know that. But papa will
+never speak of it to me, except to tell me that I must always
+remember that the Emperor has been the curse of the De Nesvilles.
+Hark! Hear the troops passing. Why do they never cheer their
+Emperor?"</p>
+
+<p>"They cheered him at Saarbr&uuml;ck&mdash;I heard them. You are not eating;
+are you tired?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little. I shall go with Marianne, I think; I am sleepy. Are
+you going to sit up? Do you think we can sleep with the noise of
+the horses passing? I should like to see the Emperor at table."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," said Jack; "I'll go down and find out whether we can't
+slip into the ballroom."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll go too," said Lorraine, rising. "Marianne, stay here;
+I will return in a moment;" and she slipped after Jack, down the
+broad staircase and out to the terrace, where a huge cuirassier
+officer stood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>in the moonlight, his straight sabre shimmering,
+his white mantle open over the silver breastplate.</p>
+
+<p>The ballroom was brilliantly lighted, the gilded canap&eacute;s and
+chairs were covered with officers in every conceivable uniform,
+lounging, sprawling, chatting, and gesticulating, or pulling
+papers and maps over the floor. A general traced routes across
+the map at his feet with the point of a naked sword; an officer
+of dragoons, squatting on his haunches, followed the movement of
+the sword-point and chewed an unlighted cigarette. Officers were
+coming and going constantly, entering by the hallway and leaving
+through the door-like windows that swung open to the floor. The
+sinister face of a police-spy peered into the conservatory at
+intervals, where a slender, pale-faced boy sat, clothed in a
+colonel's uniform, writing on a carved table. It was the Prince
+Imperial, back from Saarbr&uuml;ck and his "baptism of fire," back
+also from the Spicheren and the disaster of W&ouml;rth. He was writing
+to his mother, that unhappy, anxious woman who looked every day
+from the Tuileries into the streets of a city already clamorous,
+already sullenly suspicious of its Emperor and Empress.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's face was beautiful. He raised his head and sat silently
+biting his pen, eyes wandering. Perhaps he was listening to the
+retreat of Frossard's Corps through the fair province of
+Lorraine&mdash;a province that he should never live to see again. A
+few months more, a few battles, a few villages in flames, a few
+cities ravaged, a few thousand corpses piled from the frontier to
+the Loire&mdash;and then, what? Why, an emperor the less and an
+emperor the more, and a new name for a province&mdash;that is all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His delicate, high-bred face fell; he shaded his sad eyes with
+one thin hand and wrote again&mdash;all that a good son writes to a
+mother, all that a good soldier writes to a sovereign, all that a
+good prince writes to an empress.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what sad eyes!" whispered Lorraine; "he is too young to see
+such things."</p>
+
+<p>"He may see worse," said Jack. "Come, shall we walk around the
+lawn to the dining-room?"</p>
+
+<p>They descended the dark steps, her arm resting lightly on his,
+and he guided her through a throng of gossiping cavalrymen and
+hurrying but polite officers towards the western wing of the
+Ch&acirc;teau, the trample of the passing army always in their ears.</p>
+
+<p>As he was about to cross the drive, a figure stepped from the
+shadow of the porte-coch&egrave;re&mdash;a man in a rough tweed suit, who
+lifted his wide-awake politely and asked Jack if he was not
+English.</p>
+
+<p>"American," said Jack, guardedly.</p>
+
+<p>The man was apparently much relieved. He made a frank, manly
+apology for his intrusion, looked appealingly at Lorraine, and
+said, with a laugh: "The fact is, I'm astray in the wrong camp. I
+rode out from the Spicheren and got mixed in the roads, and first
+I knew I fell in with Frossard's Corps, and I can't get away. I
+thought you were an Englishman; you're American, it seems, and
+really I may venture to feel that there is hope for me&mdash;may I
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said Jack; "whatever I can do, I'll do gladly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let me observe without hesitation," continued the man,
+smiling under his crisp mustache, "that I'm in search of a modest
+dinner and a shelter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>of even more modest dimensions. I'm a war
+correspondent, unattached just at present, but following the
+German army. My name is Archibald Grahame."</p>
+
+<p>At the name of the great war correspondent Jack stared, then
+impulsively held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Aha!" said Grahame, "you must be a correspondent, too. Ha! I
+thought I was not wrong."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed again to Lorraine, who returned his manly salute very
+sweetly. "If," she thought, "Jack is inclined to be nice to this
+sturdy young man in tweeds, I also will be as nice as I can."</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Marche&mdash;Jack Marche," said Jack, in some trepidation.
+"I am not a correspondent&mdash;that is, not an active one."</p>
+
+<p>"You were at Sadowa, and you've been in Oran with Chanzy," said
+Grahame, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Jack flushed with pleasure to find that the great Archibald
+Grahame had heard of him.</p>
+
+<p>"We must take Mr. Grahame up-stairs at once&mdash;must we not?&mdash;if he
+is hungry," suggested Lorraine, whose tender heart was touched at
+the thought of a hungry human being.</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed, and Grahame thanked her with that whimsical but
+charming courtesy that endeared him to all who knew him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is awkward, now, isn't it, Mr. Marche? Here I am in France
+with the army I tried to keep away from, roofless, supperless,
+and rather expecting some of these sentinels or police agents may
+begin to inquire into my affairs. If they do they'll take me for
+a spy. I was threatened by the villagers in a little hamlet west
+of Saint-Avold&mdash;and how I'm going to get back to my Hohenzollerns
+I haven't the faintest notion."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There'll surely be some way. My uncle will vouch for you and get
+you a safe-conduct," said Jack. "Perhaps, Mr. Grahame, you had
+better come and dine in our salon up-stairs. Will you? The
+Emperor occupies the large dining-room, and General Frossard and
+his staff have the breakfast-room."</p>
+
+<p>Amused by the young fellow's doubt that a simple salon on the
+first floor might not be commensurate with the hospitality of
+Morteyn, Archibald Grahame stepped pleasantly to the other side
+of the road; and so, with Lorraine between them, they climbed the
+terrace and scaled the stairs to the little gilt salon where
+Lorraine's maid Marianne and the old house-keeper sat awaiting
+her return.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine was very wide-awake now&mdash;she was excited by the stir and
+the brilliant uniforms. She unconsciously took command, too,
+feeling that she should act the hostess in the absence of Madame
+de Morteyn. The old house-keeper, who adored her, supported her
+loyally; so, between Marianne and herself, a very delightful
+dinner was served to the hungry but patient Grahame when he
+returned with Jack from the latter's chamber, where he had left
+most of the dust and travel stains of a long tramp across
+country.</p>
+
+<p>And how the great war correspondent did eat and drink! It made
+Jack hungry again to watch him, so with a laughing apology to
+Lorraine he joined in with a will, enthusiastically applauded and
+encouraged by Grahame.</p>
+
+<p>"I could tell you were a correspondent by your appetite," said
+Grahame. "Dear me! it takes a campaign to make life worth
+living!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Life is not worth living, then, without an appetite?" inquired
+Lorraine, mischievously.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Grahame, seriously; "and you also will be of that
+opinion some day, mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>His kindly, humourous eyes turned inquiringly from Jack to
+Lorraine and from Lorraine to Jack. He was puzzled, perhaps, but
+did not betray it.</p>
+
+<p>They were not married, because Lorraine was Mademoiselle de
+Nesville and Jack was Monsieur Marche. Cousins? Probably.
+Engaged? Probably. So Grahame smiled benignly and emptied another
+bottle of Moselle with a frank abandon that fascinated the old
+house-keeper.</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't mean to say that you are going to put me up for
+the night, too?" he asked Jack. "You place me under eternal
+obligation, and I accept with that understanding. If you run into
+my Hohenzollerns, they'll receive you as a brother."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think he will visit the Hohenzollern Regiment," observed
+Lorraine, demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;er&mdash;the fact is, I'm not doing much newspaper work now,"
+said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame was puzzled but bland.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us, Monsieur Grahame, of what you saw in the Spicheren,"
+said Lorraine. "Is it a very bad defeat? I am sure it cannot be.
+Of course, France will win, sooner or later; nobody doubts that."</p>
+
+<p>Before Grahame could manufacture a suitable reply&mdash;and his wit
+was as quick as his courtesy&mdash;a door opened and Madame de Morteyn
+entered, sad-eyed but smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Jack jumped up and asked leave to present Mr. Grahame, and the
+old lady received him very sweetly, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>insisting that he should
+make the Ch&acirc;teau his home as long as he stayed in the vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later she went away with Lorraine and her maid, and
+Jack and Archibald Grahame were left together to sip their
+Moselle and smoke some very excellent cigars that Jack found in
+the library.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Grahame," said Jack, diffidently, "if it would not be an
+impertinent question, who is going to run away in this campaign?"</p>
+
+<p>Grahame's face fell; his sombre glance swept the beautiful room
+and rested on a picture&mdash;the "Battle of Waterloo."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be worse than that," he said, abruptly. "May I take one
+of these cigars? Oh, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Jack's heart sank, but he smiled and passed a lighted cigar-lamp
+to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"My judgment has been otherwise," he said, "and what you say
+troubles me."</p>
+
+<p>"It troubles me, too," said Grahame, looking out of the dark
+window at the watery clouds, ragged, uncanny, whirling one by one
+like tattered witches across the disk of a misshapen moon.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence Jack relighted his half-burned cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is invasion?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;invasion."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! the very stones in the fields will rise up!"</p>
+
+<p>"If the people did so too it might be to better purpose,"
+observed Grahame, dryly. Then he emptied his glass, flicked the
+ashes from his cigar, and, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>sitting erect in his chair, said,
+"See here, Marche, you and I are accustomed to this sort of
+thing, we've seen campaigns and we have learned to judge
+dispassionately and, I think, fairly accurately; but, on my
+honour, I never before have seen the beginning of such a
+tempest&mdash;never! You say the very stones will rise up in the
+fields of France. You are right. For the fields will be ploughed
+with solid shot, and the shells will sow the earth with iron from
+the Rhine to the Loire. Good Lord, do these people know what is
+coming over the frontier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Prussians," said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Prussians and a few others&mdash;W&uuml;rtembergers, Saxons,
+Bavarians, men from Baden, from Hesse, from the Schwarzwald&mdash;from
+Hamburg to the Tyrol they are coming in three armies. I saw the
+Spicheren, I saw Wissembourg&mdash;I have seen and I know."</p>
+
+<p>Presently he opened a fresh bottle, and, with that whimsical
+smile and frank simplicity that won whom he chose to win, leaned
+towards Jack and began speaking as though the younger man were
+his peer in experience and age:</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you what I saw across the Rhine? I saw the machinery
+at work&mdash;the little wheels and cogs turning and grinding and
+setting in motion that stupendous machine that Gneisenau patented
+and Von Moltke improved&mdash;the great Mobilization Machine! How this
+machine does its work it is not easy to realize unless one has
+actually watched its operation. I saw it&mdash;and what I saw left me
+divided between admiration and&mdash;well, damn it all!&mdash;sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Marche, that there are three strata of fighting men in
+Germany&mdash;the regular army, the 'reserve,' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>and the Landwehr. It
+is a mistake into which many fall to believe that the reserve is
+the rear of the regular army. The war strength of a regiment is
+just double its peace strength, and the increment is the reserve.
+The blending of the two in time of war is complete; the medalled
+men of 1866 and of the Holstein campaign, called up from the
+reserve, are welded into the same ranks with the young soldiers
+who are serving their first period of three years. It is an utter
+mistake to think of the Prussian army or the Prussian reserves as
+a militia like yours or ours. The Prussian reserve man has three
+years active service with his colours to point back to. Have ours?
+The mobilization machine grinds its grinding in this wise. The whole
+country is divided into districts, in the central city of each of
+which are the headquarters of the army corps recruited from that
+district. Thence is sent forth the edict for mobilization to the
+towns, the villages, and the quiet country parishes. From the forge,
+from the harvest, from the store, from the school-room, blacksmiths,
+farmers, clerks, school-masters drop everything at an hour's notice.</p>
+
+<p>"The contingent of a village is sent to headquarters. On the
+route it meets other contingents until the rendezvous is reached.
+And then&mdash;the transformation! A yokel enters&mdash;a soldier leaves.
+The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown
+forward, his legs straightened, his chin 'well off the stock,'
+his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as
+whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are
+orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none
+are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, and the
+barrack <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>gates are never infested by those hordes of soldiers'
+women."</p>
+
+<p>He paused and puffed at his cigar thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"They are such soldiers as the world has not yet seen. Marching?
+I saw them striding steadily forward with the thermometer at
+eighty-five in the shade, with needle-gun, heavy knapsack, eighty
+rounds of ammunition, huge great-coat, camp-kettle, sword, spade,
+water-bottle, haversack, and lots of odds and ends dangling about
+them, with perhaps a loaf or two under one arm. Sunstroke? No.
+Why? Sobriety. No absinthe there, Mr. Marche."</p>
+
+<p>"We beat those men at Saarbr&uuml;ck," said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame laughed good-humouredly.</p>
+
+<p>"At Saarbr&uuml;ck, when war was declared, the total German garrison
+consisted of a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Uhlans.
+Frossard and his whole corps were looking across at Saarbr&uuml;ck
+over the ridges of the Spicheren, and nobody had the means of
+knowing what everybody knows now, the reason, so discreditable to
+French organization, which prevented him from blowing out of his
+path the few pickets and patrols, and invading the territory
+which had its frontier only nominally guarded. I was in Saarbr&uuml;ck
+at the time, and I had the pleasure of dodging shells there, too.
+Why, we were all asking each other if it were possible that the
+Frenchmen did not know the weakness of the land. Our Uhlans and
+infantry were manipulated dexterously to make a battalion look
+like a brigade; but we had an army corps in front of us. We held
+the place by sheer impudence."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," said Jack; "it makes me ill to think of it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It ought to make Frossard ill! Had a French army of invasion
+pushed on through Saint-Johann on the 2d of August and marched
+rapidly into the interior, the Germans could not possibly have
+concentrated their scattered regiments, and it is my firm
+conviction that Napoleon would have seen the Rhine without having
+had to fight a pitched battle. Well, Marche, I drink to neither
+one side nor the other, but&mdash;here's to the men with backbones.
+Prosit!"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed and clinked glasses. Grahame finished his bottle,
+rose, politely stifled a yawn, and looked humourously at Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two beds in my room; will you take one?" said the
+young fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, I will," said Grahame, "and as soon as you please, my
+dear fellow."</p>
+
+<p>So Jack led the way and ushered the other into a huge room with
+two beds, seemingly lost in distant diagonal corners. Grahame
+promptly kicked off his boots, and sat down on his bed.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw a funny thing in Saarbr&uuml;ck," he said. "It was right in the
+midst of a cannonade&mdash;the shells were smashing the chimneys on
+the Hotel Hagen and raising hell generally. And right in the
+midst of the whole blessed mess, cool as a cucumber, came
+sauntering a real live British swell with a coat adorned with
+field-glasses and girdle and a dozen pockets, an eye-glass, a dog
+that seemed dearer to him than life, and a drawl that had not
+been perceptibly quickened by the French cannon. He-aw-had been
+going eastward somewhere to-aw-Constantinople, or Saint-Petersburg,
+or-aw-somewhere, when he-aw-heard that it might be amusing at
+Saarbr&uuml;ck. A shell knocked a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>cart-load of tiles around his head,
+and he looked at it through his eye-glass. Marche, I never laughed
+so in my life. He's a good fellow, though&mdash;he's trotting about with
+the Hohenzollern Regiment now, and, really, I miss him. His name is
+Hesketh&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not Sir Thorald?" cried Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?&mdash;yes, that's the man. Know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little," said Jack, laughing, and went out, bidding Graham
+good-night, and promising to have him roused at dawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to turn in?" called Grahame, fearful of having
+inconvenienced Jack in his own quarters.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the young fellow. "I won't wake you&mdash;I'll be back in
+an hour." And he closed the door, and went down-stairs.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments he stood on the cool terrace, listening to the
+movement of the host below; and always the tramp of feet, the
+snort of horses, and the metallic jingle of passing cannon filled
+his ears.</p>
+
+<p>The big cuirassier sentinel had been joined by two more, all of
+the Hundred-Guards. Jack noticed their carbines, wondering a
+little to see cuirassiers so armed, and marvelling at the long,
+slender, lance-like bayonets that were attached to the muzzles.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he went into the house, and, entering the smoking-room,
+met his aunt coming out.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," she said, "I am a little nervous&mdash;the Emperor is still in
+the dining-room with a crowd of officers, and he has just sent an
+aide-de-camp to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville to summon the marquis. It
+will be most awkward; your uncle and he are not friendly, and the
+Marquis de Nesville hates the Emperor."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why did the Emperor send for him?" asked Jack, wondering.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;he wishes for a private interview with the
+marquis. He may refuse to come&mdash;he is a very strange man, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if he is, he may come; that would be stranger still," said
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle is not well, Jack," continued Madame de Morteyn; "he
+is quite upset by being obliged to entertain the Emperor. You
+know how all the Royalists feel. But, Jack, dear, if you could
+have seen your uncle it would have been a lesson in chivalry to
+you which any young man could ill afford to miss&mdash;he was so
+perfectly simple, so proudly courteous&mdash;ah, Jack, your uncle is
+one in a nation!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is&mdash;and so are you!" said Jack, kissing her faded cheek. "Are
+you going to retire now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; your uncle needs me. The lights are out everywhere.
+Lorraine, dear child, is asleep in the next room to mine. Is Mr.
+Grahame comfortable? I am glad. The Prince Imperial is sleeping
+too, poor child&mdash;sleeping like a worn-out baby."</p>
+
+<p>Jack conducted his aunt to her chamber, and bade her good-night.
+Then he went softly back through the darkened house, and across
+the hall to the dining-room. The door was open, letting out a
+flood of lamp-light, and the generals and staff-officers were
+taking leave of the Emperor and filing out one by one, Frossard
+leading, his head bent on his breast. Some went away to rooms
+assigned them, guided by a flunky, some passed across the terrace
+with swords trailing and spurs ringing, and disappeared in the
+darkness. They had not all left the Emperor, when, suddenly,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>Jack heard behind him the voice of the Marquis de Nesville,
+cold, sneering, ironical.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, seeing Jack standing by the door, "can you tell me
+where I may find the Emperor of the French? I am sent for."
+Turning on the aide-de-camp at his side: "This gentleman
+courteously notified me that the Emperor desired my presence. I
+am here, but I do not choose to go alone, and I shall demand,
+Monsieur Marche, that you accompany me and remain during the
+interview."</p>
+
+<p>The aide-de-camp looked at him darkly, but the marquis sneered in
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I want a witness," he said, insolently; "you can tell that to
+your Emperor."</p>
+
+<p>The aide-de-camp, helmet under his arm, from which streamed a
+horse-hair plume, entered the dining-room as the last officer
+left it.</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked uneasily at the marquis, and was about to speak when
+the aid returned and requested the marquis to enter.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Marche, remain here, I beg you," said the marquis,
+coolly; "I shall call you presently. It is a service I ask of
+you. Will you oblige me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened for a second.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon III. sat at the long table, his head drooping on his
+breast; he was picking absently at threads in the texture of the
+table-cloth. That was all Jack saw&mdash;a glimpse of a table covered
+with half-empty glasses and fruit, an old man picking at the
+cloth in the lamplight; then the door shut, and he was alone in
+the dark hall. Out on the terrace he heard the tramp of the
+cuirassier sentinels, and beyond that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>uproar of artillery,
+passing, always passing. He stared about in the darkness, he
+peered up the staircase into the gloom. A bat was flying
+somewhere near&mdash;he felt the wind from its mousy wings.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the door was flung open beside him, and the marquis
+called to him in a voice vibrating with passion. As he entered
+and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white
+with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of
+the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised
+his impassible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged the young
+man's respectful salutation.</p>
+
+<p>"You have asked me a question," said the marquis, harshly, "and I
+demanded to answer it in the presence of a witness. Is your
+majesty willing that this gentleman shall hear my reply?"</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor looked at him with half-closed, inscrutable eyes,
+then, turning his heavy face to Jack's, smiled wearily and
+inclined his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said the marquis, apparently labouring under tremendous
+excitement. "You ask me to give you, or sell you, or loan you my
+secret for military balloons. My answer is, 'No!'"</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor's face did not change as he said, "I ask it for your
+country, not for myself, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"And I will give it to my country, not to you!" said the marquis,
+violently.</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked at the Emperor. He noticed his unkempt hair brushed
+forward, his short thumbs pinching the table-cloth, his closed
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis de Nesville took a step towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Does your majesty remember the night that Morny lay dying in the
+shadows? And that horrible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>croak from the darkness when he
+raised himself on one elbow and gasped, 'Sire, prenez garde &agrave; la
+Prusse!' Then he died. That was all&mdash;a warning, a groan, the
+death-rattle in the shadows by the bed. Then he died."</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor never moved.</p>
+
+<p>"'Look out for Prussia!' That was Morny's last gasp. And now?
+Prussia is there, you are here! And you need aid, and you send
+for me, and I tell you that my secrets are for my country, not
+for you! No, not for you&mdash;you who said, 'It is easy to govern the
+French, they only need a war every four years!' Now&mdash;here is your
+war! Govern!"</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor's slow eyes rested a moment on the man before him.
+But the man, trembling, pallid with passion, clenched his hands
+and hurled an insult at the Emperor through his set teeth:
+"Napoleon the Little! Listen! When you have gone down in the
+crash of a rotten throne and a blood-bought palace, then, when
+the country has shaken this&mdash;this thing&mdash;from her bent back, then
+I will give to my country all I have! But never to you, to save
+your name and your race and your throne&mdash;never!"</p>
+
+<p>He fairly frothed at the lips as he spoke; his eyes blazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Your coup-d'&eacute;tat made me childless! I had a son, fairer than
+yours, who lies asleep in there&mdash;brave, gentle, loving&mdash;a son of
+mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him&mdash;shot him to
+death on the boulevards&mdash;him among the others&mdash;so that you could
+sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them&mdash;those piled corpses! I
+saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the
+heaped slain lying before Tortoni's, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>where the whole street was
+flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you
+ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honor&eacute;, and when you
+met the barricade you turned pale and rode back again! I saw you;
+I was sitting with my dead boy on my knees&mdash;I saw you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a furious cry the marquis tore a revolver from his pocket
+and sprang on the Emperor, and at the same instant Jack seized
+the crazy man by the shoulders and hurled him violently to the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>Stunned, limp as a rag, the marquis lay at the Emperor's feet,
+his clenched hands slowly relaxing.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor had not moved.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely knowing what he did, Jack stooped, drew the revolver
+from the extended fingers, and laid it on the table. Then, with a
+fearful glance at the Emperor, he dragged the marquis to the
+door, opened it with a shove of his foot, and half closed it
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The aide-de-camp stood there, staring at the prostrate man.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, help me with him to his carriage; he is ill," panted
+Jack&mdash;"lift him!"</p>
+
+<p>Together they carried him out to the terrace, and down the steps
+to a coup&eacute; that stood waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"The marquis is ill," said Jack again; "put him to bed at once.
+Drive fast."</p>
+
+<p>Before the sound of the wheels died away Jack hastened back to
+the dining-room. Through the half-opened door he peered,
+hesitated, turned away, and mounted the stairs slowly to his own
+chamber.</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room the lamp still burned dimly. Beside it sat the
+Emperor, head bent, picking absently at the table-cloth with
+short, shrunken thumbs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INVASION OF LORRAINE</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was not yet dawn. Jack, sleeping with his head on his elbow,
+shivered in his sleep, gasped, woke, and sat up in bed. There was
+a quiet footfall by his bed, the scrape of a spur, then silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that you, Mr. Grahame?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I didn't mean to wake you. I'm off. I was going to leave a
+letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you dressed? What time is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Four o'clock&mdash;twenty minutes after. It's a shame to rouse you,
+my dear fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right," said Jack. "Will you strike a
+light&mdash;there are candles on my dresser. Ah, that's better."</p>
+
+<p>He sat blinking at Grahame, who, booted and spurred and buttoned
+to the chin, looked at him quizzically.</p>
+
+<p>"You were not going off without your coffee, were you?" asked
+Jack. "Nonsense!&mdash;wait." He pulled a bell-rope dangling over his
+head. "Now that means coffee and hot rolls in twenty minutes."</p>
+
+<p>When Jack had bathed and shaved, operations he executed with
+great rapidity, the coffee was brought, and he and Grahame fell
+to by candle-light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were afoot?" said Jack, glancing at the older
+man's spurs.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to hunt up a horse; I'm tired of this eternal
+tramping," replied Grahame. "Hello, is this package for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there's a cold chicken and some things, and a flask to keep
+you until you find your Hohenzollern Regiment again."</p>
+
+<p>Grahame rose and held out his hand. "Good-by. You've been very
+kind, Marche. Will you say, for me, all that should be said to
+Madame de Morteyn? Good-by once more, my dear fellow. Don't
+forget me&mdash;I shall never forget you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," said Jack; "you are going off without a safe-conduct."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't need it; there's not a French soldier in Morteyn."</p>
+
+<p>"Gone?" stammered Jack&mdash;"the Emperor, General Frossard, the
+army&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Every mother's son of them, and I must hurry&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Their hands met again in a cordial grasp, then Grahame slipped
+noiselessly into the hallway, and Jack turned to finish dressing
+by the light of his clustered candles.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood before the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with
+studs and buttons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the
+night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impassive
+Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned,
+white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling
+from the glittering revolver.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine's father! And he had laid hands on him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>and had flung
+him senseless at the feet of the Man of December! He could
+scarcely button his collar, his fingers trembled so. Perhaps he
+had killed the Marquis de Nesville. Sick at heart, he finished
+dressing, buttoned his coat, flung a cap on his head, and stole
+out into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>On the terrace below he saw a groom carrying a lantern, and he
+went out hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Saddle Faust at once," he said. "Have the troops all gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"All, monsieur; the last of the cavalry passed three hours ago;
+the Emperor drove away half an hour later with Lulu&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"The prince&mdash;pardon, monsieur&mdash;they call him Lulu in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry," said Jack; "I want that horse at once."</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later he was galloping furiously down the forest road
+towards the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville. The darkness was impenetrable,
+so he let the horse find his own path, and gave himself up to a
+profound dejection that at times amounted to blind fear. Before
+his eyes he saw the pallid face of the Marquis de Nesville, he
+saw the man stretched on the floor, horribly still; that was the
+worst, the stillness of the body.</p>
+
+<p>The sky was gray through the trees when he turned into the park
+and skirted the wall to the wicket. The wicket was locked. He
+rang repeatedly, he shook the grille and pounded on the iron
+escutcheon with the butt of his riding-crop; and at length a
+yawning servant appeared from the gate-lodge and sleepily dragged
+open the wicket.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The marquis was ill, have you heard anything?" asked Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"The marquis is there on the porch," said the servant, with a
+gesture towards the house.</p>
+
+<p>Jack's heart leaped up. "Thank God!" he muttered, and dismounted,
+throwing his bridle to the porter, who now appeared in the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>He could see the marquis walking to and fro, hands clasped behind
+his strong, athletic back; his head was turned in Jack's
+direction. "The marquis is crazy," thought Jack, hesitating. He
+was convinced now that long brooding over ancient wrongs had
+unsettled the man's mind. There had always been something in his
+dazzling blue eyes that troubled Jack, and now he knew it was the
+pale light of suppressed frenzy. Still, he would have to face him
+sooner or later, and he did not recoil now that the hour and the
+place and the man had come.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll settle it once for all," he thought, and walked straight up
+the path to the house. The marquis came down the steps to meet
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I expected you," he said, without a trace of anger. "I have much
+to say to you. Will you come in or shall we sit in the arbour
+there? You will enter? Then come to the turret, Monsieur Marche."</p>
+
+<p>Jack would have refused, but he had not the courage. He was not
+at all pleased at the idea of mounting to a turret with a man
+whom he had laid violent hands on the night before, a man whom he
+had seen succumb to an access of insane fury in the presence of
+the Emperor of France. But he went, cursing the cowardice that
+prevented him from being cautious; and in a few moments he entered
+the chamber where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>retorts and bottles and steel machinery littered
+every corner, and the pale dawn broke through the window in ghastly
+streams of light, changing the candle-flames to sickly greenish
+blotches.</p>
+
+<p>They sat opposite each other, neither speaking. Jack glanced at a
+heavy steel rod on the floor beside him. It was just as well to
+know it was there, in case of need.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said the marquis, abruptly, "I owe you a great deal
+more than my life, which is nothing; I owe you my family honour."</p>
+
+<p>This was a new way of looking at the situation; Jack fidgeted in
+his chair and eyed the marquis.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to you," he continued, quietly, "I am not an assassin, I
+am not a butcher of dogs. The De Nesvilles were never public
+executioners&mdash;they left that to the Bonapartes and Monsieur de
+Paris."</p>
+
+<p>He rose hastily from his chair and held out a hand. Jack took it
+warily and returned the nervous pressure. Then they both resumed
+their seats.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us clear matters up," said the marquis in a wonderfully
+gentle voice, that would have been fascinating to more phlegmatic
+men than Jack&mdash;"let us clear up everything and understand each
+other. You, monsieur, dislike me; pardon&mdash;you dislike me for
+reasons of your own. I, on the contrary, like you; I like you
+better this moment than I ever did. Had you not come as I
+expected, had you not entered, had you refused to mount to the
+turret, I still should have liked you. Now I also respect you."</p>
+
+<p>Jack twisted and turned in his chair, not knowing what to think
+or say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>"Why do you dislike me?" asked the marquis, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are not kind to your daughter," said Jack, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>To his horror the man's eyes filled with tears, big, glittering
+tears that rolled down his immovable face. Then a flush stained
+his forehead; the fever in his cheeks dried the tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," he said, calling the young fellow by his name with a
+peculiarly tender gesture, "I loved my son. My soul died within
+me when Ren&eacute; died, there on the muddy pavement of the Paris
+boulevards. I sometimes think I am perhaps a little out of my
+mind; I brood on it too much. That is why I flung myself into
+this"&mdash;with a sweep of his arm towards the flasks and machinery
+piled around. "Lorraine is a girl, sweet, lovable, loyal. But she
+is not my daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine!" stammered Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow sat up in his chair and studied the face of the
+pale man before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not&mdash;your child?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence the marquis stood up, and walked to the window.
+His face was haggard, his hair dishevelled.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "Lorraine is not my daughter. She is not even my
+heiress. She was&mdash;she was&mdash;found, eighteen years ago."</p>
+
+<p>The room was becoming lighter; the sky grew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>faintly luminous and
+the mist from the stagnant fen curled up along the turret like
+smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Jack picked up his cap and riding-crop and rose; the marquis
+turned from the window to confront him. His face was no longer
+furrowed with pain, the cold light had crept back into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said Jack, "I ask your permission to address
+Lorraine. I love her."</p>
+
+<p>The marquis stood silent, scarcely breathing.</p>
+
+<p>"You know who and what I am; you probably know what I have. It is
+enough for me; it will be enough for us both. I shall work to
+make it enough. I do not expect or wish for anything from you for
+Lorraine; I do not give it a thought. Lorraine does not love me,
+but," and here he spoke with humility, "I believe that she might.
+If I win her, will you give her to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Win her?" repeated the marquis, with an ugly look. The man's
+face was changing now, darkening in the morning light.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," he said, violently, "you may say to her what you
+please!" and he opened the door and showed Jack the way out.</p>
+
+<p>Dazed, completely mystified, Jack hurried away to find his horse
+at the gate where he had left him. The marquis was crazy, that
+was certain. These unaccountable moods and passions, following
+each other so abruptly, were nothing else but reactions from a
+life of silent suffering. All the way back to Morteyn he pondered
+on the strange scene in the turret, the repudiation of Lorraine,
+the sudden tenderness for himself, and then the apathy, the
+suppressed anger, the indifference coupled with unexplainable
+emotion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No sane man could act like that," he murmured, as he rode into
+the Morteyn gate, and, with a smart slap of his hand on Faust's
+withers, he sent that intelligent animal at a trot towards the
+stables, where a groom awaited him with sponge and bucket.</p>
+
+<p>The gardeners were cleaning up the litter in the roads and paths
+left by the retreating army. The road by the gate was marked with
+hoof and wheel, but the macadam had not suffered very much, and
+already a roller was at work removing furrow and hoof-print.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the dining-room. It was empty. So also was the
+breakfast-room, for breakfast had been served an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>He sent for coffee and muffins and made a hasty breakfast,
+looking out of the window at times for signs of his aunt and
+Lorraine. The maid said that Madame de Morteyn had driven to
+Saint-Lys with the marquis, and that Mademoiselle de Nesville had
+gone to her room. So he finished his coffee, went to his room,
+changed his clothes, and sent a maid to inquire whether Lorraine
+would receive him in the small library at the head of the stairs.
+The maid returned presently, saying that Mademoiselle de Nesville
+would be down in a moment or two, so Jack strolled into the
+library and leaned out of the window to smoke.</p>
+
+<p>When she came in he did not hear her until she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't throw your cigarette away, monsieur; I permit you to
+smoke&mdash;indeed, I command it. How do you do?" This in very timid
+English. "I mean&mdash;good-morning&mdash;oh, dear, this terrible English
+language! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>Now you may sit there, in that large leather arm-chair,
+and you may tell me why you did not appear at breakfast. Is
+Monsieur Grahame still sleeping? Gone? Oh, dear! And you have
+been to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville? Is my father well? And contented?
+There, I knew he would miss me. Did you give him my dearest love?
+Thank you for remembering. Now tell me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" laughed Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, but did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>Then he deliberately sat down and made love to her, not actual,
+open, unblushing love&mdash;but he started in to win her, and what his
+tongue refused to tell, his eyes told until trepidation seized
+her, and she sat back speechless, watching him with shy blue eyes
+that always turned when they met his, but always returned when
+his were lowered.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pretty game, this first preliminary of love&mdash;like the
+graceful sword-play and salute of two swordsmen before a duel.
+There was no one to cry "Garde &agrave; vous!" no one to strike up the
+weapons that were thrust at two unarmoured hearts, for the
+weapons were words and glances, and Love, the umpire, alas! was
+not impartial.</p>
+
+<p>So the timid heart of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she
+knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with
+desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that,
+if not utter treachery, was giving aid and encouragement to the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Besieged, threatened, she sat there in the arm-chair, half
+frightened, half smiling, fearful yet contented, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>alarmed yet
+secure, now resisting, now letting herself drift on, until the
+result of the combination made Jack's head spin; and he felt
+resentful in his heart, and he said to himself what all men under
+such circumstances say to themselves&mdash;"Coquetry!"</p>
+
+<p>One moment he was sure she loved him, the next he was certain she
+did not. This oscillation between heaven and hell made him
+unhappy, and, manlike, he thought the fault was hers. This is the
+foundation for man's belief in the coquetry of women.</p>
+
+<p>As for Lorraine, she thrilled with a gentle fear that was the
+most delightful sensation she had ever known. She looked shyly at
+the strong-limbed, sunburned young fellow opposite, and she began
+to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head,
+every gesture, every change in his face she knew now&mdash;knew so
+well that she blushed at her own knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not,
+although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she
+refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then
+she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then
+she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then&mdash;But it is
+always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of
+fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love.
+So the morning wore away.</p>
+
+<p>The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library
+with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after
+that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that
+Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the
+vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying on
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>the lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy
+to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and
+wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation
+to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two
+letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his
+sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Jack</span>,&mdash;I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off
+to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at
+Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to
+come back. You're the only person on earth I can write
+this to.</p>
+
+<p>"Faithfully yours, <span class="smcap">Molly Hesketh.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<p>Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit
+of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could
+read between the lines&mdash;a man in love is less dense than when in
+his normal state&mdash;and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought
+of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing
+amid a shower of bricks and bursting shells, staring at war
+through a monocle.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to
+Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came
+before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's
+drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment,
+that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led
+him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to
+the 11th Uhlans.</p>
+
+<p>"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half
+aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this
+war lasts."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's
+lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's
+troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered
+whether any other troops were between him and Saarbr&uuml;ck. The
+truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But
+how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And
+there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the
+Germans should pass that way; not at all likely&mdash;but suppose they
+should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No,
+he could never go away and leave Lorraine&mdash;that was out of the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>He lighted a match and moodily burned Molly's letter to ashes in
+the fireplace. He also stirred the ashes up, for he was
+honourable in little things&mdash;like Ricky&mdash;and also, alas!
+apparently no novice.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy's letter lay on the table&mdash;her third since she had left
+for Paris. He opened his knife and split the envelope carefully,
+still thinking of Lorraine.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My Own Dear Jack</span>,&mdash;There is something I have been
+trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I
+have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall
+tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so
+if you do not read carefully between every line, you may
+not find it, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and
+ill&mdash;the excitement in the city and that horrid National
+Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald
+is away on business, she says&mdash;where, I forgot to ask
+her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday.
+Some ragamuffins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her.
+Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think
+I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very
+cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to
+Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+papers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me
+sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear.</p>
+
+<p>"The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every
+day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no
+men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d
+of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you
+know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there?
+Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak
+of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren.
+Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and
+write me <i>at once</i>. Don't forget&mdash;the <i>11th Uhlans</i>. Oh,
+Jack, darling! can't you understand?</p>
+
+<p>Your loving sister, <span class="smcap">Dorothy</span>."</p></div>
+
+<p>"Understand? What?" repeated Jack. He read the letter again
+carefully.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see what the mischief is extraordinary in that," he
+mused, "unless she's giving me a tip about Sir Thorald; but
+no&mdash;she can't know anything in that direction. Now what is it
+that she has hidden away? Oh, here's a postscript."</p>
+
+<p>He turned the sheet and read:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My love to aunt and uncle, Jack&mdash;don't forget. I am
+writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in
+Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out.
+There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about
+the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one
+expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to the
+<i>Berlin Post</i> and the <i>Hamburger Nachrichten</i> and the
+<i>Munich Neueste Nachrichten</i>, but the horrid creature at
+the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her
+place. I hope the <i>Herald</i> will give particulars of
+losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on
+earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dorrie</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"P. P. S.&mdash;Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I
+ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to
+find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p><p>"Now, what on earth interests Dorrie in all these battle
+statistics?" he wondered; "and what in the name of common-sense
+can she find to interest her in the 11th Uhlans? Ricky? Absurd!"</p>
+
+<p>He repeated "absurd" two or three times, but he became more
+thoughtful a moment later, and sat smoking and pondering. That
+would be a nice muddle if she, the niece of a Frenchman&mdash;an
+American, too&mdash;should fix her affections on a captain of Uhlans
+whose regiment he, Jack Marche, would avoid as he would hope to
+avoid the black small-pox.</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd," he repeated for the fourth time, and tossed his
+cigarette into the open fireplace. And as he rose to go up-stairs
+something out on the road by the gate attracted his attention,
+and he went to the window.</p>
+
+<p>Three horsemen sat in their saddles on the lawn, lance on thigh,
+eyes fixed on him.</p>
+
+<p>They were Uhlans!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>"IN THE HOLLOW OF THY HAND"</h3>
+
+
+<p>For a moment he recoiled as though he had received a blow between
+the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over
+one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points,
+schabraques edged with yellow&mdash;aye, and tunics also, yellow and
+blue&mdash;those were the colours&mdash;the colours of the 11th Uhlans.</p>
+
+<p>Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what
+it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done&mdash;death
+even though the man he had shot were not dead&mdash;death though he
+had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its
+most awful form&mdash;hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian,
+foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing
+upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the
+sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling,
+informing, or otherwise, was hung&mdash;sometimes with a drum-head
+court-martial, sometimes without.</p>
+
+<p>Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he
+leaned back against the table, cold with fear.</p>
+
+<p>This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the
+needle-guns sent a shower of lead <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>over his rocky observatory;
+the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when
+he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in
+the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did
+not understand ropes.</p>
+
+<p>He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there
+were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back
+from the open window. Had they seen him?</p>
+
+<p>All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled
+like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans,
+plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a
+fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>Utterly unnerved, Jack sank into the arm-chair. What should he
+do? If he stayed at Morteyn he stood a good chance of hanging. He
+could not leave his aunt and uncle, nor could he tell them, for
+the two old people would fall sick with the anxiety. And yet, if
+he stayed at Morteyn, and the Germans came, it might compromise
+the whole household and bring destruction to Ch&acirc;teau and park. He
+had not thought of that before, but now he remembered also
+another German rule, inflexible, unvarying. It was this, that in
+a town or village where the inhabitants resisted by force or
+injured any German soldier, the village should be burned and the
+provisions and stock confiscated for the use of King Wilhelm's
+army.</p>
+
+<p>Shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he sprang to his feet and
+walked hastily to the terrace. Nothing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>was to be seen on the
+road, nor yet in the meadows beyond. Up-stairs he heard
+Lorraine's voice, and his aunt's voice, too. Sometimes they
+laughed a little in low tones, and he even caught the rustle of
+stiff silken embroidery against the window-sill.</p>
+
+<p>His mind was made up in an instant; his coolness returned as the
+colour returns to a pale cheek. The Uhlans had probably not seen
+him; if they had, it made little difference, for even the picquet
+that had chased him could not have recognized him at that
+distance. Then, again, in a whole regiment it was not likely that
+the three horsemen who had peeped at Morteyn through the
+road-gate could have been part of that same cursed picquet. No,
+the thing to avoid was personal contact with any of the 11th
+Uhlans. This would be a matter of simple prudence; outside of
+that he had nothing to fear from the Prussian army. Whenever he
+saw the schapskas and lances he would be cautious; when these
+lances were pennoned with black and white, and when the schapskas
+and schabraques were edged with yellow, he would keep out of the
+way altogether. It shamed him terribly to think of his momentary
+panic; he cursed himself for a coward, and dug his clenched fists
+into both pockets. But even as he stood there, withering himself
+with self-scorn, he could not help hoping that his aunt and uncle
+would find it convenient to go to Paris soon. That would leave
+him free to take his own chances by remaining, to be near
+Lorraine. For it did not occur to him that he might leave Morteyn
+as long as Lorraine stayed.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in the afternoon when he lighted a pipe and walked
+out to the road, where the smooth macadam <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>no longer bore the
+slightest trace of wheel or hoof, and nobody could have imagined
+that part of an army corps had passed there the night before.</p>
+
+<p>He felt lonely and a little despondent, and he walked along the
+road to the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn and sat down at her
+naked stone feet. And as he sat there smoking, twirling his
+shooting-cap in his hands, without the least warning a horseman,
+advancing noiselessly across the turf, passed him, carbine on
+thigh, busby glittering with the silver skull and crossbones.
+Before he could straighten up another horseman passed, then
+another, then three, then six, then a dozen, all sitting with
+poised carbines, scarcely noticing him at all, the low, blazing
+sun glittering on the silver skulls and crossed thigh-bones, deep
+set in their sombre head-gear.</p>
+
+<p>They were Black Hussars.</p>
+
+<p>A distant movement came to his ear at the same time, the soft
+shock of thousands of footfalls on the highway. He sprang up and
+started forward, but a trooper warned him back with a stern
+gesture, and he stood at the foot of the shrine, excited but
+outwardly cool, listening to the approaching trample.</p>
+
+<p>He knew what it meant now; these passing videttes were the dust
+before the tempest, the prophecy of the deluge. For the sound on
+the distant highway was the sound of infantry, and a host was on
+the march, a host helmeted with steel and shod with steel, a vast
+live bulk, gigantic, scaled in mail, whose limbs were human,
+whose claws were lances and bayonets, whose red tongues were
+flame-jets from a thousand cannon.</p>
+
+<p>The German army had entered France and the province of Lorraine
+was a name.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Like a hydra of three hideous heads the German army had pushed
+its course over the Saar, over the Rhine, over the Lauter; it
+sniffed at the frontier line; licked Wissembourg and the
+Spicheren with flaming tongues, shuddered, coiled, and glided
+over the boundary into the fair land of Lorraine. Then, like some
+dreadful ringed monster, it cast off two segments, north, south,
+and moved forward on its belly, while the two new segments,
+already turned to living bodies, with heads and eyes and
+contracted scales, struggled on alone, diverging to the north and
+south, creeping, squirming, undulating, penetrating villages and
+cities, stretching across hills and rivers, until all the land
+was shining with shed scales and the sky reeked with the smoke of
+flaming tongues. This was the invasion of France. Before it
+Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before
+it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte
+had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour
+lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet
+of the Garde Imp&eacute;riale.</p>
+
+<p>On the hill-sides of Lorraine were letters of fire, writing for
+all France to read, and every separate letter was a flaming
+village. The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards
+Ch&acirc;lons; Bazaine read it and said, "There is time;" MacMahon,
+Canrobert, Leb&oelig;uf, Ladmirault read it and wondered idly what it
+meant, till Vinoy turned a retreat into a triumph, and Gambetta,
+flabby, pompous, unbalanced, bawled platitudes from the Palais
+Bourbon.</p>
+
+<p>In three splendid armies the tide of invasion set in; the Red
+Prince tearing a bloody path to Metz, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>the Crown Prince riding
+west by south, resting in Nancy, snubbing Toul, spreading out
+into the valley of the Marne to build three monuments of bloody
+bones&mdash;Saint-Marie, Amanvilliers, Saint-Privat.</p>
+
+<p>Metz, crouching behind Saint-Quentin and Les Bottes, turned her
+anxious eyes from Thionville to Saint-Julien and back to where
+MacMahon's three rockets should have starred the sky; and what
+she saw was the Red Prince riding like a fiery spectre from east
+to west; what she saw was the spiked helmets of the Feldwache and
+the sodded parapets of Longeau. Chained and naked, the beautiful
+city crouched in the tempest that was to free her forever and
+give her the life she scorned, the life more bitter than death.</p>
+
+<p>Something of this ominous prophecy came to Jack, standing below
+the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn, listening to the on-coming
+shock of German feet, as he watched the cavalry riding past in
+the glow of the setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>And now the infantry burst into view, a gloomy, solid column tramp,
+tramp along the road&mdash;j&auml;gers, with their stiff fore-and-aft shakos,
+dull-green tunics, and snuffy, red-striped trousers tucked into
+dusty half-boots. On they came, on, on&mdash;would they never pass? At
+last they were gone, somewhere into the flaming west, and now the
+red sunbeams slanted on eagle crests and tipped the sea of polished
+spiked helmets with fire, for a line regiment was coming, shaking
+the earth with its rhythmical tramp&mdash;thud! thud! thud!</p>
+
+<p>He looked across the fields to the hills beyond; more regiments,
+dark masses moving against the sky, covered the landscape far as
+the eye could reach; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>cavalry, too, were riding on the Saint-Avold
+road through the woods; and beyond that, vague silhouettes of
+moving wagons and horsemen, crawling out into the world of valleys
+that stretched to Bar-le-Duc and Avricourt.</p>
+
+<p>Oppressed, almost choked, as though a rising tide had washed
+against his breast, ever mounting, seething, creeping, climbing,
+he moved forward, waiting for a chance to cross the road and gain
+the Ch&acirc;teau, where he could see the servants huddling over the
+lawn, and the old vicomte, erect, motionless, on the terrace
+beside his wife and Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>Already in the meadow behind him the first bivouac was pitched;
+on the left stood a park of field artillery, ammunition-wagons in
+the rear, and in front the long lines of picket-ropes to which
+the horses were fastened, their harness piled on the grass behind
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The forge was alight, the farriers busy shoeing horses; the
+armourer also bent beside his blazing forge, and the tinkling of
+his hammer on small-arms rose musically above the dull shuffle of
+leather-shod feet on the road.</p>
+
+<p>To the right of the artillery, bisected as is the German fashion,
+lay two halves of a battalion of infantry. In the foreground the
+officers sat on their camp-chairs, smoking long fa&iuml;ence pipes; in
+the rear, driven deep into the turf, the battalion flag stood
+furled in its water-proof case, with the drum-major's halberd
+beside it, and drums and band instruments around it on the grass.
+Behind this lay a straight row of knapsacks, surrounded by the
+rolled great-coats; ten paces to the rear another similar row;
+between these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>two rows stood stacks of needle-guns, then another
+row of knapsacks, another stack of needle-guns, stretching with
+mathematical exactness to the grove of poplars by the river. A
+cordon of sentinels surrounded the bivouac; there was a group of
+soldiers around a beer-cart, another throng near the wine-cart.
+All was quiet, orderly, and terribly sombre.</p>
+
+<p>Near the poplar-trees the pioneers had dug their trenches and
+lighted fires. Across the trenches, on poles of green wood, were
+slung simmering camp-kettles.</p>
+
+<p>He turned again towards the Ch&acirc;teau; a regiment of Saxon riders
+was passing&mdash;had just passed&mdash;and he could get across now, for
+the long line had ended and the last Prussian cuirassiers were
+vanishing over the hill, straight into the blaze of the setting
+sun.</p>
+
+<p>As he entered the gate, behind him, from the meadow, an infantry
+band crashed out into a splendid hymn&mdash;a hymn in praise of the
+Most High God, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.</p>
+
+<p>And the soldiers' hoarse voices chimed in&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Thou, who in the hollow of Thy Hand&mdash;"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And the deep drums boomed His praise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The candles were lighted again in the ballroom, and again the
+delicate, gilded canap&eacute;s were covered with officers, great
+stalwart fellows with blond hair and blue eyes, cuirassiers in
+white tunics faced with red, cuirassiers in green and white,
+black, yellow, and white, orange and white; dragoons in blue and
+salmon colour, bearing the number "7" on their shoulder-straps,
+dragoons of the Guard in blue and white, dragoons of the 2d
+Regiment in black and blue. There were hussars too, dandies of
+the 19th in their tasselled boots and crimson busby-crowns; Black
+Hussars, bearing, even on their soft fatigue-caps, the emblems of
+death, the skull and crossed thigh-bones. An Uhlan or two of the
+2d Guard Regiment, trimmed with white and piped with scarlet,
+dawdled around the salon, staring at gilded clock and candelabra,
+or touching the grand-piano with hesitating but itching fingers.
+Here and there officers of the general staff stood in consultation,
+great, stiff, strapping men, faultlessly clothed in scarlet and
+black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms.
+The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals,
+some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little
+even when questioned. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>huge Saxon officers, beaming with
+good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men
+and the stiff-necked Prussians.</p>
+
+<p>In the long dining-room dinner was nearly ended. Facing each
+other sat the old Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, he pale,
+dignified, exquisitely courteous, she equally pale but more
+gentle in her sweet dignity. On the right sat the Red Prince,
+stiff as steel, jerky in every movement, stern, forbidding,
+unbending as much as his black Prussian blood would let him; on
+the left sat a thin old man, bald as an ivory ball, pallid,
+hairless of face, a frame of iron in a sombre, wrinkled tunic,
+without a single decoration. His short hawk's nose, keen and fine
+as a falcon's beak, quivered with every breath; his thin lips
+rested one upon the other in stern, delicate curves. It was
+Moltke, the master expert, come from Berlin to watch the wheels
+turning in that vast complicated network of machinery which he
+controlled with one fragile finger pressing the button.</p>
+
+<p>There, too, was Von Zastrow, destined to make his error at
+Gravelotte, there was Steinmetz, and the handsome Saxon prince,
+and great, flabby August of W&uuml;rtemberg, talking with Alvensleben,
+dainty, pious, aristocratic. Behind, in the shadow, stood
+Manstein and Goben, a grim, gray pair, with menacing eyes.
+Perhaps they were thinking of the Red Prince's parting words at
+the Spicheren: "Your duty is to march forward, always forward,
+find the enemy, prevent his escape, and fight him wherever you
+find him." To which the fastidious and devout Alvensleben
+muttered, "In the name of God," and poor, brave Kamecke,
+shuddering as he thought of his Westphalians <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>and the cul-de-sac
+where he had sent them on the 6th day of August, sighed and
+looked out into deepening twilight.</p>
+
+<p>Outside a Saxon infantry band began to play a masterpiece of
+Beethoven. It seemed to be the signal for breaking up, and the
+Red Prince, with abrupt deference, turned to Madame de Morteyn,
+who gave the signal and rose. The Red Prince stepped back as the
+old vicomte gave his wife a trembling arm. Then he bowed where he
+stood, clothed in his tight, blood-red tunic, tall, powerful,
+square-jawed, cruel-mouthed, and eyed like a wolf. But his
+forehead was fine, broad, and benevolent, and his beard softened
+the wicked curve of his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Jack and Lorraine had again dined together in the little gilded
+salon above, served by Lorraine's maid and wept over by the old
+house-keeper.</p>
+
+<p>The terrified servants scarcely dared to breathe as they crept
+through the halls where, "like a flight of devils from hell" the
+"Prussian ogres" had settled in the house. They came whimpering
+to their mistress, but took courage at the calm, dignified
+attitude of the old vicomte, and began to think that these
+"children-eating Prussians" might perhaps forego their craving
+for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a
+group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to
+their own plumpness and possible desirability for rago&ucirc;ts.</p>
+
+<p>The old marquis himself received his unwelcome guests as though
+he were receiving travelling strangers, to whom, now that they
+were under his roof, faultless hospitality was due, nothing more,
+merely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>the courtesy of a French nobleman to an uninvited guest.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, but the steel was in his heart to the hilt. He, an old
+soldier of the Malakoff, of Algeria, the brother in arms of
+Changarnier, of Chanzy, he obliged to receive invaders&mdash;invaders
+belonging to the same nation which had lined the streets of
+Berlin so long ago, cringing, whining "Vive l'Empereur!" at the
+crack of the thongs of Murat's horsemen!</p>
+
+<p>Yet now it was that he showed himself the chivalrous soldier, the
+old colonel of the old r&eacute;gime, the true beau-sabreur of an epoch
+dead. And the Red Prince Frederick Charles knew it, and bowed low
+as the vicomte left the dining-hall with his gentle, pale-faced
+wife on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>Jack, sitting after dinner with Lorraine in the bay-window above,
+looked down upon the vast camp that covered the whole land, from
+the hills to the Lisse, from the forest to the pastures above
+Saint-Lys. There were no tents&mdash;the German army carried none.
+Here and there a canvas-covered wagon glistened white in the
+moonlight; the pale radiance fell on acres of stacked rifles, on
+the brass rims of drums, and the spikes of the sentries' helmets.
+Videttes, vaguely silhouetted on distant knolls, stood almost
+motionless, save for the tossing of their horses' heads. Along
+the river Lisse the infantry pickets lay, the sentinels,
+patrolling their beats with brisk, firm steps, only pausing to
+bring their heavy heels together, wheel squarely, and retrace
+their steps, always alert and sturdy. The wind shifted to the
+west and the faint chimes of Saint-Lys came quavering on the
+breeze.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The bells!" said Jack; "can you hear them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lorraine, listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>She had been very silent during their dinner. He wondered that
+she had not shown any emotion at the sight of the invading
+soldiers. She had not&mdash;she had scarcely even shown curiosity. He
+thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this
+swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and
+the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated,
+at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen,
+trampling the meadows of the province that he loved&mdash;the province
+of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know
+two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the
+new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of
+those whom she has sheltered.</p>
+
+<p>So Jack felt the shame and humiliation as though a blow had been
+struck at his own home and kin, and he suffered the more thinking
+what his uncle must suffer. And Lorraine! His heart had bled for
+her when the harsh treble of the little, flat Prussian drums
+first broke out among the hills. He looked for the deep sorrow,
+the patience, the proud endurance, the prouder faith that he
+expected in her; he met with silence, even a distrait indifference.</p>
+
+<p>Surely she could comprehend what this crushing disaster
+prophesied for France? Surely she of all women, sensitive,
+tender, and loyal, must know what love of kin and country meant?</p>
+
+<p>Far away in the southwest the great heart of Paris throbbed in
+silence, for the beautiful, sinful city, confused by the din of
+the riffraff within her walls, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>blinded by lies and selfish
+counsels, crouched in mute agony, listening for the first ominous
+rumbling of a rotten, tottering Empire.</p>
+
+<p>God alone knows why he gave to France, in the supreme moment of
+her need, the beings who filled heaven with the wind of their
+lungs and brought her to her knees in shame&mdash;not for brave men
+dead in vain, not for a wasted land, scourged and flame-shrunken
+from the Rhine to the Loire, not for provinces lost nor cities
+gone forever&mdash;but for the strange creatures that her agony
+brought forth, shapes simian and weird, all mouth and convulsive
+movement, little pigmy abortions mouthing and playing antics
+before high Heaven while the land ran blood in every furrow and
+the world was a hell of flame.</p>
+
+<p>Gambetta, that incubus of bombastic flabbiness, roaring prophecy
+and platitude through the dismayed city, kept his eye on the
+balcony of the particular edifice where, later, he should pose as
+an animated Jericho trumpet. So, biding his time, he bellowed,
+but it was the Com&eacute;die Fran&ccedil;aise that was the loser, not the
+people, when he sailed away in his balloon, posed, squatting
+majestically as the god of war above the clouds of battle. And
+little Thiers, furtive, timid, delighting in senile efforts to
+stir the ferment of chaos till it boiled, he, too, was there,
+owl-like, squeaky-voiced, a true "Bombyx &agrave; Lunettes." There, too,
+was Hugo&mdash;often ridiculous in his terrible moods, egotistical,
+sloppy, roaring. The Empire pinched Hugo, and he roared; and let
+the rest of the world judge whether, under such circumstances,
+there was majesty in the roar. The spectacle of Hugo, prancing on
+the ramparts and hurling bad names at the German <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>armies, recalls
+the persistent but painful man&oelig;uvres of a lion with a flea. Both
+are terribly in earnest&mdash;neither is sublime.</p>
+
+<p>Jack sat leaning on the window-ledge, his chin on both hands,
+watching the moonlight rippling across the sea of steel below.
+Lorraine, also silent, buried in an arm-chair, lay huddled
+somewhere in the shadows, looking up at the stars, scarcely
+visible in the radiance of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>After a while she spoke in a low voice: "Do you remember in
+chapel a week ago&mdash;what&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know what you mean. Can you say it&mdash;any of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all."</p>
+
+<p>Presently he heard her voice in the darkness repeating the
+splendid lines:</p>
+
+<p>"'In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and
+the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease
+because they are few, and they that look out of the windows be
+darkened.</p>
+
+<p>"'And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of
+the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a
+bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.</p>
+
+<p>"'Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall
+be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the
+grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.</p>
+
+<p>"'Because man goeth to his long home&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice broke a little.</p>
+
+<p>"'And the mourners go about the streets&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a
+moment her fingers touched his, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>moved a little, and were clasped
+close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too
+deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression&mdash;a despair
+scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by
+realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first
+outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched
+hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved.
+Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and
+interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body.
+Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but
+not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as
+yet by the keen shaft of grief.</p>
+
+<p>He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to
+understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him,
+perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised
+everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped
+her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!"&mdash;so
+he waited, there alone in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>The bells of Saint-Lys sounded again, scarcely vibrating in the
+still air; a bank of sombre cloud buried the moon, and put out
+the little stars one by one until the blackness of the night
+crept in, blotting out river and tree and hill, hiding the silent
+camp in fathomless shadow. He slept.</p>
+
+<p>When he awoke, slowly, confused and uncertain, he found her close
+to him, kneeling on the floor, her face on his knees. He touched
+her arm, fearfully, scarcely daring; he touched her hair, falling
+heavily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>over her face and shoulders and across his knees. Ah!
+but she was tired&mdash;her very soul was weary and sick; and she was
+too young to bear her trouble. Therefore she came back to him who
+had reached out his hand to her. She could not cry&mdash;she could
+only lie there and try to live through the bitterness of her
+solitude. For now she knew at last that she was alone on earth.
+The knowledge had come in a moment, it had come with the first
+trample of the Prussian horsemen; she knew that her love, given
+so wholly, so passionately, was nothing, had been nothing, to her
+father. He whom she lived for&mdash;was it possible that he could
+abandon her in such an hour? She had waited all day, all night;
+she said in her heart that he would come from his machines and
+his turret to be with her. Together they could have lived through
+the shame of the day&mdash;of the bitter days to come; together they
+could have suffered, knowing that they had each other to live
+for.</p>
+
+<p>But she could not face the Prussian scourge alone&mdash;she could not.
+These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of
+the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade,
+every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that
+her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world
+could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of
+invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it
+nobly, who could have bidden her hope and pray and wait&mdash;he sat
+in his turret turning little wheels while the whole land shook
+with the throes of invasion&mdash;their native land, Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>The death-throes of a nation are felt by all the world. Bismarck
+placed a steel-clad hand upon the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>pulse of France, and knew
+Lorraine lay dying. Amputation would end all&mdash;Moltke had the
+apparatus ready; Bismarck, the great surgeon and greater
+executioner, sat with mailed hand on the pulse of France and
+waited.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, Lorraine, too, knew the crisis had come&mdash;sensitive
+prophetess in all that she held sacred! She had never prayed for
+the Emperor, but she always prayed for France when she asked
+forgiveness night and morning. At confession she had accused
+herself sometimes because she could not understand the deeper
+meaning of this daily prayer, but now she understood it; the
+fierce love for native soil that blazes up when that soil is
+stamped upon and spurned.</p>
+
+<p>All the devotion, all the tender adoration, that she had given her
+father turned now to bitter grief for this dear land of hers. It, at
+least, had been her mother, her comforter, her consolation; and
+there it lay before her&mdash;it called to her; she responded passionately,
+and gave it all her love. So she lay there in the dark, her hot face
+buried in her hands, close to one whom she needed and who needed her.</p>
+
+<p>He was too wise to speak or move; he loved her too much to touch
+again the hair, flung heavily across her face&mdash;to touch her
+flushed brow, her clasped hands, her slender body, delicate and
+warm, firm yet yielding. He waited for the tears to come. And
+when they fell, one by one, great, hot drops, they brought no
+relief until she told him all&mdash;all&mdash;her last and inmost hope and
+fear.</p>
+
+<p>Then when her white soul lay naked in all its innocence before
+him, and when the last word had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>said, he raised her head
+and searched in her pure eyes for one message of love for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was not there; and the last word had been said.</p>
+
+<p>And, even as he looked, holding her there almost in his arms, the
+Prussian trumpets clanged from the dim meadows and the drums
+thundered on the hills, and the invading army roused itself at
+the dawn of another day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STRETCHING OF NECKS</h3>
+
+
+<p>For two days and nights the German army passed through Morteyn
+and Saint-Lys, on the march towards Metz. All day long the hills
+struck back the echoes of their flat brass drums, and shook with
+the shock of armed squadrons, tramping on into the west.
+Interminable trains of wagons creaked along the sandy Saint-Avold
+road; the whistle of the locomotive was heard again at Saint-Lys,
+where the Bavarians had established a base of supplies and were
+sending their endless, multicoloured trains puffing away towards
+Saarbr&uuml;ck for provisions and munitions of war that had arrived
+there from Cologne. Generals with their staffs, serious, civil
+fellows, with anxious, near-sighted eyes, stopped at the Ch&acirc;teau
+and were courteously endured, only to be replaced by others
+equally polite and serious. And regularly, after each batch left
+with their marching regiments, there came back to the Ch&acirc;teau by
+courier, the same evening, a packet of visiting-cards and a
+polite letter signed by all the officers entertained, thanking
+the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn for their hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the
+afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the
+hills west of Morteyn, and the last <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>straggling Uhlan followed
+after, twirling his long lance.</p>
+
+<p>Every day Lorraine had watched and waited for one word from her
+father; every day Jack had ridden over to the Ch&acirc;teau de
+Nesville, but the marquis refused to see him or to listen to any
+message, nor did he send any to Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>Old Pierre told Jack that no Germans had visited the Ch&acirc;teau;
+that the marquis was busy all day with his machinery, and never
+left his turret except to eat at daylight in the grand salon
+below. He also intimated that his master was about ready to make
+another ascension in the new balloon, which, old Pierre affirmed,
+had a revolving screw at either side of the wicker car, like a
+ship; and, like a ship, it could be steered with perfect ease. He
+even took Jack to a little stone structure that stood in a
+meadow, surrounded by trees. In there, according to Pierre, stood
+this marvellous balloon, not yet inflated, of course. That was
+only a matter of five seconds; a handful of the silver dust
+placed at the aperture of the silken bag, a drop of pure water
+touched to it, and, puff! the silver dust turns to vapour and the
+balloon swells out tight and full.</p>
+
+<p>Jack had peeped into the barred window and had seen the wicker
+car of the balloon standing on the cement floor, filled with the
+folded silken covering for the globe of the balloon. He could
+just make out, on either side of the car, two twisted twin
+screws, wrought out of some dull oxidized metal. On returning to
+Morteyn that evening he had told Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>She explained that the screws were made of a metal called
+aluminum, rare then, because so difficult to extract <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>from its
+combining substances, and almost useless on account of its being
+impossible to weld. Her father, however, had found a way to
+utilize it&mdash;how, she did not know. If this ascension proved a
+success the French government would receive the balloon and the
+secret of the steering and propelling gear, along with the
+formula for the silvery dust used to inflate it. Even she
+understood what a terrible engine of war such an a&euml;rial ship
+might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after
+fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies
+could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before
+a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left
+Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the
+marquis&mdash;for Lorraine's sake.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was
+disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned
+lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't
+worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working
+for France."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long
+as she lived. He said, too, that the marquis was labouring for
+France. So he was; but France would never see the terrible war
+engine, nor know the secrets of its management, as long as
+Napoleon III. was struggling to keep his family in the high
+places of France.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," he said again. "I shall be back by sundown."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lorraine leaned over the terrace, looking down at him with blue,
+fathomless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"By sundown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Tiens ta Foy."</p>
+
+<p>"Always, Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>She did not chide him; she longed to call him Jack, but it stuck
+in her white throat when she tried.</p>
+
+<p>"If you do not come back by sundown, then I shall know you
+cannot," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"But I shall."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Come after me if I don't return," he laughed, as he descended
+the steps.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall, if you break your faith," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>She watched him out of sight&mdash;he was going on foot this
+time&mdash;then the trees hid him, and she turned back into the house,
+where Madame de Morteyn was preparing to close the Ch&acirc;teau for
+the winter and return to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>It was the old vicomte who had decided; he had stayed and faced
+the music as long as there was any to face&mdash;Prussian music, too.
+But now the Prussians had passed on towards Metz&mdash;towards Paris,
+also, perhaps, and he wished to be there; it was too sad in the
+autumn of Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>He had aged fearfully in the last four days; he was in truth an old
+man now. Even he knew it&mdash;he who had never before acknowledged age;
+but he felt it at night; for it is when day is ended that the old
+comprehend how old they are.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning
+Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to
+Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people
+once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and
+surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and
+return to Morteyn with one servant. This he had promised
+Lorraine, and she had not said no. His aunt also wished it, but
+she did not think it time yet to tell the vicomte.</p>
+
+<p>The servants, with the exception of one maid and the coachman,
+had gone in the morning, by way of Vigny, with the luggage. The
+vicomte and his wife were to travel by carriage to Passy-le-Sel,
+and from there, via Belfort, if the line were open, to Paris by
+rail. Jack, it had been arranged, was to ride to Belfort on
+horseback, and join the old people there for the journey to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>So Lorraine turned back into the silent house, where the
+furniture stood in its stiff, white dust-coverings, where cloths
+covered candelabra and mirror, and the piano was bare of
+embroidered scarfs.</p>
+
+<p>She passed through darkened rooms, one after another, through the
+long hall, where no servants remained, through the ballroom and
+dining-room, and out into the conservatory, emptied of every
+palm. She passed on across the interior court, through the
+servants' wicket, and out to the stables. All the stalls save one
+were empty. Faust stood in that one stall switching his tail and
+peering around at her with wise, dark eyes. Then she kissed his
+soft nose, and went sadly back to the house, only to roam over it
+again from terrace to roof, never meeting a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>living soul, never
+hearing a sound except when she passed the vicomte's suite, where
+Madame de Morteyn and the maid were arranging last details and
+the old vicomte lay asleep in his worn arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>There was one room she had not visited, one room in which she had
+never set foot, never even peeped into. That was Jack's room. And
+now, by an impulse she could not understand, her little feet led
+her up the stairway, across the broad landing, through the
+gun-room, and there to the door&mdash;his door. It was open. She
+glided in.</p>
+
+<p>There was a faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather,
+too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or
+perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle.
+Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes,
+cigar-boxes, neckties, riding-crops, and gloves.</p>
+
+<p>She stole on tiptoe to the bed, looked at her wide, bright eyes
+in the mirror opposite, flushed, hesitated, bent swiftly, and
+touched the white pillow with her lips.</p>
+
+<p>For a second she knelt there where he might have knelt, morning
+and evening, then slipped to her feet, turned, and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>At sundown Jack returned, animated, face faintly touched with red
+from his three-mile walk. He had seen the marquis; more, too, he
+had seen the balloon&mdash;he had examined it, stood in the wicker
+car, tested the aluminum screws. He brought back a message for
+Lorraine, affectionate and kindly, asking for her return home
+early the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>"If we do not find you at Belfort to-morrow," said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>Madame de
+Morteyn, seriously, "we shall not wait. We shall go straight on
+to Paris. The house is ready to be locked, everything is in
+perfect order, and really, Jack, there is no necessity for your
+coming. Perhaps Lorraine's father may ask you to stay there for a
+few days."</p>
+
+<p>"He has," said Jack, growing a trifle pink.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you need not come to Belfort at all," insisted his aunt.
+Jack protested that he could not let them go to Paris alone.</p>
+
+<p>"But I've sent Faust on already," said Madame de Morteyn,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the Marquis de Nesville will lend me a horse; you can't
+keep me away like that," said Jack; "I will drive Mademoiselle de
+Nesville to her home and then come on horseback and meet you at
+Belfort, as I said I would."</p>
+
+<p>"We won't count on you," said his aunt; "if you're not there when
+the train comes, your uncle and I will abandon you to the mercy
+of Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall send him on by freight," said Lorraine, trying to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going back to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville to-night for an hour
+or two," observed Jack, finishing his Moselle; "the marquis
+wanted me to help him on the last touches. He makes an ascent
+to-morrow noon."</p>
+
+<p>"Take a lantern, then," said Madame de Morteyn; "don't you want
+Jules, too&mdash;if you're going on foot through the forest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't want Jules, and the squirrels won't eat me," laughed Jack,
+looking across at Lorraine. He was thinking of that first dash in
+the night together, she riding with the fury of a storm-witch,
+her ball-gown <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>in ribbons, her splendid hair flashing, he
+galloping at her stirrup, putting his horse at a dark figure that
+rose in their path; and then the collision, the trample, the
+shots in the dark, and her round white shoulder seared with the
+bullet mark.</p>
+
+<p>She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going
+to start.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de
+Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her
+chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with
+Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised
+Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Always, Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>The night was starless. As he stood there on the terrace swinging
+his lantern, he looked back at her, up into her eyes. And as he
+looked she bent down, impulsively stretching out both arms and
+whispering, "At eleven&mdash;you have promised, Jack."</p>
+
+<p>At last his name had fallen from her lips&mdash;had slipped from them
+easily&mdash;sweet as the lips that breathed it.</p>
+
+<p>He tried to answer; he could not, for his heart beat in his
+throat. But he took her two hands and crushed them together and
+kissed the soft, warm palms, passive under his lips. That was
+all&mdash;a touch, a glimpse of his face half lit by the lantern
+swinging; and again she called, softly, "Jack, 'Tiens ta Foy!'"
+And he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>The distance to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville was three miles; it might
+have been three feet for all Jack knew, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>moving through the
+forest, swinging his lantern, his eyes on the dim trees towering
+into the blackness overhead, his mind on Lorraine. Where the
+lantern-light fell athwart rugged trunks, he saw her face; where
+the tall shadows wavered and shook, her eyes met his. Her voice
+was in the forest rumour, the low rustle of leafy undergrowth,
+the whisper of waters flowing under silent leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Already the gray wall of the park loomed up in the east, already
+the gables and single turret of the Ch&acirc;teau grew from the shadows
+and took form between the meshed branches of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>The grille swung wide open, but the porter was not there. He
+walked on, hastening a little, crossed the lawn by the summer
+arbour, and approached the house. There was a light in the
+turret, but the rest of the house was dark. As he reached the
+porch and looked into the black hallway, a slight noise in the
+dining-room fell upon his ear, and he opened the door and went
+in. The dining-room was dark; he set his extinguished lantern on
+the table and lighted a lamp by the window, saying: "Pierre, tell
+the marquis I am here&mdash;tell him I am to return to Morteyn by
+eleven&mdash;Pierre, do you hear me? Where are you, then?"</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head instinctively, his hand on the lamp-globe.
+Pierre was not there, but something moved in the darkness outside
+the window, and he went to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Pierre!" he called again; and at the same instant an Uhlan
+struck him with his lance-butt across the temples.</p>
+<hr class= 'chapter' />
+
+<p>How long it was before he opened his eyes he could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>not tell. He
+found himself lying on the ground in a meadow surrounded by
+trees. A camp-fire flickered near, lighting the gray side of the
+little stone house where the balloon was kept.</p>
+
+<p>There were sounds&mdash;deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or
+threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing,
+crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt
+button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished schapskas and
+gold-scaled chin-guards. The knot of struggling figures suddenly
+widened out into a half-circle, then came a quick command, a cry
+in French&mdash;"Ah! God!"&mdash;and something shot up into the air and
+hung from a tree, dangling, full in the firelight.</p>
+
+<p>It was the writhing body of a man.</p>
+
+<p>Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands.
+Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat,
+leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: "Links! vorw&auml;rts!" There
+came a regular tramp of feet&mdash;one, two! one, two!&mdash;across the
+grass, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in
+his arms.</p>
+
+<p>The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he
+saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right&mdash;tall
+Uhlans, buttoned to the chin in their sombre overcoats,
+helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.</p>
+
+<p>Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a
+second or two before he even heard him.</p>
+
+<p>"Prisoner, do you understand German?" repeated the Uhlan,
+harshly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," muttered Jack. He began to shiver, perhaps from the chill
+of the wet earth.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand up!"</p>
+
+<p>Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his
+eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the
+man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to
+that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling
+oak-branch at the edge of the grove.</p>
+
+<p>Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name pronounced;
+he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispassionate
+voice&mdash;"accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian
+Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully,
+maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded
+trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty."</p>
+
+<p>Again he heard the same voice: "The law of non-combatants
+operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty
+due."</p>
+
+<p>Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now
+he knew him&mdash;the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who
+had scaled the park wall with the box&mdash;that was the face he had
+struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face,
+with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the
+man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in
+pencil on the maps&mdash;Siurd von Steyr!</p>
+
+<p>Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted
+to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispassionate and
+harsh as ever when he said: "The prisoner Marche is at liberty to
+confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled
+into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with
+trailing spurs across the road to the tree.</p>
+
+<p>From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his
+name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of
+tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-glasses told
+him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the
+hill-side.</p>
+
+<p>One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks,
+saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr.</p>
+
+<p>Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was
+choking. Everything around him swam in darkness&mdash;a darkness lit
+by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their
+midst now, shouldered and shoved across the grass; their hot
+breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back
+his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree
+where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a
+swivel.</p>
+
+<p>It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the
+first cry out of him: "Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of God!
+Not&mdash;not this&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was struggling now&mdash;he set his teeth and struck furiously. The
+crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man
+in their midst&mdash;more mounted men, shouting.</p>
+
+<p>The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in
+his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his
+fingers between the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>noose and his neck; now the thing loosened
+and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr!&mdash;here! get
+back there!&mdash;get back!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rickerl!" gasped Jack&mdash;"tell&mdash;tell them&mdash;they must shoot&mdash;not
+hang&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and
+distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless,
+haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the
+noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up,
+lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive
+horses wheeled.</p>
+
+<p>And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face
+like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car,
+which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not the place nor is this the time to judge your
+prisoners," said Rickerl, pushing his horse up to Von Steyr and
+scowling down into his face. "Who called this drum-head court? Is
+that your province? Oh, in my absence? Well, then, I am here! Do
+you see me?"</p>
+
+<p>The insult fell like the sting of a lash across Von Steyr's face.
+He saluted, and, looking straight into Rickerl's eyes, said, "Zum
+Befehl, Herr Hauptmann! I am at your convenience also."</p>
+
+<p>"When you please!" shouted Rickerl, crimson with fury. "Retire!"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed
+his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a
+groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his
+hands to his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>head, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn
+gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as
+a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above
+his head. Then, through the ring of nervous, quivering horses the
+globe of the balloon appeared as by magic&mdash;an enormous, looming,
+yellow sphere, tense, glistening, gigantic.</p>
+
+<p>The horses reared, snorting with fright, the Uhlans clung to
+their saddles, shouting and cursing, and the huge balloon,
+swaying from its single rope, pounded and bounced from side to
+side, knocking beast and man into a chaotic mass of frantic
+horses and panic-stricken riders.</p>
+
+<p>With a report like a pistol the rope parted, the great globe
+bounded and shot up into the air; a tumult of harsh shouts arose;
+the crazed horses backed, plunged, and scattered, some falling,
+some bolting into the undergrowth, some rearing and swaying in an
+ecstasy of terror.</p>
+
+<p>The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long
+lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the
+banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the
+forest, drifting slowly westward.</p>
+
+<p>And now Von Steyr had a weapon in his hands&mdash;not a carbine, but a
+long chassepot-rifle, a relic of the despoiled franc-tireur,
+dangling from the oak-tree.</p>
+
+<p>Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!"</p>
+
+<p>The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.</p>
+
+<p>The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>belted by a blue
+line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in
+the sky. Then far away a light report startled the sudden
+stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall,
+swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>"You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand
+at Von Steyr.</p>
+
+<p>"God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Von Steyr stared around him, right and left&mdash;Jack was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously&mdash;"if
+you escape my sabre in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked
+convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>"Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he
+cried. "Open order! Forward!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>RICKERL'S SABRE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Jack, lying full length in the depths of the forest, listened
+fearfully for the sounds of the human pack on his heels. The
+blackness was stupefying; the thud of his own heart seemed to
+fill the shrouded forest like the roll of a muffled drum.
+Presently he crept on again, noiselessly, painfully, closing his
+eyes when the invisible twigs brushed his face.</p>
+
+<p>He did not know where he was going, he only thought of getting
+away, anywhere&mdash;away from that hangman's rope.</p>
+
+<p>Again he rested, suffocated by the tumult in his breast, burning
+with thirst. For a long while he lay listening; there was not a
+sound in the night. Little by little his coolness returned; he
+thought of Lorraine and his promise, and he knew that now he
+could not keep it. He thought, too, of the marquis, never
+doubting the terrible fate of the half-crazed man. He had seen
+him stun the soldier with a blow of the steel box, he had seen
+the balloon shoot up into the midnight sky, he had heard the shot
+and caught a glimpse of the glare of the burning balloon.
+Somewhere in the forest the battered body of the marquis lay in
+the wreck of the shattered car. The steel box, too, lay
+there&mdash;the box that was so precious to the Germans.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He rose to his knees, felt around among the underbrush, bent his
+head and crept on, parting leaves and branches with one hand,
+holding the other over his eyes. The thought that he might be
+moving in a circle filled him with fear. But that was exactly
+what he was doing, for now he found himself close to the park
+wall; and, listening, he heard the river murmuring among the
+alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again
+could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True,
+he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was
+nothing but a reprieve at best.</p>
+
+<p>The murmur of the river filled his ears; his hot throat was
+cracking. Drink he must, at any rate, and he started on in the
+darkness, moving stealthily over the moss. The water was closer
+than he had imagined; he bent above it, first touching it with
+groping hands, then noiselessly bathed his feverish face in the
+dark stream, drinking his fill.</p>
+
+<p>He longed to follow the shallow stream, wading to Morteyn, but he
+dared not risk it; so he went along the bank as far as he could,
+trying to keep within sound of the waters, until again he found
+himself close to the park wall. The stream had vanished again.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn began to gray the forest; little by little the nearest trees
+grew from the darkness, and bushes took vague shapes in the
+gloom. He strained his eyes, peering at every object near him,
+striving to recognize stones, saplings, but he could not. Even
+when dawn at last came up out of the east, and the thickets grew
+distinct, he did not know where he was. A line of vapour through
+the trees marked the course <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>of the little river. Which way was
+it flowing? Even that he could not tell. He looked in vain for
+the park wall; that had vanished utterly with the dawn. Very
+cautiously he advanced over the deep forest mould to the
+willow-fringed bank of the stream. The current was flowing east.
+Where was he? He parted the willows and looked out, and at the
+same instant an Uhlan saw him and shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Running swiftly through the trees, head lowered, hands clenched,
+he heard the sound of galloping on a soft road that seemed to run
+through the forest, parallel to his own course. Then, as he bore
+hastily to the right and plunged into the deeper undergrowth, he
+caught a glimpse of the Ch&acirc;teau close by through the trees.
+Horrified to find himself back at the place from which he had
+started, he doubled in his tracks, ran on, stooping low, splashed
+into the stream and across, and plunged up to the shoulders
+through the tall weeds and bushes until again he felt the forest
+leaves beneath his feet.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden silence around him was disconcerting. Where had the
+Uhlan gone? He ran on, making straight for the depths of the
+woods, for he knew now where he was, and in which direction
+safety lay.</p>
+
+<p>After a while his breath and legs gave out together, and he
+leaned against a beech-tree, his hands pressed to his mouth,
+where the breath struggled for expulsion. And, as he leaned
+there, two Uhlans, mounted, lances advanced, came picking their
+way among the trees, turning their heads cautiously from side to
+side. Behind these two rode six others, apparently unarmed, two
+abreast. He saw at once that nothing could save him, for they
+were making straight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>for his beech-tree. In that second of
+suspense he made up his mind to die fighting, for he knew what
+capture meant. He fixed his eyes on the foremost Uhlan, and
+waited. When the Uhlan should pass his tree he would fly at him;
+the rest could stab him to death with their lances&mdash;that was the
+only way to end it now.</p>
+
+<p>He shrank back, teeth set, nerving himself for the spring&mdash;a
+hunted thing turned fierce, a desperate man knowing that death
+was close. How long they were in coming! Had they seen him? When
+would the horse's nose pass the great tree-trunk?</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" cried a voice very near. The soft trample of horses
+ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"Dismount!"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed an age; the sluggish seconds crawled on. There was the
+sound of feet among the dry forest leaves&mdash;the hum of deep
+voices. He waited, trembling, for now it would be a man on foot
+with naked sabre who should sink under his spring. Would he never
+come?</p>
+
+<p>At last, unable to stand the suspense, he moved his eyes to the
+edge of the tree. There they were, a group of Uhlans standing
+near two men who stood facing each other, jackets off, shirts
+open to the throat.</p>
+
+<p>The two men were Rickerl and Von Steyr.</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl rolled up his white shirt-sleeve and tucked the cuff into
+the folds, his naked sabre under his arm. Von Steyr, in shirt,
+riding-breeches, and boots, stood with one leg crossed before the
+other, leaning on his bared sabre. The surgeon and the two
+seconds walked apart, speaking in undertones, with now and then a
+quick gesture from the surgeon. The three troopers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>held the
+horses of the party, and watched silently. When at last one of
+the Uhlans spoke, they were so near that every word was perfectly
+distinct to Jack:</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, an affair of honour in the face of the enemy is
+always deplorable."</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl burst out violently. "There can be no compromise&mdash;no
+adjustment. Is it Lieutenant von Steyr who seeks it? Then I tell
+him he is a hangman and a coward! He hangs a franc-tireur who
+fires on us with explosive bullets, but he himself does not
+hesitate to disgrace his uniform and regiment by firing explosive
+bullets at an escaping wretch in a balloon!"</p>
+
+<p>"You lie!" said Von Steyr, his face convulsed. At the same moment
+the surgeon stepped forward with a gesture, the two seconds
+placed themselves; somebody muttered a formula in a gross bass
+voice and the swordsmen raised their heavy sabres and saluted.
+The next moment they were at it like tigers; their sabres flashed
+above their heads, the sabres of the seconds hovering around the
+outer edge of the circle of glimmering steel like snakes coiling
+to spring.</p>
+
+<p>To and fro swayed the little group under the blinding flashes of
+light, stroke rang on stroke, steel shivered and tinkled and
+clanged on steel.</p>
+
+<p>Fascinated by the spectacle, Jack crouched close to the tree,
+seeing all he dared to see, but keeping a sharp eye on the three
+Uhlans who were holding the horses, and who should have been
+doing sentry duty also. But they were human, and their eyes could
+not be dragged away from the terrible combat before them.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, from the woods to the right, a rifle-shot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>rang out,
+clear and sharp, and one of the Uhlans dropped the three bridles,
+straightened out to his full height, trembled, and lurched
+sideways. The horses, freed, backed into the other horses; the
+two remaining Uhlans tried to seize them, but another shot rang
+out&mdash;another, and then another. In the confusion and turmoil a
+voice cried: "Mount, for God's sake!" but one of the horses was
+already free, and was galloping away riderless through the woods.</p>
+
+<p>A terrible yell arose from the underbrush, where a belt of smoke
+hung above the bushes, and again the rifles cracked. Von Steyr
+turned and seized a horse, throwing himself heavily across the
+saddle; the surgeon and the two seconds scrambled into their
+saddles, and the remaining pair of Uhlans, already mounted,
+wheeled their horses and galloped headlong into the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Jack saw Rickerl set his foot in the stirrup, but his horse was
+restive and started, dragging him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, Herr Hauptmann!" cried a Uhlan, passing him at a gallop.
+Rickerl cast a startled glance over his shoulder, where, from the
+thickets, a dozen franc-tireurs were springing towards him,
+shouting and shaking their chassepots. Something had given
+way&mdash;Jack saw that&mdash;for the horse started on at a trot, snorting
+with fright. He saw Rickerl run after him, seize the bridle,
+stumble, recover, and hang to the stirrup; but the horse tore
+away and left him running on behind, one hand grasping his naked
+sabre, one clutching a bit of the treacherous bridle.</p>
+
+<p>"&Agrave; mort les Uhlans!" shouted the franc-tireurs, their ferocious
+faces lighting up as Rickerl's horse eluded its rider and crashed
+away through the saplings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Rickerl cast one swift glance at the savage faces, turned his
+head like a trapped wolf in a pit, hesitated, and started to run.
+A chorus of howls greeted him: "&Agrave; mort!" "&Agrave; mort le voleur!" "&Agrave;
+la lanterne les Uhlans!"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely conscious of what he was doing, Jack sprang from his
+tree and ran parallel to Rickerl.</p>
+
+<p>"Ricky!" he called in English&mdash;"follow me! Hurry! hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>The franc-tireurs could not see Jack, but they heard his voice,
+and answered it with a roar. Rickerl, too, heard it, and he also
+heard the sound of Jack's feet crashing through the willows along
+the river-bottom.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick! Take to the river-bank!" shouted Jack in English again.
+In a moment they were running side by side up the river-bottom,
+hidden from the view of the franc-tireurs.</p>
+
+<p>"Do as I do," panted Jack. "Throw your sabre away and follow me.
+It's our last chance." But Rickerl clung to his sabre and ran on.
+And now the park wall rose right in their path, seeming to block
+all progress.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't get over&mdash;it's ended," gasped Rickerl.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we can&mdash;follow," whispered Jack, and dashed straight into
+the river where it washed the base of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Do exactly as I do. Follow close," urged Jack; and, wading to the
+edge of the wall, he felt along under the water for a moment, then
+knelt down, ducked his head, gave a wriggle, and disappeared.
+Rickerl followed him, kneeling and ducking his head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> At the same
+moment he felt a powerful current pulling him forward, and, groping
+around under the shallow water, his hands encountered the rim of a
+large iron conduit. He stuck his head into it, gave himself a push,
+and shot through the short pipe into a deep pool on the other side
+of the wall, from which Jack dragged him dripping and exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>"You are my prisoner!" said Jack, between his gasps. "Give me
+your sabre, Ricky&mdash;quick! Look yonder!" A loud explosion followed
+his words, and a column of smoke rose above the foliage of the
+vineyard before them.</p>
+
+<p>"Artillery!" blurted out Rickerl, in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"French artillery&mdash;look out! Here come the franc-tireurs over the
+wall! Give me that sabre and run for the French lines&mdash;if you
+don't want to hang!" And, as Rickerl hesitated, with a scowl of
+hate at the franc-tireurs now swarming over the wall, Jack seized
+the sabre and jerked it violently from his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You're crazy!" he muttered. "Run for the batteries!&mdash;here, this
+way!"</p>
+
+<p>A franc-tireur fired at them point-blank, and the bullet whistled
+between them. "Leave me. Give me my sabre," said Rickerl, in a
+low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll both stay."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me! I'll not hang, I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The franc-tireurs were running towards them.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll kill us both. Here they come!"</p>
+
+<p>"You stood by me&mdash;" said Jack, in a faint voice.</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl looked him in the eyes, hesitated, and cried, "I
+surrender! Come on! Hurry, Jack&mdash;for your sister's sake!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>SIR THORALD IS SILENT</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was a long run to the foot of the vineyard hill, where, on the
+crest, deep hidden among the vines, three cannon clanged at
+regular intervals, stroke following stroke, like the thundering
+summons of a gigantic tocsin.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them they saw the franc-tireurs for a moment, thrashing
+waist-deep through the rank marsh weeds; then, as they plunged
+into a wheat-field, the landscape disappeared, and all around the
+yellow grain rustled, waving above their heads, dense, sun-heated,
+suffocating.</p>
+
+<p>Their shoes sank ankle-deep in the reddish-yellow soil; they
+panted, wet with perspiration as they ran. Jack still clutched
+Rickerl's sabre, and the tall corn, brushing the blade, fell
+under the edge, keen as a scythe.</p>
+
+<p>"I can go no farther," breathed Jack, at last. "Wait a moment,
+Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>The hot air in the depths of the wheat was stifling, and they
+stretched their heads above the sea of golden grain, gasping like
+fishes in a bowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I won't have to surrender you, after all," said Jack.
+"Do you see that old straw-stack on the slope? If we could reach
+the other slope&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand to gauge the exact direction, then bent
+again and plodded towards it, Rickerl jogging in his footprints.</p>
+
+<p>As they pressed on under the rustling canopy, the sound of the
+cannon receded, for they were skirting the vineyard at the base
+of the hill, bearing always towards the south. And now they came
+to the edge of the long field, beyond which stretched another
+patch of stubble. The straw-stack stood half-way up the slope.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's your sabre," motioned Jack. He was exhausted and reeled
+about in the stubble, but Rickerl passed one arm about him, and,
+sabre clutched in the other hand, aided him to the straw-stack.</p>
+
+<p>The fresh wind strengthened them both; the sweat cooled and dried
+on their throbbing faces. They leaned against the stack,
+breathing heavily, the breeze blowing their wet hair, the solemn
+cannon-din thrilling their ears, stroke on stroke.</p>
+
+<p>"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the
+smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard&mdash;"a brigade or two of
+Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy.
+Their rear-guard is making a stand&mdash;that's all. Jack, what on
+earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"</p>
+
+<p>Jack, panting full length in the shadow of the straw-stack, told
+Rickerl the whole wretched story, from the time of his leaving
+Forbach, after having sent the despatches to the <i>Herald</i>, up to
+the moment he had called to Rickerl there in the meadow,
+surrounded by Uhlans, a rope already choking him senseless.</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl listened impassively, playing with the sabre <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>on his
+knees, glancing right and left across the country with his
+restless baby-blue eyes. When Jack finished he said nothing, but
+it was plain enough how seriously he viewed the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"As for your damned Uhlans," ended Jack, "I have tried to keep
+out of their way. It's a relief to me to know that I didn't kill
+that trooper; but&mdash;confound him!&mdash;he shot at me so enthusiastically
+that I thought it time to join the party myself. Ricky, would they
+have hanged me if they had given me a fair court-martial?"</p>
+
+<p>"As a favour they might have shot you," replied Rickerl,
+gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Jack, "there are two things left for me to do&mdash;go to
+Paris, which I can't unless Mademoiselle de Nesville goes, or
+join some franc-tireur corps and give the German army as good as
+they send. If you Uhlans think," he continued, violently, "that
+you're coming into France to hang and shoot and raise hell
+without getting hell in return, you're a pack of idiots!"</p>
+
+<p>"The war is none of your affair," said Rickerl, flushing. "You
+brought it on yourself&mdash;this hanging business. Good heavens! the
+whole thing makes me sick! I can't believe that two weeks ago we
+were all there together at Morteyn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A pretty return you're making for Morteyn hospitality!" blurted
+out Jack. Then, shocked at what he had said, he begged Rickerl's
+pardon and bitterly took himself to task.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> a fool, Ricky; I know you've got to follow your regiment,
+and I know it must cut you to the heart. Don't mind what I say;
+I'm so miserable and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>bewildered, and I haven't got the feeling
+of that rope off my neck yet."</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl raised his hand gently, but his face was hard set.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack, you don't begin to know what a hell I am living in, I who
+care so much for France and the French people, to know that all,
+all is ended forever, that I can never again&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice choked; he cleared it and went on: "The very name of
+Uhlan is held in horror in France now; the word Prussian is a
+curse when it falls from French lips. God knows why we are
+fighting! We Germans obey, that is all. I am a captain in a
+Prussian cavalry regiment; the call comes, that is all that I
+know. And here I am, riding through the land I love; I sit on my
+horse and see the torch touched to field and barn; I see
+railroads torn out of the ground, I see wretched peasants hung to
+the rafters of their own cottages." He lowered his voice; his
+face grew paler. "I see the friend I care most for in all the
+world, a rope around his neck, my own troopers dragging him to
+the vilest death a man can die! That is war! Why? I am a
+Prussian, it is not necessary for me to know; but the regiment
+moves, and I move! it halts, I halt! it charges, retreats, burns,
+tramples, rends, devastates! I am always with it, unless some
+bullet settles me. For this war is nearly ended, Jack, nearly
+ended&mdash;a battle or two, a siege or two, nothing more. What can
+stand against us? Not this bewildered France."</p>
+
+<p>Jack was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl's blue eyes sought his; he rested his square chin on one
+hand and spoke again:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Jack, do you know that&mdash;that I love your sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her last letter said as much," replied Jack, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl watched his face.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sorry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; I had hoped she would marry an American. Have you
+spoken?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." This was a chivalrous falsehood; it was Dorothy who had
+spoken first, there in the gravel drive as he rode away from
+Morteyn.</p>
+
+<p>Jack glanced at him angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not honourable," he said; "my aunt's permission should
+have been asked, as you know; also, incidentally, my own.
+Does&mdash;does Dorothy care for you? Oh, you need not answer that; I
+think she does. Well, this war may change things."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Rickerl, sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean that," cried Jack; "Heaven knows I wouldn't have
+you hurt, Ricky; don't think I meant that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," said Rickerl, half smiling; "you risked your skin to
+save me half an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"And you called off your bloody pack of hangmen for me," said
+Jack; "I'm devilish grateful, Ricky&mdash;indeed I am&mdash;and you know
+I'd be glad to have you in the family if&mdash;if it wasn't for this
+cursed war. Never mind, Dorothy generally has what she wants,
+even if it's&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Even if it's an Uhlan?" suggested Rickerl, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Jack smiled and laid his hand on Rickerl's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to see you now, bareheaded, dusty, in your
+shirt-sleeves! You're not much like the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>attach&eacute; at the
+Diplomatic ball&mdash;eh, Ricky? If you marry Dorothy I'll punch your
+head. Come on, we've got to find out where we are."</p>
+
+<p>"That's my road," observed Rickerl, quietly, pointing across the
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>"Where? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>Jack searched the distant landscape in vain.</p>
+
+<p>"No, are the Germans there? Oh, now I see. Why, it's a squadron
+of your cursed Uhlans!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Rickerl, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then they've been chased out of the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville!"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably. They may come back. Jack, can't you get out of this
+country?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," replied Jack, soberly. He thought of Lorraine, of the
+marquis lying mangled and dead in the forest beside the fragments
+of his balloon.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Lieutenant von Steyr is a dirty butcher," he said. "I hope
+you'll finish him when you find him."</p>
+
+<p>"He fired explosive bullets, which your franc-tireurs use on us,"
+retorted Rickerl, growing red.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Jack in disgust, "the whole business makes me sick!
+Ricky, give me your hand&mdash;there! Don't let this war end our
+friendship. Go to your Uhlans now. As for me, I must get back to
+Morteyn. What Lorraine will do, where she can go, how she will
+stand this ghastly news, I don't know; and I wish there was
+somebody else to tell her. My uncle and aunt have already gone to
+Paris, they said they would not wait for me. Lorraine is at
+Morteyn, alone except for her maid, and she is probably
+frightened <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>at my not returning as I promised. Do you think you
+can get to your Uhlans safely? They passed into the grove beyond
+the hills. What the mischief are those cannon shelling, anyway?
+Well, good-by! Better not come up the hill with me, or you'll
+have to part with your sabre for good. We did lose our franc-tireur
+friends beautifully. I'll write Dorothy; I'll tell her that I
+captured you, sabre and all. Good-by! Good-by, old fellow! If
+you'll promise not to get a bullet in your blond hide I'll promise
+to be a brother-in-law to you!"</p>
+
+<p>Rickerl looked very manly as he stood there, booted, bareheaded,
+his thin shirt, soaked with sweat, outlining his muscular figure.</p>
+
+<p>They lingered a moment, hands closely clasped, looking gravely
+into each other's faces. Then, with a gesture, half sad, half
+friendly, Rickerl started across the stubble towards the distant
+grove where his Uhlans had taken cover.</p>
+
+<p>Jack watched him until his white shirt became a speck, a dot, and
+finally vanished among the trees on the blue hill. When he was
+gone, Jack turned sharply away and climbed the furze-covered
+slope from whence he hoped to see the cannon, now firing only at
+five-minute intervals. As he toiled up the incline he carefully
+kept himself under cover, for he had no desire to meet any lurking
+franc-tireurs. It is true that, even when the franc-tireurs had
+been closest, there in the swamp among the rank marsh grasses, the
+distance was too great for them to have identified him with certainty.
+But he thought it best to keep out of their way until within hail of
+the regular troops, so he took advantage of bushes and inequalities
+of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>slope to reconnoitre the landscape before he reached the
+summit of the ridge. There was a tufted thicket of yellow broom in
+flower on the crest of the ridge; behind this he lay and looked out
+across the plain.</p>
+
+<p>A little valley separated this hill from the vineyard, terraced
+up to the north, ridge upon ridge. The cannon smoke shot up from
+the thickets of vines, rose, and drifted to the west, blotting
+out the greater portion of the vineyard. The cannon themselves
+were invisible. At times Jack fancied he saw a human silhouette
+when the white smoke rushed outward, but the spectral vines
+loomed up everywhere through the dense cannon-fog and he could
+not be sure.</p>
+
+<p>However, there were plenty of troops below the hill now&mdash;infantry
+of the line trudging along the dusty road in fairly good order,
+and below the vineyard, among the uncut fields of flax, more
+infantry crouched, probably supporting the three-gun battery on
+the hill.</p>
+
+<p>At that distance he could not tell a franc-tireur from any
+regular foot-soldier except line-infantry; their red caps and
+trousers were never to be mistaken. As he looked, he wondered at
+a nation that clothed its troops in a colour that furnished such
+a fearfully distinct mark to the enemy. A French army, moving,
+cannot conceal itself; the red of trousers and caps, the
+mirror-like reflections of cuirass and casque and lance-tip,
+advertise the presence of French troops so persistently that an
+enemy need never fear any open landscape by daylight.</p>
+
+<p>Jack watched the cannonade, lying on his stomach, chin supported
+by both hands. He was perfectly cool now; he neither feared the
+Uhlans nor the franc-tireurs. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>For a while he vainly tried to
+comprehend the reason of the cannonade; the shells shot out
+across the valley in tall curves, dropping into a distant bit of
+hazy blue woodland, or exploded above the trees; the column of
+infantry below plodded doggedly southward; the infantry in the
+flax-field lay supine. Clearly something was interfering with the
+retreat of the troops&mdash;something that threatened them from those
+distant woods. And now he could see cavalry moving about the
+crest of the nearer hills, but, without his glass, it was not
+possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer
+forest that hid the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville. Somewhere within those
+sombre woods lay the dead marquis.</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine,
+passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger
+had made him faint; his head grew dizzy.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the
+hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he
+walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed
+it to dull his hunger. The raw place on his neck, where the rope
+had chafed, stung when the perspiration started. He moved quickly
+but warily, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. Once he passed
+a miniature vineyard, heavy with white-wine grapes; and, as he
+threaded a silent path among the vines, he ate his fill and
+slaked his thirst with the cool amber fruit. He had reached the
+edge of the little vineyard, and was about to cross a tangle of
+briers and stubble, when something caught his eye in the thicket;
+it was a man's face&mdash;and he stopped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a minute they stared at each other, making no movement, no
+sound.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Thorald!"&mdash;faltered Jack.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Thorald Hesketh could not speak, for he had a bullet
+through his lungs.</p>
+
+<p>As Jack sprang into the brier tangle towards him, a slim figure
+in the black garments of the Sisters of Mercy rose from Sir
+Thorald's side. He saw the white cross on her breast, he saw the
+white face above it and the whiter lips.</p>
+
+<p>It was Alixe von Elster.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant the road in front was filled with French
+infantry, running.</p>
+
+<p>Alixe caught his arm, her head turned towards the road where the
+infantry were crowding past at double-quick, enveloped in a
+whirling torrent of red dust.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a cart there," she said. "Oh, Jack, find it quickly!
+The driver is on the seat&mdash;and I can't leave Sir Thorald."</p>
+
+<p>In his amazement he stood hesitating, looking from the girl to
+Sir Thorald; but she drew him to the edge of the thicket and
+pointed to the road, crying, "Go! go!" and he stumbled down the
+pasture slope to the edge of the road.</p>
+
+<p>Past him plodded the red-legged infantry; he saw, through the
+whirlwind of dust, the vague outlines of a tumbril and horse
+standing below in the ditch, and he ran along the grassy
+depression towards the vehicle. And now he saw the driver,
+kneeling in the cart, his blue blouse a mass of blood, his
+discoloured face staring out at the passing troops.</p>
+
+<p>As he seized the horse's head and started up the slope again,
+firing broke out among the thickets close <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>at hand; the infantry
+swung out to the west in a long sagging line; the chassepots
+began banging right and left. For an instant he caught a glimpse
+of cavalry riding hard across a bit of stubble&mdash;Uhlans he saw at
+a glance&mdash;then the smoke hid them. But in that brief instant he
+had seen, among the galloping cavalrymen, a mounted figure,
+bareheaded, wearing a white shirt, and he knew that Rickerl was
+riding for his life.</p>
+
+<p>Sick at heart he peered into the straight, low rampart of smoke;
+he watched the spirts of rifle-flame piercing it; he saw it turn
+blacker when a cannon bellowed in the increasing din. The
+infantry were lying down out there in the meadow; shadowy gray
+forms passed, repassed, reeled, ran, dropped, and rose again.
+Close at hand a long line of men lay flat on their bellies in the
+wheat stubble. When each rifle spoke the smoke rippled through
+the short wheat stalks or eddied and curled over the ground like
+the gray foam of an outrushing surf.</p>
+
+<p>He backed the horse and heavy cart, turned both, half blinded by
+the rifle-smoke, and started up the incline. Two bullets,
+speeding over the clover like singing bees, rang loudly on the
+iron-bound cartwheels; the horse plunged and swerved, dragging
+Jack with him, and the dead figure, kneeling in the cart, tumbled
+over the tail-board with a grotesque wave of its stiffening
+limbs. There it lay, sprawling in an impossible posture in the
+ditch. A startled grasshopper alighted on its face, turned
+around, crawled to the ear, and sat there.</p>
+
+<p>And now the volley firing grew to a sustained crackle, through
+which the single cannon boomed and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>boomed, hidden in the surging
+smoke that rolled in waves, sinking, rising, like the waves of a
+wind-whipped sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you, Alixe?" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Here! Hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>She stood on the edge of the brier tangle as he laboured up the
+slope with the horse and cart. Sir Thorald's breathing was
+horrible to hear when they stooped and lifted him; Alixe was
+crying. They laid him on the blood-soaked straw; Alixe crept in
+beside him and took his head on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>"To Morteyn?" whispered Jack. "Perhaps we can find a surgeon
+nearer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hurry!" she sobbed; and he climbed heavily to the seat and
+started back towards the road.</p>
+
+<p>The road was empty where he turned in out of the fields, but,
+just above, he heard cannon thundering in the mist. As he drew in
+the reins, undecided, the cannonade suddenly redoubled in fury;
+the infantry fire blazed out with a new violence; above the
+terrific blast he heard trumpets sounding, and beneath it he felt
+the vibration of the earth; horses were neighing out beyond the
+smoke; a thousand voices rose in a far, hoarse shout:</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! Preussen!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prussian cavalry were charging the cannon.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he heard them close at hand; they loomed everywhere in
+the smoke, they were among the infantry, among the cannoneers; a
+tall rider in silver helmet and armour plunged out into the road
+behind them, his horse staggered, trembled, then man and beast
+collapsed in a shower of bullets. Others were coming, too,
+galloping in through the grain stubble <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>and thickets, shaking
+their long, straight sabres, but the infantry chased them, and
+fell upon them, clubbing, shooting, stabbing, pulling horses and
+men to earth. The cannon, which had ceased, began again; the
+infantry were cheering; trumpets blew persistently, faintly and
+more faintly. In the road a big, bearded man was crawling on his
+hands and knees away from a dead horse. His helmet fell off in
+the dust.</p>
+
+<p>Jack gathered the reins and called to the horse. As the heavy
+cart moved off, the ground began to tremble again with the shock
+of on-coming horses, and again, through the swelling tumult, he
+caught the cry&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! Preussen!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prussian cuirassiers were coming back.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Sir Thorald dying?" he asked of Alixe; "can he live if I lash
+the horse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at him, Jack," she muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You&mdash;you are
+wounded, are you? there&mdash;on the neck&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is his blood on my breast."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WHITE CROSS</h3>
+
+
+<p>At ten o'clock that night Jack stepped from the ballroom to the
+terrace of the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn and listened to the distant murmur
+of the river Lisse, below the meadow. The day of horror had ended
+with a dozen dropping shots from the outposts, now lining the
+banks of the Lisse from the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville to Morteyn. The
+French infantry had been pouring into Morteyn since late
+afternoon; they had entered the park when he entered, driving his
+tumbril with its blood-stained burden; they had turned the river
+into a moat, the meadow into an earthwork, the Ch&acirc;teau itself
+into a fortress.</p>
+
+<p>On the concrete terrace beside him a gatling-gun glimmered in the
+starlight; sentinels leaned on their elbows, sprawling across the
+parapets; shadowy ranks of sleeping men lay among the shrubbery
+below, white-faced, exhausted, motionless.</p>
+
+<p>There were low voices from the darkened ballroom, the stir and
+tinkle of spurred boots, the ring of sabres. Out in the hard
+macadamized road, cannon were passing into the park by the iron
+gate; beyond the road masses of men moved in the starlight.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment Jack turned away and entered the house. For the
+hundredth time he mounted the stairs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>to Lorraine's bedroom door
+and listened, holding his breath. He heard nothing&mdash;not a
+cry&mdash;not a sob. It had been so from the first, when he had told
+her that her father lay dead somewhere in the forest of Morteyn.</p>
+
+<p>She had said nothing&mdash;she went to her room and sat down on the
+bed, white and still. Sir Thorald lay in the next room, breathing
+deeply. Alixe was kneeling beside him, crying silently.</p>
+
+<p>Twice a surgeon from an infantry regiment had come and gone away
+after a glance at Sir Thorald. A captain came later and asked for
+a Sister of Mercy.</p>
+
+<p>"She can't go," said Jack, in a low voice. But little Alixe rose,
+still crying, and followed the captain to the stables, where a
+dozen mangled soldiers lay in the straw and hay.</p>
+
+<p>It was midnight when she returned to find Jack standing beside
+Sir Thorald in the dark. When he saw it was Alixe he led her
+gently into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"He is conscious now; I will call you when the time comes. Go
+into that room&mdash;Lorraine is there, alone. Ah, go, Alixe; it is
+charity!&mdash;and you wear the white cross&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is dyed scarlet," she whispered through her tears.</p>
+
+<p>He returned to Sir Thorald, who lay moving his restless hands
+over the sheets and turning his head constantly from side to
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Jack; "finish what you were saying."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;in time."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald relapsed into a rambling, monotonous account of some
+military movement near Wissembourg until Jack spoke again:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I know; tell me about Alixe."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;Alixe," muttered Sir Thorald&mdash;"is she here? I was wrong; I
+saw her at Cologne; that was all, Jack&mdash;nothing more."</p>
+
+<p>"There is more," said Jack; "tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there is more. I saw that&mdash;that she loved me. There was a
+scene&mdash;I am not always a beast&mdash;I tried not to be. Then&mdash;then I
+found that there was nothing left but to go away&mdash;somewhere&mdash;and
+live&mdash;without her. It was too late. She knew it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Sir Thorald's voice grew clear.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you understand?" he asked; "I damned both our souls. She
+is buying hers back with tears and blood&mdash;with the white cross on
+her heart and death in her eyes! And I am dying here&mdash;and she's
+to drag out the years afterwards&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He choked; Jack watched him quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald turned his head to him when the coughing ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"She went with a field ambulance; I went, too. I was shot below
+that vineyard. They told her; that is all. Am I dying?"</p>
+
+<p>Jack did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you write to Molly?" asked Sir Thorald, drowsily.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. God help you, Sir Thorald."</p>
+
+<p>"Who cares?" muttered Sir Thorald. "I'm a beast&mdash;a dying beast.
+May I see Alixe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell her to come&mdash;now. Soon I'll wish to be alone; that's
+the way beasts die&mdash;alone."</p>
+
+<p>He rambled on again about a battle somewhere in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>the south, and
+Jack went to the door and called, "Alixe!"</p>
+
+<p>She came, pallid and weeping, carrying a lighted candle.</p>
+
+<p>Jack took it from her hand and blew out the flame.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't let us have a light; they fear bombardment. Go in
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he dying?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows."</p>
+
+<p>"God?" repeated Alixe.</p>
+
+<p>Jack bent and touched the child's forehead with his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray for him," he said; "I shall write his wife to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Alixe went in to the bedside to kneel again and buy back two
+souls with the agony of her child's heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray," she said to Sir Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray," he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Jack closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>Up and down the dark hall he wandered, pausing at times to listen
+to some far rifle-shot and the answering fusillade along the
+picket-line. Once he stopped an officer on the stairway and asked
+for a priest, but, remembering that Sir Thorald was Protestant,
+turned away with a vague apology and resumed his objectless
+wandering.</p>
+
+<p>At times he fancied he heard cannon, so far away that nothing of
+sound remained, only a faint jar on the night air. Twice he
+looked from the window over the vast black forest, thinking of
+the dead man lying there alone. And then he longed to go to
+Lorraine; he felt that he must touch her, that his hand on hers
+might help her somehow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At last, deadly weary, he sat down on the stairs by her door to
+try to think out the problems that to-morrow would bring.</p>
+
+<p>His aunt and uncle had gone on to Paris; Lorraine's father was
+dead and her home had been turned into a fort. Saint-Lys was
+heavily occupied by the Germans, and they held the railroad also
+in their possession. It seemed out of the question to stay in
+Morteyn with Lorraine, for an assault on the Ch&acirc;teau was
+imminent. How could he get her to Paris? That was the only place
+for her now.</p>
+
+<p>He thought, too, of his own danger from the Uhlans. He had told
+Lorraine, partly because he wished her to understand their
+position, partly because the story of his capture, trial, and
+escape led up to the tragedy that he scarcely knew how to break
+to her. But he had done it, and she, pale as death, had gone
+silently to her room, motioning him away as he stood awkwardly at
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>That last glimpse of the room remained in his mind, it
+obliterated everything else at moments&mdash;Lorraine sitting on her
+bedside, her blue eyes vacant, her face whiter than the pillows.</p>
+
+<p>And so he sat there on the stairs, the dawn creeping into the
+hallway; and his eyes never left the panels of her door. There
+was not a sound from within. This for a while frightened him, and
+again and again he started impulsively towards the door, only to
+turn back again and watch there in the coming dawn. Presently he
+remembered that dawn might bring an attack on the Ch&acirc;teau, and he
+rose and hurried down-stairs to the terrace where a crowd of
+officers stood watching the woods through their night-glasses.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>The general impression among them was that there might be an
+attack. They yawned and smoked and studied the woods, but they
+were polite, and answered all his questions with a courteous
+light-heartedness that jarred on him. He glanced for a moment at
+the infantry, now moving across the meadow towards the river; he
+saw troops standing at ease along the park wall, troops sitting
+in long ranks in the vegetable garden, troops passing the
+stables, carrying pickaxes and wheeling wheelbarrows piled with
+empty canvas sacks.</p>
+
+<p>Sleepy-eyed boyish soldiers of the artillery were harnessing the
+battery horses, rubbing them down, bathing wounded limbs or
+braiding the tails. The farrier was shoeing a great black horse,
+who turned its gentle eyes towards the hay-bales piled in front
+of the stable. One or two slim officers, in pale-blue fur-edged
+pelisses, strolled among the trampled flower-beds, smoking cigars
+and watching a line of men shovelling earth into canvas sacks.
+The odour of soup was in the air; the kitchen echoed with the din
+of pots and pans. Outside, too, the camp-kettles were steaming
+and the rattle of gammels came across the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is in command here?" asked Jack, turning to a handsome
+dragoon officer who stood leaning on his sabre, the horse-hair
+crini&egrave;re blowing about his helmet.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, General Farron!" said the officer in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Farron!" repeated Jack; "is he back from Africa, here in
+France&mdash;here at Morteyn?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is at the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville," said the officer, smiling.
+"You seem to know him, monsieur."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I do," said Jack, warmly. "Do you think he will come
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so. Shall I send you word when he arrives?"</p>
+
+<p>Another officer came up, a general, white-haired and sombre.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the Vicomte de Morteyn?" he asked, looking at Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"His nephew; the vicomte has gone to Paris. My name is Marche,"
+said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>The general saluted him; Jack bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret the military necessity of occupying the Ch&acirc;teau; the
+government will indemnify Monsieur le Vicomte&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jack held up his hand: "My uncle is an old soldier of France&mdash;the
+government is welcome; I bid you welcome in the name of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."</p>
+
+<p>The old general flushed and bowed deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you in the name of the government. Blood will tell. It
+is easy, Monsieur Marche, to see that you are the nephew of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Marche," said the young dragoon officer, respectfully,
+"is a friend of General Farron."</p>
+
+<p>"I had the honour to be attached as correspondent to his
+staff&mdash;in Oran," said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>The old general held out his hand with a gesture entirely
+charming.</p>
+
+<p>"I envy General Farron your friendship," he said. "I had a
+son&mdash;perhaps your age. He died&mdash;yesterday." After a silence, he
+said: "There are ladies in the Ch&acirc;teau?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Jack, soberly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The general turned with a gesture towards the woods. "It is too
+late to move them; we are, it appears, fairly well walled in. The
+cellar, in case of bombardment, is the best you can do for them.
+How many are there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two, general. One is a Sister of Mercy."</p>
+
+<p>Other officers began to gather on the terrace, glasses
+persistently focussed on the nearer woods. Somebody called to an
+officer below the terrace to hurry the cannon.</p>
+
+<p>Jack made his way through the throng of officers to the stairs,
+mounted them, and knocked at Lorraine's door.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you&mdash;Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Come."</p>
+
+<p>He went in.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine lay on the bed, quiet and pale; it startled him to see
+her so calm. For an instant he hesitated on the threshold, then
+went slowly to the bedside. She held out one hand; he took it.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot cry," she said; "I cannot. Sit beside me, Jack. Listen:
+I am wicked&mdash;I have not a single tear for my father. I have been
+here&mdash;so&mdash;all night long. I prayed to weep; I cannot. I
+understand he is dead&mdash;that I shall never again wait for him,
+watch at his door in the turret, dream he is calling me; I
+understand that he will never call me again&mdash;never again&mdash;never.
+And I cannot weep. Do you hate me? I am tired&mdash;so tired, like a
+child&mdash;very young."</p>
+
+<p>She raised her other hand and laid it in his. "I need you," she
+said; "I am too tired, too young, to be so alone. It is myself I
+suffer for; think, Jack, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>myself, in such a moment. I am selfish,
+I know it. Oh, if I could weep now! Why can I not? I loved my
+father. And now I can only think of his little machines in the
+turret and his balloon, and&mdash;oh!&mdash;I only remember the long days
+of my life when I waited on the turret stairs hoping he would
+come out, dreaming he would come some day and take me in his arms
+and kiss me and hold me close, as I am to you. And now he never
+will. And I waited all my life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" he whispered, touching her hair; "you are feverish."</p>
+
+<p>Her head was pressed close to him; his arms held her tightly; she
+sighed like a restless child.</p>
+
+<p>"Never again&mdash;never&mdash;for he is dead. And yet I could have lived
+forever, waiting for him on the turret stairs. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Holding her strained to his breast he trembled at the fierce
+hopelessness in her voice. In a moment he recognized that a
+crisis was coming; that she was utterly irresponsible, utterly
+beyond reasoning. Like a spectre her loveless childhood had risen
+and confronted her; and now that there was no longer even hope,
+she had turned desperately upon herself with the blank despair of
+a wounded animal. End it all!&mdash;that was her one impulse. He felt
+it already taking shape; she shivered in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a God&mdash;" he began, fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him with vacant eyes, hot and burning.</p>
+
+<p>He tried again: "I love you, Lorraine&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her straight brows knitted and she struggled to free herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Let me go!" she whispered. "I do not wish to live&mdash;I can't!&mdash;I
+can't!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he played his last card, and, holding her close, looked
+straight into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"France needs us all," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She grew quiet. Suddenly the warm blood dyed her cheeks. Then,
+drop by drop, the tears came; her sweet face, wet and flushed,
+nestled quietly close to his own face.</p>
+
+<p>"We will both live for that," he said; "we will do what we can."</p>
+
+<p>For an hour she lay sobbing her heart out in his arms; and when
+she was quiet at last he told her how the land lay trembling
+under the invasion, how their armies had struggled and dwindled
+and lost ground, how France, humbled, drenched with blood and
+tears, still stood upright calling to her children. He spoke of
+the dead, the dying, the mutilated creatures gasping out their
+souls in the ditches.</p>
+
+<p>"Life is worth living," he said. "If our place is not in the
+field with the wounded, not in the hospital, not in the prisons
+where these boys are herded like diseased cattle, then it is
+perhaps at the shrine's foot. Pray for France, Lorraine, pray and
+work, for there is work to do."</p>
+
+<p>"There is work; we will go together," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, together. Perhaps we can help a little. Your father, when
+he died, had the steel box with him. Lorraine, when he is found
+and is laid to rest, we will take that box to the French lines.
+The secret must belong to France!"</p>
+
+<p>She was eager enough now; she sat up on the bed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>and listened
+with bright, wet eyes while he told her what they two might do
+for her land of France.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear&mdash;dear Jack!" she cried, softly.</p>
+
+<p>But he knew that it was not the love of a maid for a man that
+parted her lips; it was the love of the land, of her land of
+Lorraine, that fierce, passionate love of soil that had at last
+blazed up, purified in the long years of a loveless life. All
+that she had felt for her father turned to a burning thrill for
+her country. It is such moments that make children defenders of
+barricades, that make devils or saints of the innocent. The maid
+that rode in mail, crowned, holding aloft the banner of the
+fleur-de-lys, died at the stake; her ashes were the ashes of a
+saint. The maid who flung her bullets from the barricade, who
+carried a dagger to the Rue Haxo, who spat in the faces of the
+line when they shoved her to the wall in the Luxembourg, died too
+for France. Her soul is the soul of a martyr; but all martyrs are
+not saints.</p>
+
+<p>For another hour they sat there, planning, devising, eager to
+begin their predestined work. They spoke of the dead, too, and
+Lorraine wept at last for her father.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a Sister of Mercy here," she said; "I saw her. I could
+not speak to her. Later I knew it was Alixe. You called her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I speak to her?"</p>
+
+<p>He went out into the hall and tapped at the door of the next
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Alixe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;Jack."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He entered.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald lay very still under the sheets, the crucifix on his
+breast. At first Jack thought he was dead, but the slight motion
+of the chest under the sheets reassured him. He turned to Alixe:</p>
+
+<p>"Go for a minute and comfort Lorraine," he whispered. "Go, my
+child."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I cannot&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go," said Sir Thorald, in a distinct voice.</p>
+
+<p>When she had gone, Jack bent over Sir Thorald. A great pity
+filled him, and he touched the half-opened hand with his own.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thorald looked up at him wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not worth it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we all are worth it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not," gasped Sir Thorald. "Jack, you are good. Do you
+believe, at least, that I loved her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you say so."</p>
+
+<p>"I do&mdash;in the shadow of death."</p>
+
+<p>Jack was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I never loved&mdash;before," said Sir Thorald.</p>
+
+<p>In the stillness that followed Jack tried to comprehend the good
+or evil in this stricken man. He could not; he only knew that a
+great love that a man might bear a woman made necessary a great
+sacrifice if that love were unlawful. The greater the love the
+more certain the sacrifice&mdash;self-sacrifice on the altar of
+unselfish love, for there is no other kind of love that man may
+bear for woman.</p>
+
+<p>It wearied Jack to try to think it out. He could not; he only
+knew that it was not his to judge or to condemn.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you give me your hand?" asked Sir Thorald.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jack laid his hand in the other's feverish one.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call her," he said, distinctly; "I am dying."</p>
+
+<p>Presently he withdrew his hand and turned his face to the wall.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time Jack sat there, waiting. At last he spoke: "Sir
+Thorald?"</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Thorald had been dead for an hour.</p>
+
+<p>When Alixe entered Jack took her slim, childish hands and looked
+into her eyes. She understood and went to her dead, laying down
+her tired little head on the sheeted breast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>A DOOR IS LOCKED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lorraine stood on the terrace beside the brass gatling-gun, both
+hands holding to Jack's arm, watching the soldiers stuffing the
+windows of the Ch&acirc;teau with mattresses, quilts, and bedding of
+all kinds.</p>
+
+<p>A stream of engineers was issuing from the hallway, carrying
+tables, chairs, barrels, and chests to the garden below, where
+other soldiers picked them up and bore them across the lawn to
+the rear of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"They are piling all the furniture they can get against the gate
+in the park wall," said Jack; "come out to the kitchen-garden."</p>
+
+<p>She went with him, still holding to his arm. Across the vegetable
+garden a barricade of furniture&mdash;sofas, chairs, and wardrobes&mdash;lay
+piled against the wooden gate of the high stone wall. Engineers were
+piercing the wall with crowbars and pickaxes, loosening the cement,
+dragging out huge blocks of stone to make embrasures for three cannon
+that stood with their limbers among the broken bell-glasses and
+cucumber-frames in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>A ladder lay against the wall, and on it was perched an officer,
+who rested his field-glasses across the tiled top and stood
+studying the woods. Below him a general <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>and half a dozen
+officers watched the engineers hacking at the wall; a long,
+double line of infantry crouched behind them, the bugler
+kneeling, glancing anxiously at his captain, who stood talking to
+a fat sub-officer in capote and boots.</p>
+
+<p>Artillerymen were gathered about the ammunition-chests, opening
+the lids and carrying shell and shrapnel to the wall; the
+balconies of the Ch&acirc;teau were piled up with breastworks of rugs,
+boxes, and sacks of earth. Here and there a rifleman stood, his
+chassepot resting on the iron railing, his face turned towards
+the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"They are coming," said a soldier, calling back to a comrade, who
+only laughed and passed on towards the kitchen, loaded down with
+sacks of flour.</p>
+
+<p>A restless movement passed through the kneeling battalion of
+infantry.</p>
+
+<p>"Fiche moi la paix, hein!" muttered a lieutenant, looking
+resentfully at a gossiping farrier. Another lieutenant drew his
+sword, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they coming?" asked Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Watch that officer on the wall. He seems to see
+nothing yet. Don't you think you had better go to the rear of the
+house now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not unless you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, then."</p>
+
+<p>"No, stay here. I am not afraid. Where is Alixe?"</p>
+
+<p>"With the wounded men in the stable. They have hoisted the red
+cross over the barn; did you notice?"</p>
+
+<p>Before she could answer, one of the soldiers on the balcony of
+the Ch&acirc;teau fired. Another rose from behind <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>a mattress and fired
+also; then half a dozen shots rang out, and the smoke whirled up
+over the roof of the house. The officer on the ladder was
+motioning to the group of officers below; already the artillerymen
+were running the three cannon forward to the port-holes that had
+been pierced in the park wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet&mdash;I am not frightened."</p>
+
+<p>A loud explosion enveloped the wall in sulphurous clouds, and a
+cannon jumped back in recoil. The cannoneers swarmed around it,
+there was a quick movement of a sponger, an order, a falling into
+place of rigid artillerymen, then bang! and another up-rush of
+smoke. And now the other cannon joined in&mdash;crash! bang!&mdash;and the
+garden swam in the swirling fog. Infantry, too, were firing all
+along the wall, and on the other side of the house the rippling
+crash of the gatling-gun rolled with the rolling volleys. Jack
+led Lorraine to the rear of the Ch&acirc;teau, but she refused to stay,
+and he reluctantly followed her into the house.</p>
+
+<p>From every mattress-stuffed window the red-legged soldiers were
+firing out across the lawn towards the woods; the smoke drifted
+back into the house in thin shreds that soon filled the rooms
+with a blue haze.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly something struck the chandelier and shattered it to the
+gilt candle-sockets. Lorraine looked at it, startled, but another
+bullet whizzed into the room, starring the long mirror, and
+another knocked the plaster from the fireplace. Jack had her out
+of the room in a second, and presently they found themselves in
+the cellar, the very cement beneath <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>their feet shaking under the
+tremendous shocks of the cannon.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for me. Do you promise, Lorraine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel
+drive to the stable.</p>
+
+<p>"Alixe!" he called.</p>
+
+<p>She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There
+was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of
+grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely
+knew it.</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"</p>
+
+<p>He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set
+them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four
+surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges,
+basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of
+ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not&mdash;when I
+am ready," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No; go and stay with her. If I need you I will send."</p>
+
+<p>He could scarcely hear her in the tumult and din, but he
+understood and nodded, watching her busy with her lint and
+bandages. As he turned to go, the first of the wounded, a mere
+boy, was brought in on the shoulders of a comrade. Jack heard him
+scream as they laid him on the table; then he went soberly away
+to the cellar where Lorraine sat, her face in her hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We are holding the Ch&acirc;teau," he said. "Will you stay quietly for
+a little while longer, if I go out again?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He longed to take her in his arms. He did not; he merely said,
+"Wait for me," and went away again out into the smoke.</p>
+
+<p>From the upper-story windows, where he had climbed, he could see
+to the edge of the forest. Already three columns of men had
+started out from the trees across the meadow towards the park
+wall. They advanced slowly and steadily, firing as they came on.
+Somewhere, in the smoke, a Prussian band was playing gayly, and
+Jack thought of the Bavarians at the Geisberg, and their bands
+playing as the men fell like leaves in the Ch&acirc;teau gardens.</p>
+
+<p>He had his field-glasses with him, and he fixed them on the
+advancing columns. They were Bavarians, after all&mdash;there was no
+mistaking the light-blue uniforms and fur-crested helmets. And
+now he made out their band, plodding stolidly along, trombones
+and bass-drums wheezing and banging away in the rifle-smoke; he
+could even see the band-master swinging his halberd forward.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the nearest column broke into a heavy run, cheering
+hoarsely. The other columns came on with a rush; the band halted,
+playing them in at the death with a rollicking quickstep; then
+all was blotted out in the pouring cannon-smoke. Flash on flash
+the explosions followed each other, lighting the gloom with a
+wavering yellow glare, and on the terrace the gatling whirred and
+spluttered its slender streams of flame, while the treble crash
+of the chassepots roared accompaniment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Once or twice Jack thought he heard the rattle of their little
+harsh, flat drums, but he could see them no longer; they were in
+that smoke-pall somewhere, coming on towards the park wall.</p>
+
+<p>Bugles began to sound&mdash;French bugles&mdash;clear and sonorous. Across
+the lawn by the river a battalion of French infantry were
+running, firing as they ran. He saw them settle at last like
+quail among the stubble, curling up and crouching in groups and
+bevies, alert heads raised. Then the firing rippled along the
+front, and the lawn became gray with smoke.</p>
+
+<p>As he went down the stairs and into the garden he heard the soldiers
+saying that the charge had been checked. The wounded were being
+borne towards the barn, long lines of them, heads and limbs hanging
+limp. A horse in the garden was ending a death-struggle among the
+cucumber-frames, and the battery-men were cutting the traces to give
+him free play. Upon the roof a thin column of smoke and sparks rose,
+where a Prussian shell&mdash;the first as yet&mdash;had fallen and exploded
+in the garret. Some soldiers were knocking the sparks from the roof
+with the butts of their rifles.</p>
+
+<p>When he went into the cellar again Lorraine was pacing restlessly
+along the wine-bins.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot stay here," she said. "Jack, get some bottles of brandy
+and come to the barn. The wounded will need them."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot go out. I will take them."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shall go."</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you not to."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me, Jack," she said, coming up to him&mdash;"with you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He could not make her listen; she went with him, her slender arms
+loaded with bottles. The shells were falling in the garden now;
+one burst and flung a shower of earth and glass over them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry!" he said. "Are you crazy, Lorraine, to come out into
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't scold, Jack," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>When she entered the stable he breathed more freely. He watched
+her face narrowly, but she did not blanch at the sickening
+spectacle of the surgeons' tables.</p>
+
+<p>They placed their bottles of brandy along the side of a
+box-stall, and stood together watching the file of wounded
+passing in at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"They do not need us here, yet," he said. "I wonder where Alixe
+is?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is a Sister of Mercy out on the skirmish-line across the
+lawn," said a soldier of the hospital corps, pointing with bloody
+hands towards the smoke-veiled river.</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked at Lorraine in utter despair.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go; she can't stay there," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you must go," repeated Lorraine. "She will be shot."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you wait here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>So he went away, thinking bitterly that she did not care whether
+he lived or died&mdash;that she let him leave her without a word of
+fear, of kindness. Then, for the first time, he realized that she
+had never, after all, been touched by his devotion; that she had
+never understood, nor cared to understand, his love for her. He
+walked out across the smoky lawn, the din of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>rifles in his
+ears, the bitterness of death in his heart. He knew he was going
+into danger&mdash;that he was already in peril. Bullets whistled
+through the smoke as he advanced towards the firing-line, where,
+in the fog, dim figures were outlined here and there. He passed
+an officer, standing with bared sword, watching his men digging
+up the sod and piling it into low breastworks. He went on,
+passing others, sometimes two soldiers bearing a wounded man, now
+and then a maimed creature writhing on the grass or hobbling away
+to the rear. The battle-line lay close to him now&mdash;long open
+ranks of men, flat on their stomachs, firing into the smoke
+across the river-bank. Their officers loomed up in the gloom,
+some leaning quietly back on their sword-hilts, some pacing to
+and fro, smoking, or watchfully steadying the wearied men.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at once he saw Alixe. She was standing beside a tall
+wounded officer, giving him something to drink from a tin cup.</p>
+
+<p>"Alixe," said Jack, "this is not your place."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him tranquilly as the wounded man was led away by a
+soldier of the hospital corps.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my place."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, violently, "you are trying to find death here!"</p>
+
+<p>"I seek nothing," she said, in a gentle, tired voice; "let me
+go."</p>
+
+<p>"Come back. Alixe&mdash;your brother is alive."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him impassively.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no brother."</p>
+
+<p>He understood and chafed inwardly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come, Alixe," he urged; "for Heaven's sake, try to live and
+forget&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to forget&mdash;everything to remember. Let me pass."
+She touched the blood-stained cross on her breast. "Do you not
+see? That was white once. So was my soul."</p>
+
+<p>"It is now," he said, gently. "Come back."</p>
+
+<p>A wounded man somewhere in the smoke called, "Water! water! In
+the name of God!&mdash;my sister&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am coming!" called Alixe, clearly.</p>
+
+<p>"To me first! Hasten, my sister!" groaned another.</p>
+
+<p>"Patience, children&mdash;I come!" called Alixe.</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture she passed Jack; a flurry of smoke hid her. The
+pungent powder-fog made his eyes dim; his ears seemed to split
+with the terrific volley firing.</p>
+
+<p>He turned away and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the
+well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the
+firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe,
+following her with his buckets where she passed among the
+wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a
+pail full of water, and he held his finger in the hole until the
+water was all used up. Twice he heard cheering and the splash of
+cavalry in the shallow river, but they seemed to be beaten off
+again, and he went about his business, listless, sombre, a dead
+weight at his heart.</p>
+
+<p>He had been kneeling beside a wounded man for some minutes when
+he became conscious that the firing had almost ceased. Bugles
+were sounding near <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>the Ch&acirc;teau; long files of troops passed him
+in the lifting smoke; officers shouted along the river-bank.</p>
+
+<p>He rose to his feet and looked around for Alixe. She was not in
+sight. He walked towards the river-bank, watching for her, but he
+could not find her.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an
+officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.</p>
+
+<p>A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a
+Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Ch&acirc;teau. I think she was
+hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurt!"</p>
+
+<p>"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the
+stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod
+breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and
+entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables;
+Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Alixe?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the
+terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech
+of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by
+a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed
+into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very
+tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.</p>
+
+<p>"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone
+with Sir Thorald." And he climbed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>the stairs and knocked softly
+at the door of the death-chamber.</p>
+
+<p>"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay
+here."</p>
+
+<p>She was kneeling at the bedside, her face buried on the breast of
+the dead man.</p>
+
+<p>"Alixe," he said, but his voice broke in spite of him, and he
+went to her and touched her.</p>
+
+<p>Very tenderly he raised her head, looked into her eyes, then
+quietly turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the door he met Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go in," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>She looked fearfully up into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "she was shot through the body."</p>
+
+<p>Then he closed the door and turned the key on the outside,
+leaving the dead to the dead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>LORRAINE SLEEPS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of
+water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of
+amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.</p>
+
+<p>Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before,
+although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about,
+gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary
+observation of the Ch&acirc;teau.</p>
+
+<p>Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of
+nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse
+with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the
+cover of the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Around the Ch&acirc;teau the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through
+the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their
+waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches
+dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi,
+grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at
+times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue
+overcoats.</p>
+
+<p>The line of battle stretched from the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn, parallel
+with the river and the park wall, to the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville; and
+along this line the officers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>were riding all day, muffled to the
+chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops
+gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they
+expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work
+excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks
+with earth, while in the Ch&acirc;teau itself preparations were in
+progress for the fighting of fire.</p>
+
+<p>The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched
+over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long
+trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches
+had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of
+each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the
+ground for a head-stone.</p>
+
+<p>Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one
+sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side
+by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse.
+Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It
+was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the
+linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove
+back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his
+face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a
+few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud
+between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned
+with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds.
+Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths
+of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns;
+and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw
+that her fair hands were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>cut and bleeding from plaiting the
+thorn-covered blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>They spoke briefly, almost coldly. Lorraine hung the two wreaths
+over the head-piece of the cross and, kneeling, signed herself.</p>
+
+<p>When she rose Jack replaced his cap, but said nothing. They stood
+side by side, looking out across the woods, where, behind a
+curtain of mist and rain, the single turret of the Ch&acirc;teau de
+Nesville was hidden.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed restless and preoccupied, and he, answering aloud her
+unasked question, said, "I am going to search the forest to-day.
+I cannot bear to leave you, but it must be done, for your sake
+and for the sake of France."</p>
+
+<p>She answered: "Yes, it must be done. I shall go with you."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot," he said; "there is danger in the forest."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>They said nothing more for a moment or two. He was thinking of
+Alixe and her love for Sir Thorald. Who would have thought it
+could have turned out so? He looked down at the river Lisse,
+where, under the trees of the bank, they had all sat that day&mdash;a
+day that already seemed legendary, so far, so far in the
+mist-hung landscape of the past. He seemed to hear Molly
+Hesketh's voice, soft, ironical, upbraiding Sir Thorald; he
+seemed to see them all there in the sunshine&mdash;Dorothy, Rickerl,
+Cecil, Betty Castlemaine&mdash;he even saw himself strolling up to
+them, gun under arm, while Sir Thorald waved his wine-cup and
+bantered him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He looked at the river. The green row-boat lay on the bank, keel
+up, shattered by a shell; the trees were covered with yellow,
+seared foliage that dropped continually into the water; the river
+itself was a canal of mud. And, as he looked, a dead man, face
+under water, sped past, caught on something, drifted, spun
+giddily in an eddy, washed to and fro, then floated on under the
+trees.</p>
+
+<p>"You will catch cold here in the rain," he said, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"You also, Jack."</p>
+
+<p>They walked a few steps towards the house, then stopped and
+looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"You are drenched," he said; "you must go to your room and lie
+down."</p>
+
+<p>"I will&mdash;if you wish," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>He drew her rain-cloak around her, buttoned the cape and high
+collar, and settled the hood on her head. She looked up under her
+pointed hood.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care so much for me?" she asked, listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you give me the right&mdash;always&mdash;forever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that&mdash;that you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have always loved you."</p>
+
+<p>Still she looked up at him from the shadow of her hood.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you, Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>One arm was around her now, and with the other hand he held both
+of hers.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke, her eyes on his.</p>
+
+<p>"I loved you once. I did not know it then. It was the first night
+there on the terrace&mdash;when they were dancing. I loved you
+again&mdash;after our quarrel, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>when you found me by the river. Again
+I loved you, when we were alone in the Ch&acirc;teau and you came to
+see me in the library."</p>
+
+<p>He drew her to him, but she resisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Now it is different," she said. "I do not love you&mdash;like that. I
+do not know what I feel; I do not care for that&mdash;for that love. I
+need something warmer, stronger, more kindly&mdash;something I never
+have had. My childhood is gone, Jack, and yet I am tortured with
+the craving for it; I want to be little again&mdash;I want to play
+with children&mdash;with young girls; I want to be tired with pleasure
+and go to bed with a mother bending over me. It is that&mdash;it is
+that that I need, Jack&mdash;a mother to hold me as you do. Oh, if you
+knew&mdash;if you knew! Beside my bed I feel about in the dark, half
+asleep, reaching out for the mother I never knew&mdash;the mother I
+need. I picture her; she is like my father, only she is always
+with me. I lie back and close my eyes and try to think that she
+is there in the dark&mdash;close&mdash;close. Her cheeks and hands are
+warm; I can never see her eyes, but I know they are like mine. I
+know, too, that she has always been with me&mdash;from the years that
+I have forgotten&mdash;always with me, watching me that I come to no
+harm&mdash;anxious for me, worrying because my head is hot or my hands
+cold. In my half-sleep I tell her things&mdash;little intimate things
+that she must know. We talk of everything&mdash;of papa, of the house,
+of my pony, of the woods and the Lisse. With her I have spoken of
+you often, Jack. And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell
+you, Jack. I can never love you like&mdash;like that, but I need you,
+and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>Be
+gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret.
+You are all I have."</p>
+
+<p>The intense grief in her face, the wide, childish eyes, the cold
+little hands tightening in his, all these touched the manhood in
+him, and he answered manfully, putting away from himself all that
+was weak or selfish, all that touched on love of man for woman:</p>
+
+<p>"Let me be all you ask," he said. "My love is of that kind,
+also."</p>
+
+<p>"My darling Jack," she murmured, putting both arms around his
+neck.</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her peacefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said. "Your shoes are soaking. I am going to take
+charge of you now."</p>
+
+<p>When they entered the house he took her straight to her room,
+drew up an arm-chair, lighted the fire, filled a foot-bath with
+hot water, and, calmly opening the wardrobe, pulled out a warm
+bath-robe. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he knelt and
+unbuttoned her shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, "I'll be back in five minutes. Let me find you
+sitting here, with your feet in that hot water."</p>
+
+<p>Before she could answer, he went out. A thrill of comfort passed
+through her; she drew the wet stockings over her feet, shivered,
+slipped out of skirt and waist, put on the warm, soft bath-robe,
+and, sinking back in the chair, placed both little white feet in
+the foot-bath.</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready, Jack," she called, softly.</p>
+
+<p>He came in with a tray of tea and toast and a bit of cold
+chicken. She followed his movement with tired, shy eyes,
+wondering at his knowledge of little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>things. They ate their
+luncheon together by the fire. Twice he gravely refilled the
+foot-bath with hotter water, and she settled back in her soft,
+warm chair, sighing contentment.</p>
+
+<p>After a while he lighted a cigarette and read to her&mdash;fairy tales
+from Perrault&mdash;legends that all children know&mdash;all children who
+have known mothers. Lorraine did not know them. At first she
+frowned a little, watching him dubiously, but little by little
+the music of the words and the fragrance of the sweet, vague
+tales crept into her heart, and she listened breathless to the
+stories, older than Egypt&mdash;stories that will outlast the last
+pyramid.</p>
+
+<p>Once he laid down his book and told her of the Prince of Argolis
+and &AElig;thra; of the sandals and sword, of Medea, and of the
+wreathed wine-cup. He told her, too, of the Isantee, and the
+legends of the gray gull, of Harpan and Chask&eacute;, and the white
+lodge of hope.</p>
+
+<p>She listened like a tired child, her wrist curved under her chin,
+the bath-robe close to her throat. While she listened she moved
+her feet gently in the hot water, nestling back with the thrill
+of the warmth that mounted to her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Then they were silent, their eyes on each other.</p>
+
+<p>Down-stairs some rain-soaked officer was playing on the piano old
+songs of Lorraine and Alsace. He tried to sing, too, but his
+voice broke, whether from emotion or hoarseness they could not
+tell. A moment or two later a dripping infantry band marched out
+to the conservatory and began to play. The dismal trombone
+vibrated like a fog-horn, the wet drums buzzed and clattered, the
+trumpets wailed with the rising <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>wind in the chimneys. They
+played for an hour, then stopped abruptly in the middle of
+"Partons pour la Syrie," and Jack and Lorraine heard them
+trampling away&mdash;slop, slop&mdash;across the gravel drive.</p>
+
+<p>The fire in the room made the air heavy, and he raised one window
+a little way, but the wet wind was rank with the odour of
+disinfectants and ether from the stable hospital, and he closed
+the window after a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I spent all the morning with the wounded," said Lorraine, from
+the depths of her chair. The child-like light in her eyes had
+gone; nothing but woman's sorrow remained in their gray-blue
+depths.</p>
+
+<p>Jack rose, picked up a big soft towel, and, deliberately lifting
+one of her feet from the water, rubbed it until it turned rosy.
+Then he rubbed the other, wrapped the bath-robe tightly about
+her, lifted her in his arms, threw back the bed-covers, and laid
+her there snug and warm.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She held up both arms with a divine smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay with me until I sleep," she murmured drowsily. Her eyes
+closed; one hand sought his.</p>
+
+<p>After a while she fell asleep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>LORRAINE AWAKES</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Lorraine had been asleep for an hour, Jack stole from the
+room and sought the old general who was in command of the park.
+He found him on the terrace, smoking and watching the woods
+through his field-glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said Jack, "my ward, Mademoiselle de Nesville, is
+asleep in her chamber. I must go to the forest yonder and try to
+find her father's body. I dare not leave her alone unless I may
+confide her to you."</p>
+
+<p>"My son," said the old man, "I accept the charge. Can you give me
+the next room?"</p>
+
+<p>"The next room is where our little Sister of Mercy died."</p>
+
+<p>"I have journeyed far with death&mdash;I am at home in death's
+chamber," said the old general. He followed Jack to the
+death-room, accompanied by his aide-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>"It will do," he said. Then, turning to an aid, "Place a sentry
+at the next door. When the lady awakes, call me."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Jack. He lingered a moment and then continued:
+"If I am shot in the woods&mdash;if I don't return&mdash;General Chanzy
+will take charge of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>Mademoiselle de Nesville, for my uncle's
+sake. They are sword-brothers."</p>
+
+<p>"I accept the responsibility," said the old general, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>They bowed to each other, and Jack went out and down the stairs
+to the lawn. For a moment he looked up into the sky, trying to
+remember where the balloon might have been when Von Steyr's
+explosive bullet set it on fire. Then he trudged on into the
+wood-road, buckling his revolver-case under his arm and adjusting
+the cross-strap of his field-glasses.</p>
+
+<p>Once in the forest he breathed more freely. There was an odour of
+rotting leaves in the wet air; the branches quivered and dripped,
+and the tree-trunks, moist and black, exhaled a rank aroma of
+lichens and rain-soaked moss.</p>
+
+<p>Along the park wall, across the Lisse, sentinels stood in the rain,
+peering out of their caped overcoats or rambling along the river-bank.
+A spiritless challenge or two halted him for a few moments, but he
+gave the word and passed on. Once or twice squads met him and passed
+with the relief, sick boyish soldiers, crusted with mud. Twice he met
+groups of roving, restless-eyed franc-tireurs in straight caps and
+sheepskin jackets, but they did not molest him nor even question him
+beyond asking the time of day.</p>
+
+<p>And now he passed the carrefour where he and Lorraine had first
+met. Its only tenant was a sentinel, yellow with jaundice, who
+seized his chassepot with shaking hands and called a shrill "Qui
+Vive?"</p>
+
+<p>From the carrefour Jack turned to the left straight into the
+heart of the forest. He risked losing his way; he risked more
+than that, too, for a shot from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>sentry or franc-tireur was not
+improbable, and, more-over, nobody knew whether Uhlans were in
+the woods or not.</p>
+
+<p>As he advanced the forest growth became thicker; underbrush, long
+uncut, rose higher than his head. Over logs and brush tangles he
+pressed, down into soft, boggy gullys deep with dead leaves,
+across rapid, dark brooks, threads of the river Lisse, over stony
+ledges, stumps, windfalls, and on towards the break in the trees
+from which, on clear days, one could see the turret-spire of the
+Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville. When he reached this point he looked in vain
+for the turret; the rain hid it. Still, he could judge fairly
+well in which direction it lay, and he knew that the distance was
+half a mile.</p>
+
+<p>"The balloon dropped near here," he muttered, and started in a
+circle, taking a gigantic beech-tree as the centre mark.
+Gradually he widened his circuit, stumbling on over the slippery
+leaves, keeping a wary eye out for the thing on the ground that
+he sought.</p>
+
+<p>He had seen no game in the forest, and wondered a little. Once or
+twice he fancied that he heard some animal moving near, but when
+he listened all was quiet, save for the hoarse calling of a raven
+in some near tree. Suddenly he saw the raven, and at the same
+moment it rose, croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket
+floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They
+were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the
+rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and
+sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above
+his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay
+there in the thicket. And he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>right; but when he saw the
+thing he covered his eyes with both hands and his heart rose in
+his throat. At last he stepped forward and looked into the vacant
+eye-sockets of a skull from which shreds of a long beard still
+hung, wet and straggling.</p>
+
+<p>It lay under the washed-out roots of a fir-tree, the bare ribs
+staring through the torn clothing, the fleshless hands clasped
+about a steel box.</p>
+
+<p>How he brought himself to get the box from that cage of bones he
+never knew. At last he had it, and stepped back, the sweat
+starting from every pore. But his work was not finished. What the
+ravens and wolves had left of the thing he pushed with sticks
+into a hollow, and painfully covered it with forest mould. Over
+this he pulled great lumps of muddy clay, trampling them down
+firmly, until at last the dead lay underground and a heap of
+stones marked the sepulchre.</p>
+
+<p>The ravens had alighted in the tree-tops around the spot,
+watching him gravely, croaking and sidling away when he moved
+with abruptness. Looking up into the tree-tops he saw some shreds
+of stuff clinging to the branches, perhaps tatters from the
+balloon or the dead man's clothing. Near him on the ground lay a
+charred heap that was once the wicker car of the balloon. This he
+scattered with a stick, laid a covering of green moss on the
+mound, placed two sticks crosswise at the head, took off his cap,
+then went his way, the steel box buttoned securely in his breast.
+As he walked on through the forest, a wolf fled from the
+darkening undergrowth, hesitated, turned, cringing half boldly,
+half sullenly, watching him with changeless, incandescent eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Darkness was creeping into the forest when he came out on the
+wood-road. He had a mile and a half before him without lantern or
+starlight, and he hastened forward through the mire, which seemed
+to pull him back at every step. It astonished him that he
+received no challenge in the twilight; he peered across the
+river, but saw no sentinels moving. The stillness was profound,
+save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet
+branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep
+his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of
+the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the
+whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer
+it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it
+passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp
+report, and the steel fragments hurtled through the naked trees.</p>
+
+<p>He was running now; he knew the Prussian guns had opened on the
+Ch&acirc;teau again, and the thought of Lorraine in the tempest of iron
+terrified him. And now the shells were streaming into the woods,
+falling like burning stars from the heavens, bursting over the
+tree-tops; the racket of tearing, splintering limbs was in his
+ears, the dull shock of a shell exploding in the mud, the splash
+of fragments in the river. Behind him a red flare, ever growing,
+wavering, bursting into crimson radiance, told him that the
+Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville was ablaze. The black, trembling shadows cast
+by the trees grew blacker and steadier in the fiery light; the
+muddy road sprang into view under his feet; the river ran
+vermilion. Another light grew in the southern sky, faint yet, but
+growing surely. He ran swiftly, spurred and lashed by fear, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>for
+this time it was the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn that sent a column of sparks
+above the trees, higher, higher, under a pall of reddening smoke.</p>
+
+<p>At last he stumbled into the garden, where a mass of plunging
+horses tugged and strained at their harnessed guns and caissons.
+Muddy soldiers put their ragged shoulders to the gun-wheels and
+pushed; teamsters cursed and lashed their horses; officers rode
+through the throng, shouting. A squad of infantry began a
+fusillade from the wall; other squads fired from the lawn, where
+the rear of a long column in retreat stretched across the gardens
+and out into the road.</p>
+
+<p>As Jack ran up the terrace steps the gatling began to whir like a
+watchman's rattle; needle-pointed flames pricked the darkness
+from hedge and wall, where a dark line swayed to and fro under
+the smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Up the stairs he sped, and flung open the door of the bedroom.
+Lorraine stood in the middle of the room, looking out into the
+darkness. She turned at the sound of the opening door:</p>
+
+<p>"Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry!" he gasped; "this time they mean business. Where is your
+sentinel? Where is the general? Hurry, my child&mdash;dress quickly!"</p>
+
+<p>He went out to the hall again, and looked up and down. On the
+floor below he heard somebody say that the general was dead, and
+he hurried down among a knot of officers who were clustered at
+the windows, night-glasses levelled on the forest. As he entered
+the room a lieutenant fell dead and a shower of bullets struck
+the coping outside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He hastened away up-stairs again. Lorraine, in cloak and hat, met
+him at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep away from all windows," he said. "Are you ready?"</p>
+
+<p>She placed her arm in his, and he led her down the stairs to the
+rear of the Ch&acirc;teau.</p>
+
+<p>"Have they gone&mdash;our soldiers?" faltered Lorraine. "Is it defeat?
+Jack, answer me!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are holding the Ch&acirc;teau to protect the retreat, I think.
+Hark! The gatling is roaring like a furnace! What has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. The old general came to speak to me when I awoke.
+He was very good and kind. Then suddenly the sentinel on the
+stairs fell down and we ran out. He was dead; a bullet had
+entered from the window at the end of the hall. After that I went
+into my room to dress, and the general hurried down-stairs,
+telling me to wait until he called for me. He did not come back;
+the firing began, and some shells hit the house. All the troops
+in the garden began to leave, and I did not know what to do, so I
+waited for you."</p>
+
+<p>Jack glanced right and left. The artillery were leaving by the
+stable road; from every side the infantry streamed past across
+the lawn, running when they came to the garden, where a shower of
+bullets fell among the shrubbery. A captain hastening towards the
+terrace looked at them in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" cried Jack. "Can't you hold the Ch&acirc;teau?"</p>
+
+<p>"The other Ch&acirc;teau has been carried," said the captain. "They are
+taking us on the left flank. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>Madame," he added, "should go at
+once; this place will be untenable in a few moments."</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine spoke breathlessly: "Are you to hold the Ch&acirc;teau with
+the gatling until the army is safe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madame," said the captain. "We are obliged to."</p>
+
+<p>There came a sudden lull in the firing. Lorraine caught Jack's
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," cried Jack, "we've got to go now!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay!" she said; "I know my work is here!"</p>
+
+<p>The German rifle-flames began to sparkle and flicker along the
+river-bank; a bullet rang out against the granite fa&ccedil;ade behind
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" he cried, sharply, but she slipped from him and ran
+towards the house.</p>
+
+<p>Drums were beating somewhere in the distant forest&mdash;shrill,
+treble drums&mdash;and from every hill-side the hollow, harsh Prussian
+trumpets spoke. Then came a sound, deep, menacing&mdash;a far cry:</p>
+
+<p>"Hourra! Preussen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you cheer?" faltered Lorraine, mounting the terrace.
+The artillerymen looked at her in surprise. Jack caught her arm;
+she shook him off impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer!" she cried again. "Is France dumb?" She raised her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Vive la France!" shouted the artillerymen, catching her ardour.
+"Vive la Patrie! Vive Lorraine!"</p>
+
+<p>Again the short, barking, Prussian cheer sounded, and again the
+artillerymen answered it, cheer on cheer, for France, for the
+Land, for the Province of Lorraine. Up in the windows of the
+Ch&acirc;teau the line <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>soldiers were cheering, too; the engineers on
+the roof, stamping out the sparks and flames, swung their caps
+and echoed the shouts from terrace and window.</p>
+
+<p>In the sudden silence that followed they caught the vibration of
+hundreds of hoofs&mdash;there came a rush, a shout:</p>
+
+<p>"Hourra! Preussen! Hourra! Hourra!" and into the lawn dashed the
+German cavalry, banging away with carbine and revolver. At the
+same moment, over the park walls swarmed the Bavarians in a
+forest of bayonets. The Ch&acirc;teau vomited flame from every window;
+the gatling, pulled back into the front door, roared out in a
+hundred streaks of fire. Jack dragged Lorraine to the first
+floor; she was terribly excited. Almost at once she knelt down
+and began to load rifles, passing them to Jack, who passed them
+to the soldiers at the windows. Once, when a whole window was
+torn in and the mattress on fire, she quenched the flames with
+water from her pitcher; and when the soldiers hesitated at the
+breach, she started herself, but Jack held her back and led the
+cheering, and piled more mattresses into the shattered window.</p>
+
+<p>Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house,
+hammering with rifle-butts at the closed shutters, crouching,
+dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into
+the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres
+in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and
+galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly they all gave way; the garden and lawns were emptied
+save for the writhing wounded and motionless dead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Cheer!" gasped Lorraine; and the battered Ch&acirc;teau rang again
+with frenzied cries of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>The wounded were calling for water, and Jack and Lorraine brought
+it in bowls. Here and there the bedding and wood-work had caught
+fire, but the line soldiers knocked it out with their rifle-butts.
+Whenever Lorraine entered a room they cheered her&mdash;the young
+officers waved their caps, even a dying bugler raised himself and
+feebly sounded the salute to the colours.</p>
+
+<p>By the light of the candles Jack noticed for the first time that
+Lorraine wore the dress of the Province&mdash;that costume that he had
+first seen her in&mdash;the scarlet skirt, the velvet bodice, the
+chains of silver. And as she stood loading the rifles in the
+smoke-choked room, the soldiers saw more than that: they saw the
+Province itself in battle there&mdash;the Province of Lorraine. And
+they cheered and leaped to the windows, firing frenziedly, crying
+the old battle-cry of Lorraine: "Tiens ta Foy! Frappe! Pour le
+Roy!" while the child in the bodice and scarlet skirt stood up
+straight and snapped back the locks of the loaded chassepots, one
+by one.</p>
+
+<p>"Once again! For France!" cried Lorraine, as the clamour of the
+Prussian drums broke out on the hill-side, and the hoarse
+trumpets signalled from wood to wood.</p>
+
+<p>A thundering cry arose from the Ch&acirc;teau:</p>
+
+<p>"France!"</p>
+
+<p>The sullen boom of a Prussian cannon drowned it; the house shook
+with the impact of a shell, bursting in fury on the terrace.</p>
+
+<p>White faces turned to faces whiter still.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Cannon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on! For France!" cried Lorraine, feverishly.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannon!" echoed the voices, one to another.</p>
+
+<p>Again the solid walls shook with the shock of a solid shot.</p>
+
+<p>Jack stuffed the steel box into his breast and turned to
+Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"It is ended, we cannot stay&mdash;" he began; but at that instant
+something struck him a violent blow on the chest, and he fell,
+striking the floor with his head.</p>
+
+<p>In a second Lorraine was at his side, lifting him with all the
+strength of her arms, calling to him: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers were leaving the windows now; the house rocked and
+tottered under the blows of shell and solid shot. Down-stairs an
+officer cried: "Save yourselves!" There was a hurry of feet
+through the halls and on the stairs. A young soldier touched
+Lorraine timidly on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him to me; I will carry him down," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She clung to Jack and turned a blank gaze on the soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him to me," he repeated; "the house is burning." But she
+would not move nor relinquish her hold. Then the soldier seized
+Jack and threw him over his shoulder, running swiftly down the
+stairs, that rocked under his feet. Lorraine cried out and
+followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and
+thunder of the exploding shells dazed and stunned her; but the
+soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she
+followed, stumbling to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"To the trees&mdash;yonder&mdash;the forest&mdash;" he gasped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man
+by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against
+a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes
+closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>PRINCESS IMPERIAL</h3>
+
+
+<p>The glare from the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn, now wrapped in torrents of
+curling flame, threw long crimson shafts of light far into the
+forest. The sombre trees glimmered like live cinders; the wet
+moss crisped and bronzed as the red radiance played through the
+thickets. The bright, wavering fire-glow fell full on Jack's
+body; his face was hidden in the shadow of Lorraine's hair.</p>
+
+<p>Twice the timid young soldier drew her away, but she crept back,
+murmuring Jack's name; and at last the soldier seized the body in
+both arms and stumbled on again, calling Lorraine to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little the illumination faded out among the trees; the
+black woods crowded in on every side; the noise of the crackling
+flames, the shouting, the brazen rattle of drums grew fainter and
+fainter, and finally died out in the soft, thick blackness of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>When they halted the young soldier placed Jack on the moss, then
+held out his hands. Lorraine touched them. He guided her to the
+prostrate figure; she flung herself face down beside it.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment the soldier touched her again timidly on the
+shoulder:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Have I done well?"</p>
+
+<p>She sobbed her thanks, rising to her knees. The soldier, a boy of
+eighteen, straightened up; he noiselessly laid his knapsack and
+haversack on the ground, trembled, swayed, and sat down,
+muttering vaguely of God and the honour of France. Presently he
+went away, lurching in the darkness like a drunken man&mdash;on, on,
+deep into the forest, where nothing of light or sound penetrated.
+And when he could no longer stand he sat down, his young head in
+his hands, and waited. His body had been shot through and
+through. About midnight he died.</p>
+
+<p>When Jack came to his senses the gray mystery of dawn was passing
+through the silent forest aisles; the beeches, pallid, stark,
+loomed motionless on every side; the pale veil of sky-fog hung
+festooned from tree to tree. There was a sense of breathless
+waiting in the shadowy woods&mdash;no sound, no stir, nothing of life
+or palpitation&mdash;nothing but foreboding.</p>
+
+<p>Jack crawled to his knees; his chest ached, his mouth cracked
+with a terrible throbbing thirst. Dazed as yet, he did not even
+look around; he did not try to think; but that weight on his
+chest grew to a burning agony, and he tore at his coat and threw
+it open. The flat steel box, pierced by a bullet, fell on the
+ground before his knees. Then he remembered. He ripped open
+waistcoat and shirt and stared at his bare breast. It was
+discoloured&mdash;a mass of bruises, but there was no blood there. He
+looked listlessly at the box on the leaves under him, and touched
+his bruised body. Suddenly his mind grew clearer; he stumbled up,
+steadying himself against a tree. His lips moved "Lorraine!" but
+no sound came. Again, in terror, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>he tried to cry out. He could
+not speak. Then he saw her. She lay among the dead leaves, face
+downward in the moss.</p>
+
+<p>When at last he understood that she was alive he lay down beside
+her, one arm across her body, and sank into a profound sleep.</p>
+
+<p>She woke first. A burning thirst set her weeping in her sleep and
+then roused her. Tear-stained and ghastly pale, she leaned over
+the sleeping man beside her, listened to his breathing, touched
+his hair, then rose and looked fearfully about her. On the
+knapsack under the tree a tin cup was shining. She took it and
+crept down into a gulley, where, through the deep layers of dead
+leaves, water sparkled in a string of tiny iridescent puddles.
+The water, however, was sweet and cold, and, when she had
+satisfied her thirst and had dug into the black loam with the
+edge of the cup, more water, sparkling and pure, gushed up and
+spread out in the miniature basin. She waited for the mud and
+leaves to settle, and when the basin was clear she unbound her
+hair, loosened her bodice, and slipped it off. When she had
+rolled the wide, full sleeves of her chemise to the shoulder she
+bathed her face and breast and arms; they glistened like marble
+tinged with rose in the pale forest dawn. The little scrupulous
+ablutions finished, she dried her face on the fine cambric of the
+under-sleeve, she dried her little ears, her brightening eyes,
+the pink palms of her hand, and every polished finger separately
+from the delicate flushed tip to the wrist, blue-veined and
+slender. She shook out her heavy hair, heavy and gleaming with
+burnished threads, and bound it tighter. She mended the broken
+points of her bodice, then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>laced it firmly till it pressed and
+warmed her fragrant breast. Then she rose.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing of fear or sorrow in her splendid eyes; her
+mouth was moist and scarlet, her curved cheeks pure as a child's.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she stood pensive, her face now grave, now
+sensitive, now touched with that mysterious exaltation that glows
+through the histories of the saints, that shines from tapestries,
+that hides in the dim faces carved on shrines.</p>
+
+<p>For the world was trembling and the land cried out under the
+scourge, and she was ready now for what must be. The land would
+call her where she was awaited; the time, the hour, the place had
+been decreed. She was ready&mdash;and where was the bitterness of
+death, when she could face it with the man she loved.</p>
+
+<p>Loved? At the thought her knees trembled under her with the
+weight of this love; faint with its mystery and sweetness, her
+soul turned in its innocence to God. And for the first time in
+her child's life she understood that God lived.</p>
+
+<p>She understood now that the sadness of life was gone forever.
+There was no loneliness now for soul or heart; nothing to fear,
+nothing to regret. Her life was complete. Death seemed an
+incident. If it came to her or to the man she loved, they would
+wait for one another a little while&mdash;that was all.</p>
+
+<p>A pale sunbeam stole across the tree-tops. She looked up. A
+little bird sang, head tilted towards the blue. She moved softly
+up the slope, her hair glistening in the early sun, her blue eyes
+dreaming; and when she came to the sleeping man she bent beside
+him and held a cup of sweet water to his lips.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>About noon they spoke of hunger, timidly, lest either might think
+the other complained. Her head close against his, her warm arms
+tight around his neck, she told him of the boy soldier, the
+dreadful journey in the night, the terror, and the awakening. She
+told him of the birth of her love for him&mdash;how death no longer
+was to be feared or sought. She told him there was nothing to
+alarm him, nothing to make them despair. Sin could not touch
+them; death was God's own gift.</p>
+
+<p>He listened, too happy to even try to understand. Perhaps he
+could not, being only a young man in love. But he knew that all
+she said must be true, perhaps too true for him to comprehend. He
+was satisfied; his life was complete. Something of the contentment
+of a school-boy exhausted with play lingered in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>They had spoken of the box; she had taken it reverently in her
+hands and touched the broken key, snapped off short in the lock.
+Inside, the Prussian bullet rattled as she turned the box over
+and over, her eyes dim with love for the man who had done all for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Jack found a loaf of bread in the knapsack. It was hard and dry,
+but they soaked it in the leaf-covered spring and ate it
+deliciously, cheek against cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little their plans took shape. They were to go&mdash;Heaven
+knows how!&mdash;to find the Emperor. Into his hands they would give
+the box with its secrets, then turn again, always together, ready
+for their work, wherever it might be.</p>
+
+<p>Towards mid-afternoon Lorraine grew drowsy. There was a summer
+warmth in the air; the little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>forest birds came to the spring
+and preened their feathers in the pale sunshine. Two cicadas,
+high in the tree-tops, droned an endless harmony; hemlock cones
+dropped at intervals on the dead leaves.</p>
+
+<p>When Lorraine lay asleep, her curly head on Jack's folded coat,
+her hands clasped under her cheek, Jack leaned back against the
+tree and picked up the box. He turned it softly, so that the
+bullet within should not rattle. After a moment he opened his
+penknife and touched the broken fragment of the key in the lock.
+Idly turning the knife-blade this way and that, but noiselessly,
+for fear of troubling Lorraine, he thought of the past, the
+present, and the future. Sir Thorald lay dead on the hillock
+above the river Lisse; Alixe slept beside him; Rickerl was
+somewhere in the country, riding with his Uhlan scourges; Molly
+Hesketh waited in Paris for her dead husband; the Marquis de
+Nesville's bones were lying in the forest where he now sat,
+watching the sleeping child of the dead man. His child? Jack
+looked at her tenderly. No, not the child of the Marquis de
+Nesville, but a foundling, a lost waif in the Lorraine Hills,
+perhaps a child of chance. What of it? She would never know. The
+Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville was a smouldering mass of fire; the lands
+could revert to the country; she should never again need them,
+never again see them, for he would take her to his own land when
+trouble of war had passed, and there she should forget pain and
+sorrow and her desolate, loveless childhood; she should only
+remember that in the Province of Lorraine she had met the man she
+loved. All else should be a memory of green trees and vineyards
+and rivers, growing vaguer and dimmer as the healing years passed
+on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The knife-blade in the box bent, sprang back&mdash;the box flew open.</p>
+
+<p>He did not realize it at first; he looked at the three folded
+papers lying within, curiously, indolently. Presently he took
+them and looked at the superscriptions written on the back, in
+the handwriting of the marquis. The three papers were inscribed
+as follows:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"1. For the French Government after the fall of the Empire.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"2. For the French Government on the death of Louis Bonaparte, falsely called Emperor."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"3. To whom it may concern!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"To whom it may concern!" he repeated, looking at the third
+paper. Presently he opened it and read it, and as he read his
+heart seemed to cease its beating.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN</i>!</p>
+
+<p>"Grief has unsettled my mind, yet, what I now write is
+true, and, if there is a God, I solemnly call His curses
+on me and mine if I lie.</p>
+
+<p>"My only son, Ren&eacute; Philip d'Harcourt de Nesville, was
+assassinated on the Grand Boulevard in Paris, on the 2d
+of December, 1851. His assassin was a monster named
+Louis Bonaparte, now known falsely as Napoleon III.,
+Emperor of the French. His paid murderers shot my boy
+down, and stabbed him to death with their bayonets, in
+front of the Caf&eacute; Tortoni. I carried his body home; I
+sat at the window, with my dead boy on my knees, and I
+saw Louis Bonaparte ride into the Rue St. Honor&eacute; with
+his murderous Lancers, and I saw children spit at him
+and hurl curses at him from the barricade.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I, Gilbert, Marquis de Nesville, swore to strike.
+And I struck, not at his life&mdash;that can wait. I struck
+at the root of all his pride and honour&mdash;I struck at
+that which he held dearer than these&mdash;at his dynasty!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do the people of France remember when the Empress was
+first declared enciente? The cannon thundered from the
+orangerie at Saint-Cloud, the dome of the Invalides
+blazed rockets, the city glittered under a canopy of
+coloured fire. Oh, they were very careful of the Empress
+of the French! They went to Saint-Cloud, and later to
+Versailles, as they go to holy cities, praying. And the
+Emperor himself grew younger, they said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then came the news that the expected heir, a son, had
+been born dead! Lies!</p>
+
+<p>"I, Gilbert de Nesville, was in the forest when the
+Empress of the French fell ill. When separated from the
+others she called to Morny, and bade him drive for the
+love of Heaven! And they drove&mdash;they drove to the
+Trianon, and there was no one there. And there the child
+was born. Morny held it in his arms. He came out to the
+colonnade holding it in his arms, and calling for a
+messenger. I came, and when I was close to Morny I
+struck him in the face and he fell senseless. I took the
+child and wrapped it in my cloak. This is the truth!</p>
+
+<p>"They dared not tell it; they dared not, for fear and
+for shame. They said that an heir had been born dead;
+and they mourned for their dead son. It was only a
+daughter. She is alive; she loves me, and, God forgive
+me, I hate her for defeating my just vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>"And I call her Lorraine de Nesville."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SHADOW OF POMP</h3>
+
+
+<p>The long evening shadows were lengthening among the trees; sleepy
+birds twitted in dusky thickets; Lorraine slept.</p>
+
+<p>Jack still stood staring at the paper in his hands, trying to
+understand the purport of what he read and reread, until the page
+became a blur and his hot eyes burned.</p>
+
+<p>All the significance of the situation rose before him. This
+child, the daughter of the oath-breaker, the butcher of December,
+the sly, slow diplomate of Europe, the man of Rome, of Mexico,
+the man now reeling back to Ch&acirc;lons under the iron blows of an
+aroused people. In Paris, already, they cursed his name; they
+hurled insults at the poor Empress, that mother in despair.
+Thiers, putting his senile fingers in the porridge, stirred a
+ferment that had not even germinated since the guillotine towered
+in the Place de la Concorde and the tumbrils rattled through the
+streets. He did not know what he was stirring. The same impulse
+that possessed Gladstone to devastate trees animated Thiers. He
+stirred the dangerous mess because he liked to stir, nothing
+more. But from that hell's broth the crimson spectre of the
+Commune was to rise, when the smoke of Sedan had drifted clear of
+a mutilated nation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Through the heavy clouds of death which were already girdling
+Paris, that flabby Cyclops, Gambetta, was to mouth his monstrous
+platitudes, and brood over the battle-smoke, a nightmare of
+pomposity and fanfaronade&mdash;in a balloon. All France was bowed
+down in shame at the sight of the grotesque convoy, who were
+proclaiming her destiny among nations, and their destiny to lead
+her to victory and "la gloire." A scorched, blood-soaked land, a
+pall of smoke through which brave men bared their breasts to the
+blast from the Rhine, and died uncomplainingly, willingly,
+cheerfully, for the mother-land&mdash;was it not pitiful?</p>
+
+<p>The sublime martyrdom of the men who marched, who shall write it?
+And who shall write of those others&mdash;Bazaine, Napoleon, Thiers,
+Gambetta, Favre, Ollivier?</p>
+
+<p>If Bazaine died, cursed by a nation, his martyrdom, for martyrdom
+it was, was no greater than that of the humblest French peasant,
+who, dying, knew at last that he died, not for France, but
+because the men who sent him were worse than criminal&mdash;they were
+imbecile.</p>
+
+<p>The men who marched were sublime; they were the incarnation of
+embattled France; the starving people of Metz, of Strassbourg, of
+Paris, were sublime. But there was nothing sublime about Monsieur
+Adolphe Thiers, nothing heroic about Hugo, nothing respectable
+about Gambetta. The marshal with the fat neck and Spanish
+affiliations, the poor confused, inert, over-fed marshal caged in
+Metz by the Red Prince, harassed, bewildered, stunned by the
+clashing of politics and military strategy, which his meagre
+brain was unable to reconcile or separate&mdash;this unfortunate
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>incapable was deserving of pity, perhaps of contempt. His cup
+was to be bitterer than that&mdash;it was to be drained, too, with the
+shouts of "Traitor" stunning his fleshy ears.</p>
+
+<p>He was no traitor. Cannot France understand that this single word
+"traitor" has brought her to contempt in the eyes of the world?
+There are two words that mar every glorious, sublime page of the
+terrible history of 1870-71, and these two words are "treason"
+and "revenge." Let the nation face the truth, let the people
+write "incapacity" for "treason," and "honour" for "revenge," and
+then the abused term "la gloire" will be justified in the eyes of
+men.</p>
+
+<p>As for Thiers, let men judge him from his three revolutions, let
+the unknown dead in the ditches beyond the enceinte judge him,
+let the spectres of the murdered from P&egrave;re Lachaise to the
+bullet-pitted terrace of the Luxembourg judge this meddler, this
+potterer in epoch-making cataclysms. Bismarck, gray, imbittered,
+without honour in an unenlightened court, can still smile when he
+remembers Jules Favre and his prayer for the National Guard.</p>
+
+<p>And these were the men who formed the convoy around the chariot
+of France militant, France in arms!&mdash;a cort&egrave;ge at once hideous,
+shameful, ridiculous, grotesque.</p>
+
+<p>What was left of the Empire? Metz still held out; Strassbourg
+trembled under the shock of Prussian mortars; Paris strained its
+eyes for the first silhouette of the Uhlan on the heights of
+Versailles; and through the chill of the dying year the sombre
+Emperor, hunted, driven, threatened, tumbled into the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>snare of
+Sedan as a sick buzzard flutters exhausted to earth under a
+shower of clubs and stones.</p>
+
+<p>The end was to be brutal: a charge or two of devoted men, a crush
+at the narrow gates, a white flag, a brusque gesture from
+Bismarck, nothing more except a "guard of honour," an imperial
+special train, and Belgian newsboys shrieking along the station
+platform, "Extra! Fall of the Empire! Paris proclaims the
+Republic! Flight of the Empress! Extra!"</p>
+
+<p>Jack, sitting with the paper in his hands, read between the
+lines, and knew that the prophecy of evil days would be
+fulfilled. But as yet the writing on the wall of Alsatian hills
+had not spelled "Sedan," nor did he know of the shambles of
+Mars-la-Tour, the bloody work at Buzancy, the retreat from
+Ch&acirc;lons, and the evacuation of Vitry.</p>
+
+<p>Buzancy marked the beginning of the end. It was nothing but a
+skirmish; the 3d Saxon Cavalry, a squadron or two of the 18th
+Uhlans, and Zwinker's Battery fought a half-dozen squadrons of
+chasseurs. But the red-letter mark on the result was unmistakable.
+Bazaine's correspondence was captured. On the same day the second
+sortie occurred from Strassbourg. It was time, for the trenches
+and parallels had been pushed within six hundred paces of the
+glacis. And so it was everywhere, the whole country was in a
+ferment of disorganized but desperate resistance of astonishment,
+indignation, dismay.</p>
+
+<p>The nation could not realize that it was too late, that it was
+not conquest but invasion which the armies of France must prepare
+for. Blow after blow fell, disaster after disaster stunned the
+country, while the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>government studied new and effective forms of
+lying and evasion, and the hunted Emperor drifted on to his doom
+in the pitfall of Sedan.</p>
+
+<p>All Alsace except Belfort, Strassbourg, Schlettstadt, and Neuf
+Brisac was in German hands, under German power, governed by
+German law. The Uhlans scoured the country as clean as possible,
+but the franc-tireurs roamed from forest to forest, sometimes
+gallantly facing martyrdom, sometimes looting, burning,
+pillaging, and murdering. If Germans maintain that the only good
+franc-tireur is a dead franc-tireur, they are not always
+justified. Let them sit first in judgment on Andreas Hofer.
+England had Hereward; America, Harry Lee; and, when the South is
+ready to acknowledge Mosby and Quantrell of the same feather, it
+will be time for France to blush for her franc-tireurs. Noble and
+ignoble, patriots and cowards, the justified and the misguided
+wore the straight k&eacute;pi and the sheepskin jacket. All figs in
+Spain are not poisoned.</p>
+
+<p>With the fall of the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn, the war in Lorraine would
+degenerate into a combat between picquets of Uhlans and roving
+franc-tireurs. There would be executions of spies, vengeance on
+peasants, examples made of franc-tireurs, and all the horrors of
+irregular warfare. Jack knew this; he understood it perfectly
+when the muddy French infantry tramped out of the Ch&acirc;teau Morteyn
+and vanished among the dark hills in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>For himself, had he been alone, there would have been nothing to
+keep him in the devastated province. Indeed, considering his
+peculiarly strained relations with the Uhlans of Rickerl's
+regiment, it behooved <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>him to get across the Belgian frontier
+very promptly.</p>
+
+<p>Now he not only had Lorraine, he had the woman who loved him and
+who was ready to sacrifice herself and him too for the honour of
+France. She lived for one thing&mdash;the box, with its pitiful
+contents, its secrets of a&euml;rial navigation and destruction, must
+be placed at the service of France. The government was France
+now, and the Empress was the government. Lorraine knew nothing of
+the reasons her father had had for his hatred of the Emperor and
+the Empire. Personal grievances, even when those grievances were
+her father's, even though they might be justified, would never
+deter her from placing the secrets that might aid, might save,
+France with the man who, at that moment, in her eyes, represented
+the safety, security, the very existence of the land she loved.</p>
+
+<p>Jack knew this. Whether she was right or not did not occur to him
+to ask. But the irony of it, the grim necessity of such a fate,
+staggered him&mdash;a daughter seeking her father at the verge of his
+ruin&mdash;a child, long lost, forgotten, unrecognized, unclaimed,
+finding the blind path to a father who, when she had been torn
+from him, dared not seek for her, dared not whisper of her
+existence except to Morny in the cloaked shadows of secret
+places.</p>
+
+<p>For good or ill Jack made up his mind; he had decided for himself
+and for her. Her loveless, lonely childhood had been enough of
+sorrow for one young life; she should have no further storm, no
+more heartaches, nothing but peace and love and the strong arm of
+a man to shield her. Let her remember the only father she had
+ever known&mdash;let her remember <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>him with faithful love and sorrow
+as she would. For the wrong he had done, let him account to
+another tribunal; her, the echo of that crime and hate and
+passion must never reach.</p>
+
+<p>Why should he, the man who loved her, bring to her this heritage
+of ruin? Why should he tear the veil from her trusting eyes and
+show her a land bought with blood and broken oaths, sold in blood
+and infamy? Why should he show her this, and say, "This is the
+work of your imperial family! There is your father!&mdash;some call
+him the Assassin of December! There is your mother!&mdash;read the
+pages of an Eastern diary! There, too, is your brother, a sick
+child of fifteen, baptized at Saarbr&uuml;ck, endowed at Sedan?"</p>
+
+<p>It was enough that France lay prostrate, that the wounded
+screamed from the blood-wet fields, that the quiet dead lay under
+the pall of smoke from the nation's funeral pyre. It was enough
+that the parents suffer, that the son drag out an existence among
+indifferent or hostile people in an alien land. The daughter
+should never know, never weep when they wept, never pray when
+they prayed. This was retribution&mdash;not his, he only watched in
+silence the working of divine justice.</p>
+
+<p>He tore the paper into fragments and ground them under his heel
+deep into the soft forest mould.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine slept.</p>
+
+<p>He stood a long while in silence looking down at her. She was
+breathing quietly, regularly; her long, curling lashes rested on
+curved cheeks, delicate as an infant's.</p>
+
+<p>Half fearfully he stooped to arouse her. A footfall sounded on
+the dead leaves behind him, and a franc-tireur touched him on the
+shoulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>&Ccedil;A IRA!</h3>
+
+
+<p>"What do you want?" asked Jack, in a voice that vibrated
+unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips
+grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped
+from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the
+subdued afternoon haze&mdash;wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless
+sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and
+trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him
+without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering their
+gunlocks, bayoneted rifles unslung.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name?" said the man who had touched him on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>He did not reply at once. One of the men began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the vicomte's nephew," said another; and, pointing at
+Lorraine, who, now aroused, sat up on the moss beside Jack, he
+continued: "And that is the little ch&acirc;telaine of the Ch&acirc;teau de
+Nesville." He took off his straight-visored cap.</p>
+
+<p>The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine
+stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were
+doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she
+said. "Oh, and there is le P&egrave;re Passerat, and little &Eacute;mile Brun!
+&Eacute;mile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?" The dark
+faces lighted up; somebody snickered; Brun, the conscript of the
+class of '71 who had been hauled by the heels from under his
+mother's bed, looked confused and twiddled his thumbs.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the franc-tireurs came shambling up to pay their
+awkward respects to Lorraine and to Jack, while Tricasse pulled
+his bristling mustache and clattered his sabre in its sheath
+approvingly. When his men had acquitted themselves with all the
+awkward sincerity of Lorraine peasants, he advanced with a superb
+bow and flourish, lifting his cap from his gray head:</p>
+
+<p>"In my quality of ex-pompier and commandant of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn'&mdash;my battalion"&mdash;here he made a sweeping gesture as
+though briefly reviewing an army corps instead of a dozen
+wolfish-eyed peasants&mdash;"I extend to our honoured and beloved
+Ch&acirc;telaine de Nesville, and to our honoured guest, Monsieur
+Marche, the protection and safe-conduct of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn.'"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke his expression became exalted. He, Tricasse,
+ex-pompier and exempt, was posing as the saviour of his province,
+and he felt that, though German armies stretched in endless ranks
+from the Loire to the Meuse, he, Tricasse, was the man of
+destiny, the man of the place and the hour when beauty was in
+distress.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine, her eyes dim with gentle tears, held out both slender
+hands; Tricasse bent low and touched <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>them with his grizzled
+mustache. Then he straightened up, frowned at his men, and said
+"Attention!" in a very fierce voice.</p>
+
+<p>The half-starved fellows shuffled into a single rank; their faces
+were wreathed in sheepish smiles. Jack noticed that a Bavarian
+helmet and side-arm hung from the knapsack of one, a mere
+freckled lad, downy and dimpled. Tricasse drew his sabre, turned,
+marched solemnly along the front, wheeled again, and saluted.</p>
+
+<p>Jack lifted his cap; Lorraine, her arm in his, bowed and smiled
+tearfully.</p>
+
+<p>"The dear, brave fellows!" she cried, impulsively, whereat every
+man reddened, and Tricasse grew giddy with emotion. He tried to
+speak; his emotion was great.</p>
+
+<p>"In my capacity of ex-pompier," he gasped, then went to pieces,
+and hid his eyes in his hands. The "Terrors of Morteyn" wept with
+him to a man.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, with a gesture to Tricasse, Jack led Lorraine down the
+slope, past the spring, and on through the forest, three
+"Terrors" leading, rifles poised, Tricasse and the others
+following, alert and balancing their cocked rifles.</p>
+
+<p>"How far is your camp?" asked Jack. "We need food and the warmth
+of a fire. Tell me, Monsieur Tricasse, what is left of the two
+ch&acirc;teaux?"</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine bent nearer as the old man said: "The Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville
+is a mass of cinders; Morteyn, a stone skeleton. Pierre is dead.
+There are many dead there&mdash;many, many dead. The Prussians burned
+Saint-Lys yesterday; they shot Bosquet, the letter-carrier; they
+hung his boy to the railroad trestle, then shot him to pieces. The
+Cur&eacute; is a prisoner; the Mayor of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> Saint-Lys and the Notary have
+been sent to the camp at Strassbourg. We, my 'Terrors of Morteyn'
+and I, are still facing the vandals; except for us, the Province
+of Lorraine is empty of Frenchmen in armed resistance."</p>
+
+<p>The old man, in his grotesque uniform, touched his bristling
+mustache and muttered: "Nom d'une pipe!" several times to steady
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine and Jack pressed on silently, sorrowfully, hand in hand,
+watching the scouts ahead, who were creeping on through the
+trees, heads turning from side to side, rifles raised. They
+passed along the back of a thickly wooded ridge for some
+distance, perhaps a mile, before the thin blue line of a
+smouldering camp-fire rose almost in their very faces. A low
+challenge from a clump of birch-trees was answered, there came
+the sound of rifles dropping, the noise of feet among the leaves,
+a whisper, and before they knew it they were standing at the
+mouth of a hole in the bank, from which came the odour of
+beef-broth simmering. Two or three franc-tireurs passed them,
+looking up curiously into their faces. Tricasse dragged a
+dilapidated cane-chair from the dirt-cave and placed it before
+Lorraine as though he were inviting her to an imperial throne.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said, sweetly, and seated herself, not
+relinquishing Jack's hand.</p>
+
+<p>Two tin basins of soup were brought to them; they ate it, soaking
+bits of crust in it.</p>
+
+<p>The men pretended not to watch them. With all their instinctive
+delicacy these clumsy peasants busied themselves in guard-mounting,
+weapon cleaning, and their cuisine, as though there was no such
+thing as a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>pretty woman within miles. But it tried their gallantry
+as Frenchmen and their tact as Lorraine peasants. Furtive glances,
+deprecatory and timid, were met by the sweetest of smiles from
+Lorraine or a kindly nod from Jack. Tricasse, utterly unbalanced by
+his new r&ocirc;le of protector of beauty, gave orders in fierce, agitated
+whispers, and made sudden aimless promenades around the birch thicket.
+In one of these prowls he discovered a toad staring at the camp-fire,
+and he drew his sword with a furious gesture, as though no living
+toad were good enough to intrude on the Ch&acirc;telaine of the Ch&acirc;teau de
+Nesville; but the toad hopped away, and Tricasse unbent his brows
+and resumed his agitated prowl.</p>
+
+<p>When Lorraine had finished her soup, Jack took both plates into
+the cave and gave them to a man who, squatted on his haunches,
+was washing dishes. Lorraine followed him and sat down on a
+blanket, leaning back against the side of the cave.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for me," said Jack. She drew his head down to hers.</p>
+
+<p>They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the
+amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and
+found Tricasse, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad
+ridge.</p>
+
+<p>A road ran under the overhanging bank.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know we were so near a road," said Jack, startled.
+Tricasse laid his finger on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the high-road to Saint-Lys. We have settled more than one
+Uhlan dog on that curve there by the oak-tree. Look! Here comes
+one of our men. See! He's got something, too."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, around the bend in the road slunk a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>franc-tireur,
+loaded down with what appeared to be mail-sacks. Cautiously he
+reconnoitred the bank, the road, the forest on the other side,
+whistled softly, and, at Tricasse's answering whistle, came
+puffing and blowing up the slope, and flung a mail-bag, a rifle,
+a Bavarian helmet, and a German knapsack to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"The big police officer?" inquired Tricasse, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the big one with the red beard. He died hard. I used the
+bayonet only," said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the
+dried blood on his hairy fists. "I got a Bavarian sentry, too;
+there's the proof."</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with
+his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal
+it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling
+them like cards.</p>
+
+<p>One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest
+into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going
+to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding
+the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail
+delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur
+Marche?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned
+his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the
+franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from
+Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Put out the fire, too," called Tricasse, softly. "I begin to
+smell it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Tricasse,
+folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the
+flat steel box was.</p>
+
+<p>"Letters from Paris," he said. "The Uhlans have appeared in the
+Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and
+enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege."</p>
+
+<p>"Paris!" blurted out Tricasse, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>Jack nodded, silently.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he resumed: "The Emperor is said to be with the
+army near M&eacute;zi&egrave;res on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going
+to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do."</p>
+
+<p>Tricasse stared at him, incapable of speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Jack, gently, "think it over. Tell me, at
+least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by
+the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously
+over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a
+careless footstep might perhaps be heard by passing Uhlans. In a
+few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow,
+where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat
+down on the blankets beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In
+it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the
+other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my
+uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened
+because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>The
+Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city
+is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or
+Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all
+going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know
+nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they
+need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my
+duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you
+must not go&mdash;it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to
+Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with
+a free heart."</p>
+
+<p>She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush," she said; "I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to
+try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our
+path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we
+tread it together, always together, Jack." He struggled to speak;
+she held him close, and laid her head against his breast,
+contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of
+France reconquered, of noble deeds and sacrifices, of the great
+bells of churches thundering God's praise to a humble, thankful
+nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay
+dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the
+sleeping echoes of the cave&mdash;the scuffling and thrashing of a
+shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a
+crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly
+out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they
+hurried from the cave another <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>franc-tireur came up, leading a
+riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his
+rifle, the butt dripping with blood.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence," he motioned to them, pointing to the wooded ridge
+beyond. Jack looked intently at the cavalry horse. The schabraque
+was blue, edged with yellow; the saddle-cloth bore the number
+"11."</p>
+
+<p>"Uhlan?" He formed the word with his lips.</p>
+
+<p>The franc-tireur nodded with a ghastly smile and glanced down at
+his dripping gunstock.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine's hand closed on Jack's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to the hill," she said; "I cannot stand that."</p>
+
+<p>On the crest of the wooded ridge crouched Tricasse, bared sabre
+stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around
+him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in
+the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts,
+their sinewy fingers played continually with the rifle-hammers.</p>
+
+<p>Jack hesitated, his arm around Lorraine's body, his eyes fixed
+nervously on the bend in the road.</p>
+
+<p>Something was coming; there were cries, the trample of horses,
+the shuffle of footsteps. Suddenly an Uhlan rode cautiously
+around the bend, glanced right and left, looked back, signalled,
+and started on. Behind him crowded a dozen more Uhlans, lances
+glancing, pennants streaming in the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got a woman!" whispered Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>They had a man, too&mdash;a powerful, bearded peasant, with a great
+livid welt across his bloodless face. A rope hung around his
+neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle-bow of an
+Uhlan. But what made Jack's heart fairly leap into his mouth was
+to see <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>Siurd von Steyr suddenly wheel in his saddle and lash the
+woman across the face with his doubled bridle.</p>
+
+<p>She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his
+stirrup.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out, damn you!" roared Von Steyr. "Here&mdash;I'll settle this
+now. Shoot that French dog!"</p>
+
+<p>"My husband, O God!" screamed the woman, struggling in the dust.
+In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred
+forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around
+his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and
+tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to
+pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt,
+another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a
+wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan's face, deeper,
+deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire!" shrieked Tricasse&mdash;"the woman's dead!"</p>
+
+<p>Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering,
+sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure passed like a flash
+through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew
+back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the
+franc-tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene
+was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were
+torn from their frantic horses until only one remained&mdash;Von
+Steyr&mdash;drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head.
+They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot
+eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat
+him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck
+him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad
+cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when
+they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated
+the rabid thing that ran among them.</p>
+
+<p>But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road
+galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with
+harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the
+franc-tireurs were surrounded.</p>
+
+<p>Then Tricasse raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the
+dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the
+dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and
+the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the
+road:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'&Ccedil;a ira! &Ccedil;a ira!'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was the horrible song of the Terror.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Que faut-il au R&eacute;publicain?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Du fer pour travailler,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Du plomb pour nous venger,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Et du pain pour nos fr&egrave;res!'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And the fierce voices sang:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Dansons la Carmagnole!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dansons la Carmagnole!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">&Ccedil;a ira! &Ccedil;a ira!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tous les cochons &agrave; la lanterne!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">&Ccedil;a ira! &Ccedil;a ira!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!'"</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The road trembled under the advancing cavalry; they surged around
+the bend, a chaos of rearing horses and levelled lances; a ring
+of fire around the little group of franc-tireurs, a cry from the
+whirl of flame and smoke:</p>
+
+<p>"France!"</p>
+
+<p>So they died.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BRACONNIER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lorraine had turned ghastly white; Jack's shocked face was
+colourless as he drew her away from the ridge with him into the
+forest. The appalling horror had stunned her; her knees gave way,
+she stumbled, but Jack held her up by main force, pushing the
+undergrowth aside and plunging straight on towards the thickest
+depths of the woods. He had not the faintest idea where he was;
+he only knew that for the moment it was absolutely necessary for
+them to get as far away as possible from the Uhlans and their
+butcher's work. Lorraine knew it, too; she tried to recover her
+coolness and her strength.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is another road," she said, faintly; "Jack&mdash;I&mdash;I am not
+strong&mdash;I am&mdash;a&mdash;little&mdash;faint&mdash;" Tears were running over her
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Jack peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road.
+Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and
+he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" came the summons again in French. Jack did not
+answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip,
+stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of
+the slope.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo!" he called, softly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly
+and puzzled smile.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?" asked Jack, suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Parbleu! what do you want yourself?" asked the peasant, and
+showed his teeth in a frank laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Jack was silent.</p>
+
+<p>The peasant's eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her
+blanched face half hidden under the masses of her hair. "Oho!" he
+said&mdash;"a woman!"</p>
+
+<p>Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and
+close up to Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought you might be one of those German spies," he said. "Is
+the lady ill? C&oelig;ur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has
+happened? I am Brocard&mdash;Jean Brocard; they know me here in the
+forest&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh!" broke in Jack&mdash;"you say you are Brocard the poacher?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! That's it&mdash;Brocard, braconnier&mdash;at your service. And you
+are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the
+little ch&acirc;telaine De Nesville! [Co]eur Dieu! Have the Prussians
+brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche&mdash;I know you and I
+know the little ch&acirc;telaine&mdash;oh, I know!&mdash;I, who have watched you
+at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while
+I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must
+live! Yes, I am Brocard&mdash;I do not lie. I have taken enough game
+from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?"</p>
+
+<p>He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost
+impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told
+him the exact truth, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>word by word, slowly and without bitterness,
+his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"C&oelig;ur Dieu!" muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine;
+"I've half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in
+the hides of these Prussian swine!"</p>
+
+<p>He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When
+they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and
+badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech
+growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing
+before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a guest," he said; "you need not fear him. Come!"</p>
+
+<p>In a dozen steps they entered the low doorway, Brocard leading,
+Lorraine leaning heavily on Jack's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Pst! There is a thick-headed Englishman in the next room; let
+him sleep in peace," murmured Brocard.</p>
+
+<p>He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace
+with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the
+little flames began to rustle and snap.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms;
+Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from
+Lorraine to Brocard.</p>
+
+<p>The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and
+leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes
+fixed on the reviving fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Morteyn! Morteyn!" he repeated; "it exists no longer. There are
+many dead there&mdash;dead in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>garden, in the court, on the
+lawn&mdash;dead floating in the pond, the river&mdash;dead rotting in the
+thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them&mdash;I, Brocard the
+poacher."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he resumed:</p>
+
+<p>"There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the
+Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as
+they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I
+saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges;
+I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought
+to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game&mdash;boars,
+deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched
+one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds&mdash;I really
+cannot tell."</p>
+
+<p>He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the
+next moment, and he continued: "I heard the fusillade on the
+Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing
+themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when God
+permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Tricasse at last. Zut!
+C'est emb&ecirc;tant! And poor old Passerat, too&mdash;and Brun, and all the
+rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I&mdash;but, no&mdash;no! I am doing very well&mdash;I,
+Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way."</p>
+
+<p>An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth&mdash;that
+was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably
+already sent more than one Prussian to his account.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all very well," he said, slowly&mdash;he had little sympathy
+with guerilla assassination&mdash;"but I'd <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>rather hear how you are
+going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian
+lines."</p>
+
+<p>"You take much for granted," laughed the poacher. "Now, did I
+offer to do any such thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you will," said Jack, "for the honour of the Province and
+the vicomte, whose game, it appears, has afforded you both
+pleasure and profit."</p>
+
+<p>"C&oelig;ur Dieu!" cried Brocard, laughing until his bright eyes grew
+moist. "You have spoken the truth, Monsieur Marche. But you have
+not added what I place first of all; it is for the gracious
+ch&acirc;telaine of the Ch&acirc;teau de Nesville that I, Jean Brocard, play
+at hazard with the Prussians, the stakes being my skin. I will
+bring you through the lines; leave it to me."</p>
+
+<p>Before Jack could speak again the door of the next room opened,
+and a man appeared, dressed in tweeds, booted and spurred, and
+carrying a travelling-satchel. There was a moment's astonished
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Marche!" cried Archibald Grahame; "what the deuce are you doing
+here?" They shook hands, looking questioningly at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Times have changed since we breakfasted by candle-light at
+Morteyn," said Jack, trying to regain his coolness.</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;I know," said Grahame, sympathetically. "It's devilish
+rough on you all&mdash;on Madame de Morteyn. I can never forget her
+charming welcome. Dear me, but this war is disgusting; isn't it
+now? And what the devil are you doing here? Heavens, man, you're
+a sight!"</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine sat up on the bed at the sound of the voices. When
+Grahame saw her, saw her plight&mdash;the worn shoes, the torn,
+stained bodice and skirt, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>pale face and sad eyes&mdash;he was too
+much affected to speak. Jack told him their situation in a dozen
+words; the sight of Lorraine's face told the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we'll arrange that," cried Grahame. "Don't worry, Marche.
+Pray do not alarm yourself, Mademoiselle de Nesville, for I have
+a species of post-chaise at the door and a pair of alleged
+horses, and the whole outfit is at your disposal; indeed it is,
+and so am I. Come now!&mdash;and so am I." He hesitated, and then
+continued: "I have passes and papers, and enough to get you
+through a dozen lines. Now, where do you wish to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"When are you to start?" replied Jack, gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Say in half an hour. Can Mademoiselle de Nesville stand it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you," said Lorraine, with a tired, quaint politeness
+that made them smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we wish to get as near to the French Army as we can," said
+Jack. "I have a mission of importance. If you could drive us to
+the Luxembourg frontier we would be all right&mdash;if we had any
+money."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have everything," cried Grahame; "you shall be driven
+where you wish. I'm looking for a battle, but I can't seem to
+find one. I've been driving about this wreck of a country for the
+last three days; I missed Amonvillers on the 18th, and Rezonville
+two days before. I saw the battles of Reichshofen and Borney. The
+Germans lost three thousand five hundred men at Beaumont, and I
+was not there either. But there's a bigger thing on the carpet,
+somewhere near the Meuse, and I'm trying to find out where and
+when. I've wasted a lot of time loafing about Metz. I want to see
+something on a larger scale, not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>that the Metz business isn't
+large enough&mdash;two hundred thousand men, six hundred cannon&mdash;and
+the Red Prince&mdash;licking their chops and getting up an appetite
+for poor old Bazaine and his battered, diseased, starved,
+disheartened army, caged under the forts and citadel of a city
+scarcely provisioned for a regiment."</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked at him silently,
+but her eyes were full of a horror and anguish that Grahame could
+not help seeing.</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor is with the army yet," he said, cheerfully. "Who
+knows what may happen in the next twenty-four hours? Mademoiselle
+de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour
+of France."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out
+into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young
+French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss
+plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg
+frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in
+the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon;
+this cannot go on. We will find the Emperor and do our part.
+Don't look that way, Lorraine, my darling!" He took her in his
+arms. She put both arms around his neck, and hid her face.</p>
+
+<p>For a while he held her, watching the fire with troubled eyes.
+The room grew darker; a wind arose among the forest trees,
+stirring dried leaves on brittle stems; the ashes on the hearth
+drifted like gray snowflakes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her stillness began to trouble him. He bent in the dusk to see
+her face. She was asleep. Terror, pity, anguish, the dreadful
+uncertainty, had strained her child's nerves to the utmost; after
+that came the deep fatigue that follows torture, and she lay in
+his arms, limp, pallid, exhausted. Her sleep was almost the
+unconsciousness of coma; she scarcely breathed.</p>
+
+<p>The fire on the hearth went out; the smoking embers glimmered
+under feathery ashes. Grahame entered, carrying a lantern.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he whispered. "Poor little thing!&mdash;can't I help you,
+Marche? Wait; here's a rug. So&mdash;wrap it around her feet. Can you
+carry her? Then follow; here, touch my coat&mdash;I'm going to put out
+the light in my lantern. Now&mdash;gently. Here we are."</p>
+
+<p>Jack climbed into the post-chaise; Grahame, holding Lorraine in
+his arms, leaned in, and Jack took her again. She had not
+awakened.</p>
+
+<p>"Brocard and I are going to sit in front," whispered Grahame. "Is
+all right within?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," nodded Jack.</p>
+
+<p>The chaise moved on for a moment, then suddenly stopped with a
+jerk.</p>
+
+<p>Jack heard Grahame whisper, "Sit still, you fool! I've got
+passes; sit still!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let go!" murmured Brocard.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit still!" repeated Grahame, in an angry whisper; "it's all
+right, I tell you. Be silent!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a noiseless struggle, a curse half breathed, then a
+figure slipped from the chaise into the road.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame sank back. "Marche, that damned poacher will hang us all.
+What am I to do?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Jack, in a scarcely audible voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you hear? There's an Uhlan in the road in front. That fool
+means to kill him."</p>
+
+<p>Jack strained his eyes in the darkness; the road ahead was black
+and silent.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't see him," whispered Grahame. "Brocard caught the
+distant rattle of his lance in the stirrup. He's gone to kill
+him, the bloodthirsty imbecile!"</p>
+
+<p>"To shoot him?" asked Jack, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"No; he's got his broad wood-knife&mdash;that's the way these brutes
+kill. Hark! Good God!"</p>
+
+<p>A scream rang through the forest; something was coming towards
+them, too&mdash;a horse, galloping, galloping, pounding, thundering
+past&mdash;a frantic horse that tossed its head and tore on through
+the night, mane flying, bridle loose. And there, crouched on the
+saddle, two men swayed, locked in a death-clench&mdash;an Uhlan with
+ghostly face and bared teeth, and Brocard, the poacher, cramped
+and clinging like a panther to his prey, his broad knife flashing
+in the gloom.</p>
+
+<p>In a second they were gone; far away in the forest the hoof
+strokes echoed farther and farther, duller, duller, then ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"Drive on," muttered Jack, with lips that could barely form the
+words.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MESSAGE OF THE FLAG</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was dawn when Lorraine awoke, stifling a cry of dismay. At the
+same moment she saw Jack, asleep, huddled into a corner of the
+post-chaise, his bloodless, sunken face smeared with the fine red
+dust that drifted in from the creaking wheels. Grahame, driving
+on the front seat, heard her move.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you better?" he asked, cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you; I am better. Where are we?"</p>
+
+<p>Grahame's face sobered.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you the truth," he said; "I don't know, and I can't
+find out. One thing is certain&mdash;we've passed the last German
+post, that is all I know. We ought to be near the frontier."</p>
+
+<p>He looked back at Jack, smiled again, and lowered his voice:</p>
+
+<p>"It's fortunate we have passed the German lines, because that
+last cavalry outpost took all my papers and refused to return
+them. I haven't an idea what to do now, except to go on as far as
+we can. I wish we could find a village; the horses are not
+exhausted, but they need rest."</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine listened, scarcely conscious of what he said. She leaned
+over Jack, looking down into his face, brushing the dust from his
+brow with her finger-tips, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>smoothing his hair, with a timid,
+hesitating glance at Grahame, who understood and gravely turned
+his back.</p>
+
+<p>Jack slept. She nestled down, pressing her soft, cool cheek close
+to his; her eyes drooped; her lips parted. So they slept
+together, cheek to cheek.</p>
+
+<p>A mist drove across the meadows; from the plains, dotted with
+poplars, a damp wind blew in puffs, driving the fog before it
+until the blank vapour dulled the faint morning light and the
+dawn faded into a colourless twilight. Spectral poplars, rank on
+rank, loomed up in the mist, endless rows of them, fading from
+sight as the vapours crowded in, appearing again as the fog
+thinned in a current of cooler wind.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame, driving slowly, began to nod in the thickening fog. At
+moments he roused himself; the horses walked on and the wheels
+creaked in the red dust. Hour after hour passed, but it grew no
+lighter. Drowsy and listless-eyed the horses toiled up and down
+the little hills, and moved stiffly on along the interminable
+road, shrouded in a gray fog that hid the very road-side
+shrubbery from sight, choked thicket and grove, and blotted the
+grimy carriage windows.</p>
+
+<p>Jack was awakened with startling abruptness by Grahame, who shook
+his shoulders, leaning into the post-chaise from the driver's
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something in front, Marche," he said. "We've fallen in
+with a baggage convoy, I fancy. Listen! Don't you hear the
+camp-wagons? Confound this fog! I can't see a rod ahead."</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine, also now wide awake, leaned from the window. The blank
+vapour choked everything. Jack rubbed his eyes; his limbs ached;
+he could scarcely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>move. Somebody was running on the road in
+front&mdash;the sound of heavy boots in the dust came nearer and
+nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out!" shouted Grahame, in French; "there's a team here in
+the road! Passez au large!"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of his voice phantoms surged up in the mist around
+them; from every side faces looked into the carriage windows,
+passing, repassing, disappearing, only to appear again&mdash;ghostly,
+shadowy, spectral.</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers!" muttered Jack.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant Grahame seized the lines and wheeled his
+horses just in time to avoid collision with a big wagon in front.
+As the post-chaise passed, more wagons loomed up in the fog, one
+behind another; soldiers took form around them, voices came to
+their ears, dulled by the mist.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a pale shaft of light streamed through the fog above;
+the restless, shifting vapours glimmered; a dazzling blot grew
+from the mist. It was the sun. Little by little the landscape
+became more distinct; the pallid, watery sky lightened; a streak
+of blue cut the zenith. Everywhere in the road great, lumbering
+wagons stood, loaded with straw; the sickly morning light fell on
+silent files of infantry, lining the road on either hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a convoy of wounded," said Grahame. "We're in the middle of
+it. Shall we go back?"</p>
+
+<p>A wagon in front of them started on; at the first jolt a cry sounded
+from the straw, another, another&mdash;the deep sighs of the dying, the
+groans of the stricken, the muttered curses of teamsters&mdash;rose in
+one terrible plaint. Another wagon started&mdash;the wounded wailed;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+another started&mdash;another&mdash;another&mdash;and the long train creaked on, the
+air vibrating with the weak protestations of miserable, mangled
+creatures tossing their thin arms towards the sky. And now, too, the
+soldiers were moving out into the road-side bushes, unslinging rifles
+and fixing bayonets; a mounted officer galloped past, shouting
+something; other mounted officers followed; a bugle sounded
+persistently from the distant head of the column.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere soldiers were running along the road now, grouping
+together under the poplar-trees, heads turned to the plain. Some
+teamsters pushed an empty wagon out beyond the line of trees and
+overturned it; others stood up in their wagons, reins gathered,
+long whips swinging. The wounded moaned incessantly; some sat up
+in the straw, heads turned also towards the dim, gray plain.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an attack," said Grahame, coolly. "Marche, we're in for it
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>After a moment, he added, "What did I tell you? Look there!"</p>
+
+<p>Out on the plain, where the mist was clearing along the edge of a
+belt of trees, something was moving.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Lorraine, in a scarcely audible voice.</p>
+
+<p>Before Grahame could speak a tumult of cries and groans burst out
+along the line of wagons; a bugle clanged furiously; the
+teamsters shouted and pointed with their whips.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the shadow of the grove two glittering double lines of
+horsemen trotted, halted, formed, extended right and left, and
+trotted on again. To the right another darker and more compact
+square of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>horsemen broke into a gallop, swinging a thicket of
+lances above their heads, from which fluttered a mass of black
+and white pennons.</p>
+
+<p>"Cuirassiers and Uhlans!" muttered Grahame, under his breath. He
+stood up in his seat; Jack rose also, straining his eyes, but
+Lorraine hid her face in her hands and crouched in the chaise,
+her head buried in the cushions.</p>
+
+<p>The silence was enervating; even the horses turned their gentle
+eyes wonderingly to that line of steel and lances; even the
+wounded, tremulous, haggard, held their breath between clenched
+teeth and stiff, swollen lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Nom de Dieu! Serrez les rangs, tas de bleus!" yelled an officer,
+riding along the edge of the road, revolver in one hand, naked
+sabre flashing in the other.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen artillerymen were pushing a mitrailleuse up behind the
+overturned wagon. It stuck in the ditch.</p>
+
+<p>"&Agrave; nous, la ligne!" they shouted, dragging at the wheels until a
+handful of fantassins ran out and pulled the little death machine
+into place.</p>
+
+<p>"Du calme! Du calme! Ne tirez pas trop vite, m&eacute;nagez vos
+cartouches! Tenez ferme, mes enfants!" said an old officer,
+dismounting and walking coolly out beyond the line of trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui! oui! comptez sur nous! Vive le Colonel!" shouted the
+soldiers, shaking their chassepots in the air.</p>
+
+<p>On came the long lines, distinct now&mdash;the blue and yellow of the
+Uhlans, the white and scarlet of the cuirassiers, plain against
+the gray trees and grayer pastures. Suddenly a level sheet of
+flame played <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>around the stalled wagons; the smoke gushed out
+over the dark ground; the air split with the crash of rifles. In
+the uproar bugles blew furiously and the harsh German cavalry
+trumpets, peal on peal, nearer, nearer, nearer, answered their
+clangour.</p>
+
+<p>"Hourra! Preussen!"</p>
+
+<p>The deep, thundering shout rose hoarsely through the rifles'
+roaring fusillade; horses reared; teamsters lashed and swore, and
+the rattle of harness and wheel broke out and was smothered in
+the sheeted crashing of the volleys and the shock of the coming
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>And now it burst like an ocean roller, smashing into the wagon
+lines, a turmoil of smoke and flashes, a chaos of maddened,
+plunging horses and bayonets, and the flashing downward strokes
+of heavy sabres. Grahame seized the reins, and lashed his horses;
+a cuirassier drove his bloody, foam-covered charger into the road
+in front and fell, butchered by a dozen bayonets.</p>
+
+<p>Three Uhlans followed, whirling their lances and crashing through
+the lines, their frantic horses crazed by blows and wounds. More
+cuirassiers galloped up; the crush became horrible. A horse and
+steel-clad rider were hurled bodily under the wagon-wheels&mdash;an
+Uhlan, transfixed by a bayonet, still clung to his shattered
+lance-butt, screaming, staggering in his stirrups. Suddenly the
+window of the post-chaise was smashed in and a horse and rider
+pitched under the wheels, almost overturning carriage and
+occupants.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy, Marche!" shouted Grahame. "Don't try to get out!"</p>
+
+<p>Jack heard him, but sprang into the road. For an instant he
+reeled about in the crush and smoke, then, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>stooping, he seized a
+prostrate man, lifted him, and with one tremendous effort pitched
+him into the chaise.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame, standing up in the driver's seat, watched him in
+amazement for a moment; but his horses demanded all his attention
+now, for they were backing under the pressure of the cart in
+front.</p>
+
+<p>As for Jack, once in the chaise again he pulled the unconscious
+man to the seat, calling Lorraine to hold him up. Then he tore
+the Uhlan's helmet from the stunned man's head and flung it out
+into the road; after it he threw sabre and revolver.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me that rug!" he cried to Lorraine, and he seized it and
+wrapped it around the Uhlan's legs.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame had managed to get clear of the other wagon now and was
+driving out into the pasture, almost obscured by rifle smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack!" faltered Lorraine&mdash;"it is Rickerl!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Rickerl, stunned by the fall from his horse, lying back
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>"They'd kill him if they saw his uniform!" muttered Jack. "Hark!
+the French are cheering! They've repulsed the charge! Grahame, do
+you hear?&mdash;do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear!" shouted Grahame. "These horses are crazy; I can't hold
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The troops around them, hidden in the smoke, began to cheer
+frantically; the mitrailleuse whirred and rolled out its hail of
+death.</p>
+
+<p>"Vive la France! Mort aux Prussiens!" howled the soldiers. A
+mounted officer, his cap on the point of his sabre, his face laid
+open by a lance-thrust, stood shouting, "Vive la Nation! Vive la
+Nation!" while <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>a boyish bugler shook his brass bugle in the air,
+speechless with joy.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame drove the terrified horses along the line of wagons for a
+few paces, then, wheeling, let them gallop straight out into the
+pasture on the left of the road, where a double line of trees in
+the distance marked the course of a parallel road.</p>
+
+<p>The chaise lurched and jolted; Rickerl, unconscious still, fell
+in a limp heap, but Jack and Lorraine held him up and watched the
+horses, now galloping under slackened reins.</p>
+
+<p>"There are houses there! Look!" cried Grahame. "By Jove, there's
+a Luxembourg gendarme, too. I&mdash;I believe we're in Luxembourg,
+Marche! Upon my soul, we are! See! There is a frontier post!"</p>
+
+<p>He tried to stop the horses; two strange-looking soldiers,
+wearing glossy shakos and white-and-blue aiguillettes, began to
+bawl at him; a group of peasants before the cottages fled,
+screaming.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame threw all his strength into his arms and dragged the
+horses to a stand-still.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we in Luxembourg?" he called to the gendarmes, who ran up,
+gesticulating violently. "Are we? Good! Hold those horses, if you
+please, gentlemen. There's a wounded man here. Carry him to one
+of those houses. Marche, lift him, if you can. Hello! his arm is
+broken at the wrist. Go easy&mdash;you, I mean&mdash;Now!"</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine, aided by Jack, stepped from the post-chaise and stood
+shivering as two peasants came forward and lifted Rickerl. When
+they had taken him away to one of the stone houses she turned
+quietly to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>a gendarme and said: "Monsieur, can you tell me where
+the Emperor is?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor?" repeated the gendarme. "The Emperor is with his
+army, below there along the Meuse. They are fighting&mdash;since four
+this morning&mdash;at Sedan."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to the southeast.</p>
+
+<p>She looked out across the wide plain.</p>
+
+<p>"That convoy is going to Sedan," said the gendarme. "The army is
+near Sedan; there is a battle there."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Lorraine, quietly. "Jack, the Emperor is near
+Sedan."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he nodded; "we will go when you can stand it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready. Oh, we must not wait, Jack; did you not see how they
+even attacked the wounded?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and looked into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the first French cheer I have heard," she continued,
+feverishly. "They beat back those Prussians and cheered for
+France! Oh, Jack, there is time yet! France is rising now&mdash;France
+is resisting. We must do our part; we must not wait. Jack, I am
+ready!"</p>
+
+<p>"We can't walk," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"We will go with the convoy. They are on the way to Sedan, where
+the Emperor is. Jack, they are fighting at Sedan! Do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>She came closer, looking up into his troubled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Show me the box," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>He drew the flat steel box from his coat.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment she said, "Nothing must stop us now. I am ready!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are not ready," he replied, sullenly; "you need rest."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tiens ta Foy,' Jack."</p>
+
+<p>The colour dyed his pale cheeks and he straightened up. "Always,
+Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>Grahame called to them from the cottage: "You can get a horse and
+wagon here! Come and eat something at once!"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, with weary, drooping heads, they walked across the road,
+past a wretched custom-house, where two painted sentry-boxes
+leaned, past a squalid barnyard full of amber-coloured, unsavoury
+puddles and gaunt poultry, up to the thatched stone house where
+Grahame stood waiting. Over the door hung a withered branch of
+mistletoe, above this swung a sign:</p>
+
+<h3>ESTAMINET.</h3>
+
+<p>"Your Uhlan is in a bad way, I think," began Grahame; "he's got a
+broken arm and two broken ribs. This is a nasty little place to
+leave him in."</p>
+
+<p>"Grahame," said Jack, earnestly, "I've got to leave him. I am
+forced to go to Sedan as soon as we can swallow a bit of bread
+and wine. The Uhlan is my comrade and friend; he may be more than
+that some day. What on earth am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>They followed Grahame into a room where a table stood covered by
+a moist, unpleasant cloth. The meal was simple&mdash;a half-bottle of
+sour red wine for each guest, a fragment of black bread, and a
+r&acirc;gout made of something that had once been alive&mdash;possibly a
+chicken, possibly a sheep.</p>
+
+<p>Grahame finished his wine, bolted a morsel or two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>of bread and
+r&acirc;gout, and leaned back in his chair with a whimsical glance at
+Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I'll tell you what I'll do, Marche," he said. "My horses
+need rest, so do I, so does our wounded Uhlan. I'll stay in this
+garden of Eden until noon, if you like, then I'll drive our
+wounded man to Diekirch, where the H&ocirc;tel des Ardennes is as good
+an inn as you can find in Luxembourg, or in Belgium either. Then
+I'll follow you to Sedan."</p>
+
+<p>They all rose from the table; Lorraine came and held out her
+hand, thanking Grahame for his kindness to them and to Rickerl.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," said Grahame, going with them to the door. "There's
+your dog-cart; it's paid for, and here's a little bag of French
+money&mdash;no thanks, my dear fellow; we can settle all that later.
+But what the deuce you two children are going to Sedan for is
+more than my old brains can comprehend."</p>
+
+<p>He stood, with handsome head bared, and bent gravely over
+Lorraine's hands&mdash;impulsive little hands, now trembling, as the
+tears of gratitude trembled on her lashes.</p>
+
+<p>And so they drove away in their dog-cart, down the flat,
+poplar-bordered road, silent, deeply moved, wondering what the
+end might be.</p>
+
+<p>The repeated shocks, the dreadful experiences and encounters, the
+indelible impressions of desolation and grief and suffering had
+deadened in Lorraine all sense of personal suffering or grief.
+For her land and her people her heart had bled, drop by drop&mdash;her
+sensitive soul lay crushed within her. Nothing of selfish despair
+came over her, because France still stood. She had suffered too
+much to remember herself. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>Even her love for Jack had become
+merely a detail. She loved as she breathed&mdash;involuntarily. There
+was nothing new or strange or sweet in it&mdash;nothing was left of
+its freshness, its grace, its delicacy. The bloom was gone.</p>
+
+<p>In her tired breast her heart beat faintly; its burden was the weary
+repetition of a prayer&mdash;an old, old prayer&mdash;a supplication&mdash;for
+mercy, for France, and for the salvation of its people. Where she
+had learned it she did not know; how she remembered it, why she
+repeated it, minute by minute, hour by hour, she could not tell.
+But it was always beating in her heart, this prayer&mdash;old, so
+old!&mdash;and half forgotten&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'To Thee, Mary, exalted&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To Thee, Mary, exalted&mdash;'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Her tired heart took up the rhythm where her mind refused to
+follow, and she leaned on Jack's shoulder, looking out over the
+gray land with innocent, sorrowful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely she remembered her lonely childhood, but did not grieve;
+vaguely she thought of her youth, passing away from a tear-drenched
+land through the smoke of battles. She did not grieve&mdash;the last sad
+tear for self had fallen and quenched the last smouldering spark of
+selfishness. The wasted hills of her province seemed to rise from
+their ashes and sear her eyes; the flames of a devastated land
+dazzled and pained her; every drop of French blood that drenched
+the mother-land seemed drawn from her own veins&mdash;every cry of
+terror, every groan, every gasp, seemed wrenched from her own
+slender body. The quiet, wide-eyed dead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> accused her, the stark
+skeletons of ravaged houses reproached her.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to the man she loved, but it was the voice of a dying
+land that answered, "Come!" and she responded with all a passion
+of surrender. What had she accomplished as yet? In the bitterness
+of her loneliness she answered, "Nothing." She had worked by the
+wayside as she passed&mdash;in the field, in the hospital, in the
+midst of beleaguered soldiers. But what was that? There was
+something else further on that called her&mdash;what she did not know,
+and yet she knew it was waiting somewhere for her. "Perhaps it is
+death," she mused, leaning on Jack's shoulder. "Perhaps it is
+<i>his</i> death." That did not frighten her; if it was to be, it
+would be; but, through it, through the hideous turmoil of fire
+and blood and pounding guns and shouting&mdash;through death
+itself&mdash;somewhere, on the other side of the dreadful valley of
+terror, lay salvation for the mother-land. Thither they were
+bound&mdash;she and the man she loved.</p>
+
+<p>All around them lay the flat, colourless plains of Luxembourg; to
+the east, the wagon-train of wounded crawled across the landscape
+under a pallid sky. The road now bore towards the frontier again;
+Jack shook the reins listlessly; the horse loped on. Slowly they
+approached the border, where, on the French side, the convoy
+crept forward enveloped in ragged clouds of dust. Now they could
+distinguish the drivers, blue-bloused and tattered, swinging
+their long whips; now they saw the infantry, plodding on behind
+the wagons, stringing along on either flank, their officers
+riding with bent heads, the red legs of the fantassins blurred
+through the red dust.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the junction of the two roads stood a boundary post. A
+slovenly Luxembourg gendarme sat on a stone under it, smoking and
+balancing his rifle over both knees.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't pass," he said, looking up as Jack drew rein. A moment
+later he pocketed a gold piece that Jack offered, yawned,
+laughed, and yawned again.</p>
+
+<p>"You can buy contraband cigars at two sous each in the village
+below," he observed.</p>
+
+<p>"What news is there to tell?" demanded Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"News? The same as usual. They are shelling Strassbourg with
+mortars; the city is on fire. Six hundred women and children left
+the city; the International Aid Society demanded it."</p>
+
+<p>Presently he added: "A big battle was fought this morning along
+the Meuse. You can hear the guns yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard them for an hour," replied Jack.</p>
+
+<p>They listened. Far to the south the steady intonation of the
+cannon vibrated, a vague sustained rumour, no louder, no lower,
+always the same monotonous measure, flowing like the harmony of
+flowing water, passionless, changeless, interminable.</p>
+
+<p>"Along the Meuse?" asked Jack, at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sedan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sedan."</p>
+
+<p>The slow convoy was passing now; the creak of wheel and the harsh
+scrape of axle and spring grated in their ears; the wind changed;
+the murmur of the cannonade was blotted out in the trample of
+hoofs, the thud of marching infantry.</p>
+
+<p>Jack swung his horse's head and drove out across <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>the boundary
+into the French road. On every side crowded the teams, where the
+low mutter of the wounded rose from the foul straw; on every side
+pressed the red-legged infantry, rifles <i>en bandouli&egrave;re</i>,
+shrunken, faded caps pushed back from thin, sick faces.</p>
+
+<p>"My soldiers!" murmured Lorraine, sitting up straight. "Oh, the
+pity of it!&mdash;the pity!"</p>
+
+<p>An officer passed, followed by a bugler. He glanced vacantly at
+Jack, then at Lorraine. Another officer came by, leading his
+patient, bleeding horse, over which was flung the dusty body of a
+brother soldier.</p>
+
+<p>The long convoy was moving more swiftly now; the air trembled
+with the cries of the mangled or the hoarse groans of the dying.
+A Sister of Mercy&mdash;her frail arm in a sling&mdash;crept on her knees
+among the wounded lying in a straw-filled cart. Over all, louder,
+deeper, dominating the confusion of the horses and the tramp of
+men, rolled the cannonade. The pulsating air, deep-laden with the
+monstrous waves of sound, seemed to beat in Lorraine's face&mdash;the
+throbbing of her heart ceased for a moment. Louder, louder,
+nearer, more terrible sounded the thunder, breaking in long,
+majestic reverberations among the nearer hills; the earth began
+to shake, the sky struck back the iron-throated echoes&mdash;sounding,
+resounding, from horizon to horizon.</p>
+
+<p>And now the troops around them were firing as they advanced;
+sheeted mist lashed with lightning enveloped the convoy, through
+which rang the tremendous clang of the cannon. Once there came a
+momentary break in the smoke&mdash;a gleam of hills, and a valley
+black with men&mdash;a glimpse of a distant town, a river&mdash;then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>the
+stinging smoke rushed outward, the little flames leaped and sank
+and played through the fog. Broad, level bands of mist, fringed
+with flame, cut the pasture to the right; the earth rocked with
+the stupendous cannon shock, the ripping rifle crashes chimed a
+dreadful treble.</p>
+
+<p>There was a bridge there in the mist; an iron gate, a heavy wall
+of masonry, a glimpse of a moat below. The crowded wagons,
+groaning under their load of death, the dusty infantry, the
+officers, the startled horses, jammed the bridge to the parapets.
+Wheels splintered and cracked, long-lashed whips snapped and
+rose, horses strained, recoiled, leaped up, and fell scrambling
+and kicking.</p>
+
+<p>"Open the gates, for God's sake!" they were shouting.</p>
+
+<p>A great shell, moaning in its flight above the smoke, shrieked
+and plunged headlong among the wagons. There came a glare of
+blinding light, a velvety white cloud, a roar, and through the
+gates, no longer choked, rolled the wagon-train, a frantic
+stampede of men and horses. It caught the dog-cart and its
+occupants with it; it crushed the horse, seized the vehicle, and
+flung it inside the gates as a flood flings driftwood on the
+rocks.</p>
+
+<p>Jack clung to the reins; the wretched horse staggered out into
+the stony street, fell, and rolled over stone-dead.</p>
+
+<p>Jack turned and caught Lorraine in both arms, and jumped to a
+sidewalk crowded with soldiers, and at the same time the crush of
+wagons ground the dog-cart to splinters on the cobble-stones. The
+crowd choked every inch of the pavement&mdash;women, children,
+soldiers, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>shouting out something that seemed to move the masses
+to delirium. Jack, his arm around Lorraine, beat his way forward
+through the throng, murmuring anxiously, "Are you hurt, Lorraine?
+Are you hurt?" And she replied, faintly, "No, Jack. Oh, what is
+it? What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers blocked his way now, but he pushed between them towards
+a cleared space on a slope of grass. Up the slope he staggered
+and out on to a stone terrace above the crush of the street. An
+officer stood alone on the terrace, pulling at some ropes around
+a pole on the parapet.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what is that?" stammered Lorraine, as a white flag shot up
+along the flag-staff and fluttered drearily over the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine!" cried Jack; but she sprang to the pole and tore the
+ropes free. The white flag fell to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The officer turned to her, his face whiter than the flag. The
+crowd in the street below roared.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," gasped Lorraine, "France is not conquered! That flag
+is the flag of dishonour!"</p>
+
+<p>They stared at each other in silence, then the officer stepped to
+the flag-pole and picked up the ropes.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that!&mdash;not that!" cried Lorraine, shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Emperor's orders."</p>
+
+<p>The officer drew the rope tight&mdash;the white flag crawled slowly up
+the staff, fluttered, and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine covered her eyes with her hands; the roar of the crowd
+below was in her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"O God!&mdash;O God!" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine!" whispered Jack, both arms around her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her head fell forward on her breast.</p>
+
+<p>Overhead the white flag caught the breeze again, and floated out over the
+ramparts of Sedan.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Emperor's orders," said the officer, coming close to
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Then for the first time Jack saw that it was Georges Carri&egrave;re who
+stood there, ghastly pale, his eyes fixed on Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>"She has fainted," muttered Jack, lifting her. "Georges, is it
+all over?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Georges, and he walked over to the flag-pole, and
+stood there looking up at the white badge of dishonour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW</h3>
+
+
+<p>Daylight was fading in the room where Lorraine lay in a stupor so
+deep that at moments the Sister of Mercy and the young military
+surgeon could scarcely believe her alive there on the pillows.</p>
+
+<p>Jack, his head on his arms, stood by the window, staring out
+vacantly at the streak of light in the west, against which, on
+the straight, gray ramparts, the white flag flapped black against
+the dying sun.</p>
+
+<p>Under the window, in the muddy, black streets, the packed throngs
+swayed and staggered and trampled through the filth, amid a crush
+of camp-wagons, artillery, ambulances, and crowding squadrons of
+cavalry. Riotous line soldiers cried out "Treason!" and hissed
+their generals or cursed their Emperor; the tall cuirassiers
+surged by in silence, sombre faces turned towards the west, where
+the white flag flew on the ramparts. Heavier, denser, more
+suffocating grew the crush; an ambulance broke down, a caisson
+smashed into a lamp-post, a cuirassier's horse slipped in the
+greasy depths of the filth, pitching its steel-clad rider to the
+pavement. Through the Place d'Alsace-Lorraine, through the Avenue
+du Coll&egrave;ge and the Place d'Armes, passed the turbulent torrent of
+men and horses and cannon. The Grande Rue was choked from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>the
+church to the bronze statue in the Place Turenne; the Porte de
+Paris was piled with dead, the Porte de Balan tottered a mass of
+ruins.</p>
+
+<p>The cannonade still shook the hills to the south in spite of the
+white flag on the citadel. There were white flags, too, on the
+ramparts, on the Port des Capucins, and at the Gate of Paris. An
+officer, followed by a lancer, who carried a white pennon on his
+lance-point, entered the street from the north. A dozen soldiers
+and officers hacked it off with their sabres, crying, "No
+surrender! no surrender!" Shells continued to fall into the
+packed streets, blowing horrible gaps in the masses of struggling
+men. The sun set in a crimson blaze, reflecting on window and
+roof and the bloody waters of the river. When at last it sank
+behind the smoky hills, the blackness in the city was lighted by
+lurid flames from burning houses and the swift crimson glare of
+Prussian shells, still plunging into the town. Through the crash
+of crumbling walls, the hiss and explosion of falling shells, the
+awful clamour and din in the streets, the town clock struck
+solemnly six times. As if at a signal the firing died away; a
+desolate silence fell over the city&mdash;a silence full of rumours,
+of strange movements&mdash;a stillness pulsating with the death gasps
+of a nation.</p>
+
+<p>Out on the heights of La Moncelle, of Daigny, and Givonne
+lanterns glimmered where the good Sisters of Mercy and the
+ambulance corps passed among the dead and dying&mdash;the thirty-five
+thousand dead and dying! The plateau of Illy, where the cavalry
+had charged again and again, was twinkling with thousands of
+lanterns; on the heights of Fr&eacute;nois Prussian torches swung,
+signalling victory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the spectacle in the interior of the town&mdash;a town of nineteen
+thousand people, into which now were crushed seventy thousand
+frantic soldiers, was dreadful beyond description. Horror
+multiplied on horror. The two bridges and the streets were so
+jammed with horses and artillery trains that it seemed impossible
+for any human being to move another inch. In the glare of the
+flames from the houses on fire, in the middle of the smoke,
+horses, cannon, fourgons, charrettes, ambulances, piles of dead
+and dying, formed a sickening pell-mell. In this chaos starving
+soldiers, holding lighted lanterns, tore strips of flesh from
+dead horses lying in the mud, killed by the shells. Arms, broken
+and foul with blood and mud&mdash;rifles, pistols, sabres, lances,
+casques, mitrailleuses&mdash;covered the pavements.</p>
+
+<p>The gates of the town were closed; the water in the fortification
+moats reflected the red light from the flames. The glacis of the
+ramparts was covered by black masses of soldiers, watching the
+placing of a cordon of German sentinels around the walls.</p>
+
+<p>All public buildings, all the churches, were choked with wounded;
+their blood covered everything. On the steps of the churches poor
+wretches sat bandaging their torn limbs with strips of bloody
+muslin.</p>
+
+<p>Strange sounds came from the stone walls along the street, where
+zouaves, turcos, and line soldiers, cursing and weeping with
+rage, were smashing their rifles to pieces rather than surrender
+them. Artillerymen were spiking their guns, some ran them into
+the river, some hammered the mitrailleuses out of shape with
+pickaxes. The cavalry flung their sabres into the river, the
+cuirassiers threw away revolvers and helmets. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>Everywhere
+officers were breaking their swords and cursing the surrender.
+The officers of the 74th of the Line threw their sabres and even
+their decorations into the Meuse. Everywhere, too, regiments were
+burning their colours and destroying their eagles; the colonel of
+the 52d of the Line himself burned his colours in the presence of
+all the officers of the regiment, in the centre of the street.
+The 88th and 30th, the 68th, the 78th, and 74th regiments
+followed this example. "Mort aux Vaches!" howled a herd of
+half-crazed reservists, bursting into the crush. "Mort aux
+Prussiens! &Agrave; la lanterne, Badinguet! Vive la R&eacute;publique!"</p>
+
+<p>Jack turned away from the window. The tall Sister of Mercy stood
+beside the bed where Lorraine lay.</p>
+
+<p>Jack made a sign.</p>
+
+<p>"She is asleep," murmured the Sister; "you may come nearer now.
+Close the window."</p>
+
+<p>Before he could reach the bed the door was opened violently from
+without, and an officer entered swinging a lantern. He did not
+see Lorraine at first, but held the door open, saying to Jack:
+"Pardon, monsieur; this house is reserved. I am very sorry to
+trouble you."</p>
+
+<p>Another officer entered, an old man, covered to the eyes by his
+crimson gold-brocaded cap. Two more followed.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a sick person here," said Jack. "You cannot have the
+intention of turning her out! It is inhuman&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short, stupefied at the sight of the old officer, who
+now stood bareheaded in the lantern-light, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>looking at the bed
+where Lorraine lay. It was the Emperor!&mdash;her father.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the Emperor advanced to the bed, his dreary eyes fixed on
+Lorraine's pale cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>In the silence the cries from the street outside rose clear and
+distinct:</p>
+
+<p>"Vive la R&eacute;publique! &Agrave; bas l'Empereur!"</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor spoke, looking straight at Lorraine: "Gentlemen, we
+cannot disturb a woman. Pray find another house."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment the officers began to back out, one by one,
+through the doorway. The Emperor still stood by the bed, his
+vague, inscrutable eyes fixed on Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>Jack moved towards the bed, trembling. The Emperor raised his
+colourless face.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur&mdash;your sister? No&mdash;your wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"My promised wife, sire," muttered Jack, cold with fear.</p>
+
+<p>"A child," said the Emperor, softly.</p>
+
+<p>With a vague gesture he stepped nearer, smoothed the coverlet,
+bent closer, and touched the sleeping girl's forehead with his
+lips. Then he stood up, gray-faced, impassive.</p>
+
+<p>"I am an old man," he said, as though to himself. He looked at
+Jack, who now came close to him, holding out something in one
+hand. It was the steel box.</p>
+
+<p>"For me, monsieur?" asked the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Jack nodded. He could not speak.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor took the box, still looking at Jack.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence, then Jack spoke: "It may be too
+late. It is a plan of a balloon&mdash;we brought it to you from
+Lorraine&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The uproar in the streets drowned his voice&mdash;"Mort &agrave; l'Empereur!
+&Agrave; bas l'Empire!"</p>
+
+<p>A staff-officer opened the door and peered in; the Emperor
+stepped to the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you&mdash;I thank you both, my children," he said. His eyes
+wandered again towards the bed; the cries in the street rang out
+furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Mort &agrave; l'Empereur!"</p>
+
+<p>The Sister of Mercy was kneeling by the bed; Jack shivered, and
+dropped his head.</p>
+
+<p>When he looked up the Emperor had gone.</p>
+
+<p>All night long he watched at the bedside, leaning on his elbow,
+one hand shading his eyes from the candle-flame. The Sister of
+Mercy, white and worn with the duties of that terrible day, slept
+upright in an arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn brought the sad notes of Prussian trumpets from the ramparts
+pealing through the devastated city; at sunrise the pavements
+rang and shook with the trample of the White Cuirassiers. A Saxon
+infantry band burst into the "Wacht am Rhine" at the Paris Gate;
+the Place Turenne vomited Uhlans. Jack sank down by the bed,
+burying his face in the sheets.</p>
+
+<p>The Sister of Mercy rubbed her eyes and started up. She touched
+Jack on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to be very ill," he said, raising a face burning with
+fever. "Never mind me, but stay with her."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," said the Sister, gently. "You must lie in the
+room beyond."</p>
+
+<p>The fever seized Jack with a swiftness incredible.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;swear it&mdash;by the&mdash;by the Saviour there&mdash;there on your
+crucifix!" he muttered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I swear," she answered, softly.</p>
+
+<p>His mind wandered a little, but he set his teeth and rose,
+staggering to the table. He wrote something on a bit of paper
+with shaking fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Send for them," he said. "You can telegraph now. They are in
+Brussels&mdash;my sister&mdash;my family&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Then, blinded by the raging fever, he made his way uncertainly to
+the bed, groped for Lorraine's hand, pressed it, and lay down at
+her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Call the surgeon!" he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>And it was very many days before he said anything else with as
+much sense in it.</p>
+
+<p>"God help them!" cried the Sister of Mercy, tearfully, her thin
+hands clasped to her lips. Alone she guided Jack into the room
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the Prussian bands were playing. The sun flung a long,
+golden beam through the window straight across Lorraine's breast.</p>
+
+<p>She stirred, and murmured in her sleep, "Jack! Jack! 'Tiens ta
+Foy!'"</p>
+
+<p>But Jack was past hearing now; and when, at sundown, the young
+surgeon came into his room he was nearly past all aid.</p>
+
+<p>"Typhoid?" asked the Sister.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pest!" said the surgeon, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>The Sister started a little.</p>
+
+<p>"I will stay," she murmured. "Send this despatch when you go out.
+Can he live?"</p>
+
+<p>They whispered together a moment, stepping softly to the door of
+the room where Lorraine lay.</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be helped now," said the surgeon, looking at Lorraine;
+"she'll be well enough by to-morrow; she must stay with you. The
+chances are that he will die."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The trample of the White Cuirassiers in the street outside filled
+the room; the serried squadrons thundered past, steel ringing on
+steel, horses neighing, trumpets sounding the "Royal March."
+Lorraine's eyes unclosed.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>The surgeon whispered to the Sister of Mercy: "Don't forget to
+hang out the pest flag."</p>
+
+<p>"Jack! Jack!" wailed Lorraine, sitting up in bed. Through the
+tangled masses of her heavy hair, gilded by the morning sunshine,
+her eyes, bright with fever, roamed around the room, startled,
+despairing. Under the window the White Cuirassiers were singing
+as they rode:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Flieg', Adler, flieg'! Wir st&uuml;rmen nach,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ein einig Volk in Waffen,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wir st&uuml;rmen nach ob tausendfach</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Des Todes Pforten Klaffen!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Und fallen wir, flieg', Adler, flieg'!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Aus unserm Blute m&auml;chst der Sieg!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Vorw&auml;rts!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Flieg', Adler, flieg'!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Victoria!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Victoria!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mit uns ist Gott!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Terrified, turning her head from side to side, Lorraine stretched
+out her hands. She tried to speak, but her ears were filled with
+the deep voices shouting the splendid battle-hymn&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Fly, Eagle! fly!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With us is God!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>She crept out of bed, her bare feet white with cold, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>her bare
+arms flushed and burning. Blinded by the blaze of the rising sun,
+she felt her way around the room, calling, "Jack! Jack!" The
+window was open; she crept to it. The street was a surging,
+scintillating torrent of steel.</p>
+
+<h4>"God with us!"</h4>
+
+<p>The White Cuirassiers shook their glittering sabres; the
+melancholy trumpet's blast swept skyward; the standards flapped.
+Suddenly the stony street trembled with the outcrash of drums;
+the cuirassiers halted, the steel-mailed squadrons parted right
+and left; a carriage drove at a gallop through the opened ranks.
+Lorraine leaned from the window; the officer in the carriage
+looked up.</p>
+
+<p>As the fallen Emperor's eyes met Lorraine's, she stretched out
+both little bare arms and cried: "Vive la France!"&mdash;and he was
+gone to his captivity, the White Cuirassiers galloping on every
+side.</p>
+
+<p>The Sister of Mercy opened the door behind, calling her.</p>
+
+<p>"He is dying," she said. "He is in here. Come quickly!"</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine turned her head. Her eyes were sweet and serene, her
+whole pale face transfigured.</p>
+
+<p>"He will live," she said. "I am here."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the pest!" muttered the Sister.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine glided into the hall and unclosed the door of the silent
+room.</p>
+
+<p>He opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no death!" she whispered, her face against his. "There
+is neither death nor sorrow nor dying."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The clamour in the street died out; the wind was still; the pest
+flag under the window hung motionless.</p>
+
+<p>He sighed; his eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>She stretched out beside him, her body against his, her bare arms
+around his neck.</p>
+
+<p>His heart fluttered; stopped; fluttered; was silent; moved once
+again; ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>Again his heart stirred&mdash;or was it her own?</p>
+
+<p>When the morning sun broke over the ramparts of Sedan she fell
+asleep in his arms, lulled by the pulsations of his heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PROPHECY OF LORRAINE</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn arrived in Sedan from
+Brussels the last of the French prisoners had been gone a week;
+the foul city was swept clean; the corpse-choked river no longer
+flung its dead across the shallows of the island of Glaires; the
+canal was untroubled by the ghastly freight of death that had
+collected like logs on a boom below the village of Iges.</p>
+
+<p>All day the tramp of Prussian patrols echoed along the stony
+streets; all day the sinister outburst of the hoarse Bavarian
+bugles woke the echoes behind the ramparts. Red Cross flags
+drooped in the sunshine from churches, from banks, from every
+barrack, every depot, every public building. The pest flags waved
+gaily over the Asylum and the little Museum. A few appeared along
+the Avenue Philippoteaux, others still fluttered on the Gothic
+church and the convent across the Viaduc de Torcy. Three miles
+away the ruins of the village of Bazeilles lay in the bright
+September sunshine. Bavarian soldiers in greasy corv&eacute;e lumbered
+among the charred chaos searching for their dead.</p>
+
+<p>The plain of Illy, the heights of La Moncelle, Daigny, Givonne,
+and Fr&eacute;nois were vast cemeteries. Dredging was going on along the
+river, whither the curious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>small boys of Sedan betook themselves
+and stayed from morning till night watching the recovering of
+rusty sabres, bayonets, rifles, cannon, and often more grewsome
+flotsam. It was probably the latter that drew the small boys like
+flies; neither the one nor the other are easily glutted with
+horrors.</p>
+
+<p>The silver trumpets of the Saxon Riders were chorusing the noon
+call from the Porte de Paris when a long train crept into the
+Sedan station and pulled up in the sunshine, surrounded by a
+cordon of Hanover Riflemen. One by one the passengers passed into
+the station, where passports were shown and apathetic commissaires
+took charge of the baggage.</p>
+
+<p>There were no hacks, no conveyances of any kind, so the tall,
+white-bearded gentleman in black, who stood waiting anxiously for
+his passport, gave his arm to an old lady, heavily veiled, and
+bowed down with the sudden age that great grief brings. Beside
+her walked a young girl, also in deep mourning.</p>
+
+<p>A man on crutches directed them to the Place Turenne, hobbling
+after them to murmur his thanks for the piece of silver the girl
+slipped into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"The number on the house is 31," he repeated; "the pest flag is
+no longer outside."</p>
+
+<p>"The pest?" murmured the old man under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a young girl came out of the crowded station,
+looking around her anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Lorraine!" cried the white-haired man.</p>
+
+<p>She was in his arms before he could move. Madame de Morteyn clung
+to her, too, sobbing convulsively; Dorothy hid her face in her
+black-edged handkerchief.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After a moment Lorraine stepped back, drying her sweet eyes.
+Dorothy kissed her again and again.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't see why we should cry," said Lorraine, while the
+tears ran down her flushed cheeks. "If he had died it would have
+been different."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence she said again:</p>
+
+<p>"You will see. We are not unhappy&mdash;Jack and I. Monsieur Grahame
+came yesterday with Rickerl, who is doing very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Rickerl here, too?" whispered Dorothy.</p>
+
+<p>Lorraine slipped an arm through hers, looking back at the old
+people.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said, serenely, "Jack is able to sit up." Then in
+Dorothy's ear she whispered, "I dare not tell them&mdash;you must."</p>
+
+<p>"Dare not tell them&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That&mdash;that I married Jack&mdash;this morning."</p>
+
+<p>The girls' arms pressed each other.</p>
+
+<p>German officers passed and repassed, rigid, supercilious, staring
+at the young girls with that half-sneering, half-impudent,
+near-sighted gaze peculiar to the breed. Their insolent eyes,
+however, dropped before the clear, mild glance of the old
+vicomte.</p>
+
+<p>His face was furrowed by care and grief, but he held his white
+head high and stepped with an elasticity that he had not known in
+years. Defeat, disaster, sorrow, could not weaken him; he was of
+the old stock, the real beau-sabreur, a relic of the old r&eacute;gime,
+that grew young in the face of defeat, that died of a broken
+heart at the breath of dishonour. There had been no dishonour, as
+he understood it&mdash;there had been defeat, bitter defeat. That was
+part of his trade, to face defeat nobly, courteously, chivalrously;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>
+to bow with a smile on his lips to the more skilful adversary who
+had disarmed him.</p>
+
+<p>Bitterness he knew, when the stiff Prussian officers clanked past
+along the sidewalk of this French city; despair he never dreamed
+of. As for dishonour&mdash;that is the cry of the pack, the refuge of
+the snarling mob yelping at the bombastic vociferations of some
+mean-souled demagogue; and in Paris there were many, and the pack
+howled in the Republic at the crack of the lash.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Hesketh is here, too," said Lorraine. "She appears to be a
+little reconciled to her loss. Dorothy, it breaks my heart to see
+Rickerl. He lies in his room all day, silent, ghastly white. He
+does not believe that Alixe&mdash;did what she did&mdash;and died there at
+Morteyn. Oh, I am glad you are here. Jack says you must tell
+Rickerl nothing about Sir Thorald; nobody is to know that&mdash;now
+all is ended."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Dorothy.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the house, Archibald Grahame and Lady Hesketh
+met them at the door. Molly Hesketh had wept a great deal at
+first. She wept still, but more moderately.</p>
+
+<p>"My angel child!" she said, taking Dorothy to her bosom. Grahame
+took off his hat.</p>
+
+<p>The old people hurried to Jack's room above; Dorothy, guided by
+Lorraine, hastened to Rickerl; Archibald Grahame looked genially
+at Molly and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't, Lady Hesketh&mdash;I beg you won't. Try to be cheerful. We
+must find something to divert you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wish to," said Molly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is a band concert this afternoon in the Place Turenne,"
+suggested Grahame.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never go," said Molly; "I haven't anything fit to wear."</p>
+
+<p>In the room above, Madame de Morteyn sat with Jack's hand in
+hers, smiling through her tears. The old vicomte stood beside
+her, one arm clasping Lorraine's slender waist.</p>
+
+<p>"Children! children! wicked ones!" he repeated, "how dare you
+marry each other like two little heathen?"</p>
+
+<p>"It comes, my dear, from your having married an American wife,"
+said Madame de Morteyn, brushing away the tears; "they do those
+things in America."</p>
+
+<p>"America!" grumbled the vicomte, perfectly delighted&mdash;"a nice
+country for young savages. Lorraine, you at least should have
+known better."</p>
+
+<p>"I did," said Lorraine; "I ought to have married Jack long ago."</p>
+
+<p>The vicomte was speechless; Jack laughed and pressed his aunt's
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>They spoke of Morteyn, of their hope that one day they might
+rebuild it. They spoke, too, of Paris, cuirassed with steel,
+flinging defiance to the German floods that rolled towards the
+walls from north, south, west, and east.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no death," said Lorraine; "the years renew their life.
+We shall all live. France will be reborn."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no death," repeated the old man, and kissed her on the
+brow.</p>
+
+<p>So they stood there in the sunlight, tearless, serene, moved by the
+prophecy of their child Lorraine. And <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>Lorraine sat beside her husband,
+her fathomless blue eyes dreaming in the sunlight&mdash;dreaming of her
+Province of Lorraine, of the Honour of France, of the Justice of
+God&mdash;dreaming of love and the sweetness of her youth, unfolding like
+a fresh rose at dawn, there on her husband's breast.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+<hr class= 'dashed' />
+<h4>Books by</h4>
+<h4>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</h4>
+
+
+<table border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Books'
+style='margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;'>
+<col style='width:80%;' />
+<col style='width:20%;' />
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>Lorraine</b></span>. Post 8vo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>$1.25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>The Conspirators</b></span>.      Ill'd.    Post 8vo</td>
+    <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>A Young Man in a Hurry</b></span>.        Ill'd.   Post 8vo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>Cardigan</b></span>.       Illustrated.   Post 8vo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>The Maid-at-Arms</b></span>.        Illustrated.    Post 8vo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>The King in Yellow</b></span>.        Post 8vo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>The Maids of Paradise</b></span>.        Ill'd.    Post 8vo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>In Search of the Unknown</b></span>.        Ill'd.    Post 8vo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>Outdoorland</b></span>.                Ill'd in Colors.        Sq. 8vo, net</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>Orchardland</b></span>.                Ill'd in Colors.        Sq. 8vo, net</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>Riverland</b></span>.                Ill'd in Colors.        Sq. 8vo, net</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class='tdleft2'><span class="smcap"><b>The Mystery of Choice</b></span>.                16mo</td>
+  <td class='tdright'>1.25</td>
+</tr></table>
+
+<h5>HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.</h5>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 24181-h.htm or 24181-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/8/24181/
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
+
diff --git a/24181-h/images/001.jpg b/24181-h/images/001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..13dace5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24181-h/images/001.jpg
diff --git a/24181.txt b/24181.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ba1e5b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24181.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12034 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lorraine
+       A romance
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: January 6, 2008 [EBook #24181]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    LORRAINE
+
+    A ROMANCE
+
+    By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    Author of "Cardigan,"
+    "The Maid at Arms,"
+    "The Maids of Paradise,"
+    "The Fighting Chance," etc.
+
+
+    A. L. BURT COMPANY
+    Publishers New York
+
+    Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers
+
+    Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers.
+
+    All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    MY FATHER
+
+
+
+
+    LORRAINE!
+
+    _When Yesterday shall dawn again,
+    And the long line athwart the hill
+    Shall quicken with the bugle's thrill,
+    Thine own shall come to thee, Lorraine!_
+
+    _Then in each vineyard, vale, and plain,
+    The quiet dead shall stir the earth
+    And rise, reborn, in thy new birth--
+    Thou holy martyr-maid, Lorraine!_
+
+    _Is it in vain thy sweet tears stain
+    Thy mother's breast? Her castled crest
+    Is lifted now! God guide her quest!
+    She seeks thine own for thee, Lorraine!_
+
+    _So Yesterday shall live again,
+    And the steel line along the Rhine
+    Shall cuirass thee and all that's thine.
+    France lives--thy France--divine Lorraine!_
+
+    R. W. C.
+
+
+
+
+    ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+    The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the
+    valuable volumes of Messrs. Victor Duruy, Archibald Forbes,
+    Sir William Fraser, Dr. J. von Pflugk-Harttung, G.
+    Tissandier, Comdt. Grandin, and "Un Officier de Marine,"
+    concerning (wholly or in part) the events of 1870-1871.
+
+    Occasionally the author has deemed it best to change the
+    names of villages, officers, and regiments or battalions.
+
+    The author believes that the romance separated from the
+    facts should leave the historical basis virtually accurate.
+
+    R. W. C.
+
+    New York, September, 1897.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+    CHAPTER                                      PAGE
+
+         I. A Maker of Maps                         1
+
+        II. Telegrams for Two                      11
+
+       III. Summer Thunder                         20
+
+        IV. The Farandole                          30
+
+         V. Cowards and Their Courage              39
+
+        VI. Trains East and West                   51
+
+       VII. The Road To Paradise                   59
+
+      VIII. Under the Yoke                         63
+
+        IX. Saarbrueck                              79
+
+         X. An Unexpected Encounter                95
+
+        XI. "Keep Thy Faith"                      102
+
+       XII. From the Frontier                     116
+
+      XIII. Aide-de-camp                          131
+
+       XIV. The Marquis Makes Himself Agreeable   139
+
+        XV. The Invasion of Lorraine              157
+
+       XVI. "In the Hollow of Thy Hand"           171
+
+      XVII. The Keepers of the House              179
+
+     XVIII. The Stretching of Necks               190
+
+       XIX. Rickerl's Sabre                       205
+
+        XX. Sir Thorald Is Silent                 213
+
+       XXI. The White Cross                       226
+
+      XXII. A Door Is Locked                      239
+
+     XXIII. Lorraine Sleeps                       250
+
+      XXIV. Lorraine Awakes                       258
+
+       XXV. Princess Imperial                     270
+
+      XXVI. The Shadow of Pomp                    278
+
+     XXVII. Ca Ira!                               285
+
+    XXVIII. The Braconnier                        297
+
+      XXIX. The Message of the Flag               306
+
+       XXX. The Valley of the Shadow              324
+
+      XXXI. The Prophecy of Lorraine              334
+
+
+
+
+LORRAINE
+
+I
+
+A MAKER OF MAPS
+
+
+There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a
+soft foot-fall on the dead leaves.
+
+Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened.
+
+Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near,
+now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence,
+the silence that startles.
+
+He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly,
+striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a
+moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels,
+and listened again, pipe tightly clutched between his white
+teeth.
+
+All around lay the beautiful Lorraine forests, dim and sweet,
+dusky as velvet in their leafy depths. A single sunbeam, striking
+obliquely through the brush tangle, powdered the forest mould
+with gold.
+
+He heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing, where green
+branches swept its placid surface with a thousand new-born
+leaves; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind.
+
+Suddenly, far ahead, something gray shambled loosely across the
+path, leaped a brush heap, slunk under a fallen tree, and loped
+on again.
+
+For a moment Marche refused to believe his own eyes. A wolf in
+Lorraine!--a big, gray timber-wolf, here, within a mile of the
+Chateau Morteyn! He could see it yet, passing like a shadow along
+the trees. Before he knew it he was following, running noiselessly
+over the soft, mossy path, holding his little shot-gun tightly. As
+he ran, his eyes fixed on the spot where the wolf had disappeared,
+he began to doubt his senses again, he began to believe that the
+thing he saw was some shaggy sheep-dog from the Moselle, astray in
+the Lorraine forests. But he held his pace, his pipe griped in his
+teeth, his gun swinging at his side. Presently, as he turned into
+a grass-grown carrefour, a mere waste of wild-flowers and tangled
+briers, he caught his ankle in a strand of ivy and fell headlong.
+Sprawling there on the moss and dead leaves, the sound of human
+voices struck his ear, and he sat up, scowling and rubbing his
+knees.
+
+The voices came nearer; two people were approaching the carrefour.
+Jack Marche, angry and dirty, looked through the bushes, stanching
+a long scratch on his wrist with his pocket-handkerchief. The people
+were in sight now--a man, tall, square-shouldered, striding swiftly
+through the woods, followed by a young girl. Twice she sprang
+forward and seized him by the arm, but he shook her off roughly
+and hastened on. As they entered the carrefour, the girl ran in
+front of him and pushed him back with all her strength.
+
+"Come, now," said the man, recovering his balance, "you had
+better stop this before I lose patience. Go back!"
+
+The girl barred his way with slender arms out-stretched.
+
+"What are you doing in my woods?" she demanded. "Answer me! I
+will know, this time!"
+
+"Let me pass!" sneered the man. He held a roll of papers in one
+hand; in the other, steel compasses that glittered in the sun.
+
+"I shall not let you pass!" she said, desperately; "you shall not
+pass! I wish to know what it means, why you and the others come
+into my woods and make maps of every path, of every brook, of
+every bridge--yes, of every wall and tree and rock! I have seen
+you before--you and the others. You are strangers in my country!"
+
+"Get out of my path," said the man, sullenly.
+
+"Then give me that map you have made! I know what you are! You
+come from across the Rhine!"
+
+The man scowled and stepped towards her.
+
+"You are a German spy!" she cried, passionately.
+
+"You little fool!" he snarled, seizing her arm. He shook her
+brutally; the scarlet skirts fluttered, a little rent came in the
+velvet bodice, the heavy, shining hair tumbled down over her
+eyes.
+
+In a moment Marche had the man by the throat. He held him there,
+striking him again and again in the face. Twice the man tried to
+stab him with the steel compasses, but Marche dragged them out of
+his fist and hammered him until he choked and spluttered and
+collapsed on the ground, only to stagger to his feet again and
+lurch into the thicket of second growth. There he tripped and
+fell as Marche had fallen on the ivy, but, unlike Marche, he
+wriggled under the bushes and ran on, stooping low, never
+glancing back.
+
+The impulse that comes to men to shoot when anything is running
+for safety came over Marche for an instant. Instinctively he
+raised his gun, hesitated, lowered it, still watching the running
+man with cold, bright eyes.
+
+"Well," he said, turning to the girl behind him, "he's gone now.
+Ought I to have fired? Ma foi! I'm sorry I didn't! He has torn
+your bodice and your skirt!"
+
+The girl stood breathless, cheeks aflame, burnished tangled hair
+shadowing her eyes.
+
+"We have the map," she said, with a little gasp.
+
+Marche picked up a crumpled roll of paper from the ground and
+opened it. It contained a rough topographical sketch of the
+surrounding country, a detail of a dozen small forest paths, a
+map of the whole course of the river Lisse from its source to its
+junction with the Moselle, and a beautiful plan of the Chateau de
+Nesville.
+
+"That is my house!" said the girl; "he has a map of my house! How
+dare he!"
+
+"The Chateau de Nesville?" asked Marche, astonished; "are you
+Lorraine?"
+
+"Yes! I'm Lorraine. Didn't you know it?"
+
+"Lorraine de Nesville?" he repeated, curiously.
+
+"Yes! How dares that German to come into my woods and make maps and
+carry them back across the Rhine! I have seen him before--twice--drawing
+and measuring along the park wall. I told my father, but he thinks only
+of his balloons. I have seen others, too--other strange men in the
+chase--always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do
+Germans want of maps of France? I thought of it all day--every day; I
+watched, I listened in the forest. And do you know what I think?"
+
+"What?" asked Marche.
+
+She pushed back her splendid hair and faced him.
+
+"War!" she said, in a low voice.
+
+"War?" he repeated, stupidly. She stretched out an arm towards
+the east; then, with a passionate gesture, she stepped to his
+side.
+
+"War! Yes! War! War! War! I cannot tell you how I know it--I ask
+myself how--and to myself I answer: 'It is coming! I, Lorraine,
+know it!'"
+
+A fierce light flashed from her eyes, blue as corn-flowers in
+July.
+
+"It is in dreams I see and hear now--in dreams; and I see the
+vineyards black with helmets, and the Moselle redder than the
+setting sun, and over all the land of France I see bayonets,
+moving, moving, like the Rhine in flood!"
+
+The light in her eyes died out; she straightened up; her lithe
+young body trembled.
+
+"I have never before told this to any one," she said, faintly;
+"my father does not listen when I speak. You are Jack Marche, are
+you not?"
+
+He did not answer, but stood awkwardly, folding and unfolding the
+crumpled maps.
+
+"You are the vicomte's nephew--a guest at the Chateau Morteyn?"
+she asked.
+
+"Yes," said Marche.
+
+"Then you are Monsieur Jack Marche?"
+
+He took off his shooting-cap and laughed frankly. "You find me
+carrying a gun on your grounds," he said; "I'm sure you take me
+for a poacher."
+
+She glanced at his leggings.
+
+"Now," he began, "I ask permission to explain; I am afraid that
+you will be inclined to doubt my explanation. I almost doubt it
+myself, but here it is. Do you know that there are wolves in
+these woods?"
+
+"Wolves?" she repeated, horrified.
+
+"I saw one; I followed it to this carrefour."
+
+She leaned against a tree; her hands fell to her sides.
+
+There was a silence; then she said, "You will not believe what I
+am going to say--you will call it superstition--perhaps
+stupidity. But do you know that wolves have never appeared along
+the Moselle except before a battle? Seventy years ago they were
+seen before the battle of Colmar. That was the last time. And now
+they appear again."
+
+"I may have been mistaken," he said, hastily; "those shaggy
+sheep-dogs from the Moselle are very much like timber-wolves in
+colour. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Nesville, why should you believe
+that we are going to have a war? Two weeks ago the Emperor spoke
+of the perfect tranquillity of Europe." He smiled and added,
+"France seeks no quarrels. Because a brute of a German comes
+sneaking into these woods to satisfy his national thirst for
+prying, I don't see why war should result."
+
+"War did result," she said, smiling also, and glancing at his
+torn shooting-coat; "I haven't even thanked you yet, Monsieur
+Marche--for your victory."
+
+With a sudden gesture, proud, yet half shy, she held out one
+hand, and he took it in his own hands, bronzed and brier
+scratched.
+
+"I thought," she said, withdrawing her fingers, "that I ought to
+give you an American 'shake hands.' I suppose you are wondering
+why we haven't met before. There are reasons."
+
+She looked down at her scarlet skirt, touched a triangular tear
+in it, and, partly turning her head, raised her arms and twisted
+the tangled hair into a heavy burnished knot at her neck.
+
+"You wear the costume of Lorraine," he ventured.
+
+"Is it not pretty? I love it. Alone in the house I always wear
+it, the scarlet skirts banded with black, the velvet bodice and
+silver chains--oh! he has broken my chain, too!"
+
+He leaned on his gun, watching her, fascinated with the grace of
+her white fingers twisting her hair.
+
+"To think that you should have first seen me so! What will they
+say at the Chateau Morteyn?"
+
+"But I shall tell nobody," laughed Marche.
+
+"Then you are very honourable, and I thank you. Mon Dieu, they
+talk enough about me--you have heard them--do not deny it,
+Monsieur Marche. It is always, 'Lorraine did this, Lorraine did
+that, Lorraine is shocking, Lorraine is silly, Lorraine--' O
+Dieu! que sais'je! Poor Lorraine!"
+
+"Poor Lorraine!" he repeated, solemnly. They both laughed
+outright.
+
+"I know all about the house-party at the Chateau Morteyn," she
+resumed, mending a tear in her velvet bodice with a hair-pin. "I
+was invited, as you probably know, Monsieur Marche; but I did not
+go, and doubtless the old vicomte is saying, 'I wonder why
+Lorraine does not come?' and Madame de Morteyn replies, 'Lorraine
+is a very uncertain quantity, my dear'--oh, I am sure that they
+are saying these things."
+
+"I think I heard some such dialogue yesterday," said Marche, much
+amused. Lorraine raised her head and looked at him.
+
+"You think I am a crazy child in tatters, neglected and wild as a
+falcon from the Vosges. I know you do. Everybody says so, and
+everybody pities me and my father. Why? Parbleu! he makes
+experiments with air-ships that they don't understand. Voila! As
+for me, I am more than happy. I have my forest and my fields; I
+have my horses and my books. I dress as I choose; I go where I
+choose. Am I not happy, Monsieur Marche?"
+
+"I should say," he admitted, "that you are."
+
+"You see," she continued, with a pretty, confidential nod, "I can
+talk to you because you are the vicomte's American nephew, and I
+have heard all about you and your lovely sister, and it is all
+right--isn't it?"
+
+"It is," said Marche, fervently.
+
+"Of course. Now I shall tell you why I did not go to the Chateau
+and meet your sister and the others. Perhaps you will not
+comprehend. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"I'll try to comprehend," said Marche, laughing.
+
+"Well, then, would you believe it? I--Lorraine de Nesville--have
+outgrown my clothes, monsieur, and my beautiful new gowns are
+coming from Paris this week, and then--"
+
+"Then!" repeated Marche.
+
+"Then you shall see," said Lorraine, gravely.
+
+Jack, bewildered, fascinated, stood leaning on his gun, watching
+every movement of the lithe figure before him.
+
+"Until your gowns arrive, I shall not see you again?" he asked.
+
+She looked up quickly.
+
+"Do you wish to?"
+
+"Very much!" he blurted out, and then, aware of the undue fervor
+he had shown, repeated: "Very much--if you don't mind," in a
+subdued but anxious voice.
+
+Again she raised her eyes to his, doubtfully, perhaps a little
+wistfully.
+
+"It wouldn't be right, would it--until you are presented?"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"Still," she said, looking up into the sky, "I often come to the
+river below, usually after luncheon."
+
+"I wonder if there are any gudgeon there?" he said; "I could
+bring a rod--"
+
+"Oh, but are you coming? Is that right? I think there are fish
+there," she added, innocently, "and I usually come after
+luncheon."
+
+"And when your gowns arrive from Paris--"
+
+"Then! Then you shall see! Oh! I shall be a very different
+person; I shall be timid and silent and stupid and awkward, and I
+shall answer, 'Oui, monsieur;' 'Non, monsieur,' and you will
+behold in me the jeune fille of the romances."
+
+"Don't!" he protested.
+
+"I shall!" she cried, shaking out her scarlet skirts full
+breadth. "Good-by!"
+
+In a second she had gone, straight away through the forest,
+leaving in his ears the music of her voice, on his finger-tips
+the touch of her warm hand.
+
+He stood, leaning on his gun--a minute, an hour?--he did not
+know.
+
+Presently earthly sounds began to come back to drown the
+delicious voice in his ears; he heard the little river Lisse,
+flowing, flowing under green branches; he heard a throstle
+singing in the summer wind; he heard, far in the deeper forest,
+something passing--patter, patter, patter--over the dead leaves.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+TELEGRAMS FOR TWO
+
+
+Jack Marche tucked his gun under his arm and turned away along
+the overgrown wood-road that stretched from the De Nesville
+forests to the more open woods of Morteyn.
+
+He walked slowly, puffing his pipe, pondering over his encounter with
+the chatelaine of the Chateau de Nesville. He thought, too, of the old
+Vicomte de Morteyn and his gentle wife, of the little house-party of
+which he and his sister Dorothy made two, of Sir Thorald and Lady
+Hesketh, their youthful and totally irresponsible chaperons on the
+journey from Paris to Morteyn.
+
+"They're lunching on the Lisse," he thought. "I'll not get a bite
+if Ricky is there."
+
+When Madame de Morteyn wrote to Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh on
+the first of July, she asked them to chaperon her two nieces and
+some other pretty girls in the American colony whom they might
+wish to bring, for a month, to Morteyn.
+
+"The devil!" said Sir Thorald when he read the letter; "am I to
+pick out the girls, Molly?"
+
+"Betty and I will select the men," said Lady Hesketh, sweetly;
+"you may do as you please."
+
+He did. He suggested a great many, and wrote a list for his wife.
+That prudent young woman carefully crossed out every name, saying,
+"Thorald! I am ashamed of you!" and substituted another list. She
+had chosen, besides Dorothy Marche and Betty Castlemaine, the two
+nieces in question, Barbara Lisle and her inseparable little German
+friend, Alixe von Elster; also the latter's brother, Rickerl, or
+Ricky, as he was called in diplomatic circles. She closed the list
+with Cecil Page, because she knew that Betty Castlemaine, Madame
+de Morteyn's younger niece, looked kindly, at times, upon this
+blond giant.
+
+And so it happened that the whole party invaded three first-class
+compartments of an east-bound train at the Gare de l'Est, and
+twenty-two hours later were trooping up the terrace steps of the
+Chateau Morteyn, here in the forests and fragrant meadows of
+Lorraine.
+
+Madame de Morteyn kissed all the girls on both cheeks, and the
+old vicomte embraced his nieces, Betty Castlemaine and Dorothy
+Marche, and threatened to kiss the others, including Molly
+Hesketh. He desisted, he assured them, only because he feared Sir
+Thorald might feel bound to follow his example; to which Lady
+Hesketh replied that she didn't care and smiled at the vicomte.
+
+The days had flown very swiftly for all: Jack Marche taught
+Barbara Lisle to fish for gudgeon; Betty Castlemaine tormented
+Cecil Page to his infinitely miserable delight; Ricky von Elster
+made tender eyes at Dorothy Marche and rowed her up and down the
+Lisse; and his sister Alixe read sentimental verses under the
+beech-trees and sighed for the sweet mysteries that young German
+girls sigh for--heart-friendships, lovers, _Ewigkeit_--God knows
+what!--something or other that turns the heart to tears until
+everything slops over and the very heavens sob.
+
+They were happy enough together in the Chateau and out-of-doors.
+Little incidents occurred that might as well not have occurred,
+but apparently no scars were left nor any incurable pang. True,
+Molly Hesketh made eyes at Ricky von Elster; but she reproved him
+bitterly when he kissed her hand in the orangery one evening;
+true also that Sir Thorald whispered airy nothings into the
+shell-like ear of Alixe von Elster until that German maiden could
+not have repeated her German alphabet. But, except for the
+chaperons, the unmarried people did well enough, as unmarried
+people usually do when let alone.
+
+So, on that cloudless day of July, 1870, Rickerl von Elster sat
+in the green row-boat and tugged at the oars while Sir Thorald
+smoked a cigar placidly and Lady Hesketh trailed her pointed
+fingers over the surface of the water.
+
+"Ricky, my son," said Sir Thorald, "you probably gallop better
+than you row. Who ever heard of an Uhlan in a boat? Molly, take
+his oars away."
+
+"Ricky shall row me if he wishes," replied Molly Hesketh; "and
+you do, don't you, Ricky? Thorald will set you on shore if you
+want."
+
+"I have no confidence in Uhlan officers," said her spouse,
+darkly.
+
+Rickerl looked pleased; perspiration stood on his blond eyebrows
+and his broad face glowed.
+
+"As an officer of cavalry in the Prussian army," he said, "and as
+an attache of the German Embassy in Paris, I suggest that we
+return to first principles and rejoin our base of supplies."
+
+"He's thirsty," said Molly, gravely. "The base of supplies, so
+long cut loose from, is there under the willows, and I see six
+feet two of Cecil Page carrying a case of bottles."
+
+"Row, Ricky!" urged Sir Thorald; "they will leave nothing for
+Uhlan foragers!"
+
+The boat rubbed its nose against the mossy bank; Lady Hesketh
+placed her fair hands in Ricky's chubby ones and sprang to the
+shore.
+
+"Cecil Page," she said, "I am thirsty. Where are the others?"
+
+Betty and Dorothy looked out from their seat in the tall grass.
+
+"Charles brought the hamper; there it is," said Cecil.
+
+Barbara Lisle and sentimental little Alixe von Elster strolled up
+and looked lovingly upon the sandwiches.
+
+Cecil Page stood and sulked, until Dorothy took pity and made
+room on the moss beside her.
+
+"Can't you have a little mercy, Betty?" she whispered; "Cecil
+moons like a wounded elephant."
+
+So Betty smiled at him and asked for more salad, and Cecil
+brought it and basked in her smiles.
+
+"Where is Jack Marche?" asked Molly Hesketh. "Dorothy, your
+brother went into the chase with a gun, and where is he?"
+
+"What does he want to shoot in July? It's too late for rooks,"
+said Sir Thorald, pouring out champagne-cup for Barbara Lisle.
+
+"I don't know where Jack went," said Dorothy. "He heard one of
+the keepers complain of the hawks, so, I suppose, he took a gun.
+I wonder why that strange Lorraine de Nesville doesn't come to
+call. I am simply dying to see her."
+
+"I saw her once," observed Sir Thorald.
+
+"You generally do," added his wife.
+
+"What?"
+
+"See what others don't."
+
+Sir Thorald, a trifle disconcerted, applied himself to caviare
+and, later, to a bottle of Moselle.
+
+"She's a beauty, they say--" began Ricky, and might have
+continued had he not caught the danger-signal in Molly Hesketh's
+black eyes.
+
+"Lorraine de Nesville," said Lady Hesketh, "is only a child of
+seventeen. Her father makes balloons."
+
+"Not the little, red, squeaky kind," added Sir Thorald; "Molly,
+he is an amateur aeronaut."
+
+"He'd much better take care of Lorraine. The poor child runs wild
+all over the country. They say she rides like a witch on a
+broom--"
+
+"Astride?" cried Sir Thorald.
+
+"For shame!" said his wife; "I--I--upon my word, I have heard
+that she has done that, too. Ricky! what do you mean by yawning?"
+
+Ricky had been listening, mouth open. He shut it hurriedly and
+grew pink to the roots of his colourless hair.
+
+Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil, and Dorothy Marche laughed.
+
+"What of it?" she said; "there is nobody here who would dare to!"
+
+"Oh, shocking!" said little Alixe, and tried to look as though
+she meant it.
+
+At that moment Sir Thorald caught sight of Jack Marche, strolling
+up through the trees, gun tucked under his left arm.
+
+"No luncheon, no salad, no champagne-cup, no cigarette!" he
+called; "all gone! all gone! Molly's smoked my last--"
+
+"Jack Marche, where have you been?" demanded Molly Hesketh. "No,
+you needn't dodge my accusing finger! Barbara, look at him!"
+
+"It's a pretty finger--if Sir Thorald will permit me to say so,"
+said Jack, laughing and setting his gun up against a tree.
+"Dorrie, didn't you save any salad? Ricky, you devouring scourge,
+there's not a bit of caviare! I'm hungry--Oh, thanks, Betty, you
+did think of the prodigal, didn't you?"
+
+"It was Cecil," she said, slyly; "I was saving it for him. What
+did you shoot, Jack?"
+
+"Now you people listen and I'll tell you what I didn't shoot."
+
+"A poor little hawk?" asked Betty.
+
+"No--a poor little wolf!"
+
+In the midst of cries of astonishment and exclamations Sir
+Thorald arose, waving a napkin.
+
+"I knew it!" he said--"I knew I saw a wolf in the woods day
+before yesterday, but I didn't dare tell Molly; she never
+believes me."
+
+"And you deliberately chose to expose us to the danger of being eaten
+alive?" said Lady Hesketh, in an awful voice. "Ricky, I'm going to
+get into that boat at once; Dorothy--Betty Castlemaine--bring Alixe
+and Barbara Lisle. We are going to embark at once."
+
+"Ricky and his boat-load of beauty," laughed Sir Thorald.
+"Really, Molly, I hesitated to tell you because--I was afraid--"
+
+"What, you horrid thing?--afraid he'd bite me?"
+
+"Afraid you'd bite the wolf, my dear," he whispered so that
+nobody but she heard it; "I say, Ricky, we ought to have a wolf
+drive! What do you think?"
+
+The subject started, all chimed in with enthusiasm except Alixe
+von Elster, who sat with big, soulful eyes fixed on Sir Thorald
+and trembled for that bad young man's precious skin.
+
+"We have two weeks to stay yet," said Cecil, glancing
+involuntarily at Betty Castlemaine; "we can get up a drive in a
+week."
+
+"You are not going, Cecil," said Betty, in a low voice, partly to
+practise controlling him, partly to see him blush.
+
+Lady Hesketh, however, took enough interest in the sport to
+insist, and Jack Marche promised to see the head-keeper at once.
+
+"I think I see him now," said Sir Thorald--"no, it's Bosquet's
+boy from the post-office. Those are telegrams he's got."
+
+The little postman's son came trotting across the meadow, waving
+two blue envelopes.
+
+"Monsieur le Capitaine Rickerl von Elster and Monsieur Jack
+Marche--two telegrams this instant from Paris, messieurs! I
+salute you." And he took off his peaked cap, adding, as he saw
+the others, "Messieurs, mesdames," and nodded his curly, blond
+head and smiled.
+
+"Don't apologize--read your telegrams!" said Lady Hesketh; "dear
+me! dear me! if they take you two away and leave Thorald, I
+shall--I shall yawn!"
+
+Ricky's broad face changed as he read his despatch; and Molly
+Hesketh, shamelessly peeping over his shoulder, exclaimed, "It's
+cipher! How stupid! Can you understand it, Ricky?"
+
+Yes, Rickerl von Elster understood it well enough. He paled a
+little, thrust the crumpled telegram into his pocket, and looked
+vaguely at the circle of faces. After a moment he said, standing
+very straight, "I must leave to-morrow morning."
+
+"Recalled? Confound your ambassador, Ricky!" said Sir Thorald.
+"Recalled to Paris in midsummer! Well, I'm--"
+
+"Not to Paris," said Rickerl, with a curious catch in his
+voice--"to Berlin. I join my regiment at once."
+
+Jack Marche, who had been studying his telegram with puzzled
+eyes, held it out to Sir Thorald.
+
+"Can't make head or tail of it; can you?" he demanded.
+
+Sir Thorald took it and read aloud: "New York _Herald_ offers you
+your own price and all expenses. Cable, if accepted."
+
+"'Cable, if accepted,'" repeated Betty Castlemaine; "accept
+what?"
+
+"Exactly! What?" said Jack. "Do they want a story? What do
+'expenses' mean? I'm not going to Africa again if I know it."
+
+"It sounds as though the _Herald_ wanted you for some expedition;
+it sounds as if everybody knew about the expedition, except you.
+Nobody ever hears any news at Morteyn," said Molly Hesketh,
+dejectedly. "Are you going, Jack?"
+
+"Going? Where?"
+
+"Does your telegram throw any light on Jack's, Ricky?" asked Sir
+Thorald.
+
+But Rickerl von Elster turned away without answering.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUMMER THUNDER
+
+
+When the old vicomte was well enough to entertain anybody at all,
+which was not very often, he did it skilfully. So when he filled
+the Chateau with young people and told them to amuse themselves
+and not bother him, the house-party was necessarily a success.
+
+He himself sat all day in the sunshine, studying the week's Paris
+newspapers with dim, kindly eyes, or played interminable chess
+games with his wife on the flower terrace.
+
+She was sixty; he had passed threescore and ten. They never
+strayed far from each other. It had always been so from the
+first, and the first was when Helen Bruce, of New York City,
+married Georges Vicomte de Morteyn. That was long ago.
+
+The chess-table stood on the terrace in the shadow of the
+flower-crowned parapets; the old vicomte sat opposite his wife,
+one hand touching the black knight, one foot propped up on a pile
+of cushions. He pushed the knight slowly from square to square
+and twisted his white imperial with stiff fingers.
+
+"Helen," he asked, mildly, "are you bored?"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+Madame de Morteyn smiled at her husband and lifted a pawn in her
+thin, blue-veined hand; but the vicomte had not finished, and she
+replaced the pawn and leaned back in her chair, moving the two
+little coffee-cups aside so that she could see what her husband
+was doing with the knight.
+
+From the lawn below came the chatter and laughter of girls. On
+the edge of the lawn the little river Lisse glided noiselessly
+towards the beech woods, whose depths, saturated with sunshine,
+rang with the mellow notes of nesting thrushes.
+
+The middle of July had found the leaves as fresh and tender as
+when they opened in May, the willow's silver green cooled the
+richer verdure of beach and sycamore; the round poplar leaves,
+pale yellow and orange in the sunlight, hung brilliant as lighted
+lanterns where the sun burned through.
+
+"Helen?"
+
+"Dear?"
+
+"I am not at all certain what to do with my queen's knight. May I
+have another cup of coffee?"
+
+Madame de Morteyn poured the coffee from the little silver
+coffee-pot.
+
+"It is hot; be careful, dear."
+
+The vicomte sipped his coffee, looking at her with faded eyes.
+She knew what he was going to say; it was always the same, and
+her answer was always the same. And always, as at that first
+breakfast--their wedding-breakfast--her pale cheeks bloomed again
+with a subtle colour, the ghost of roses long dead.
+
+"Helen, are you thinking of that morning?"
+
+"Yes, Georges."
+
+"Of our wedding-breakfast--here--at this same table?"
+
+"Yes, Georges."
+
+The vicomte set his cup back in the saucer and, trembling, poured
+a pale, golden liquid from a decanter into two tiny glasses.
+
+"A glass of wine?--I have the honour, my dear--"
+
+The colour touched her cheeks as their glasses met; the still air
+tinkled with the melody of crystal touching crystal; a golden
+drop fell from the brimming glasses. The young people on the lawn
+below were very noisy.
+
+She placed her empty glass on the table; the delicate glow in her
+cheeks faded as skies fade at twilight. He, with grave head
+leaning on his hand, looked vaguely at the chess-board, and saw,
+mirrored on every onyx square, the eyes of his wife.
+
+"Will you have the journals, dear?" she asked presently. She
+handed him the _Gaulois_, and he thanked her and opened it,
+peering closely at the black print.
+
+After a moment he read: "M. Ollivier declared, in the Corps
+Legislatif, that 'at no time in the history of France has the
+maintenance of peace been more assured than to-day.' Oh, that
+journal is two weeks' old, Helen.
+
+"The treaty of Paris in 1856 assured peace in the Orient, and the
+treaty of Prague in 1866 assures peace in Germany," continued the
+vicomte; "I don't see why it should be necessary for Monsieur
+Ollivier to insist."
+
+He dropped the paper on the stones and touched his white
+mustache.
+
+"You are thinking of General Chanzy," said his wife,
+laughing--"you always twist your mustache like that when you're
+thinking of Chanzy."
+
+He smiled, for he was thinking of Chanzy, his sword-brother; and
+the hot plains of Oran and the dusty columns of cavalry passed
+before his eyes--moving, moving across a world of desert into the
+flaming disk of the setting sun.
+
+"Is to-day the 16th of July, Helen?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Then Chanzy is coming back from Oran. I know you dread it. We
+shall talk of nothing but Abd-el-Kader and Spahis and Turcos, and
+how we lost our Kabyle tobacco at Bou-Youb."
+
+She had heard all about it, too; she knew every etape of the 48th
+of the Line--from the camp at Sathonay to Sidi-Bel-Abbes, and
+from Daya to Djebel-Mikaidon. Not that she cared for sabres and
+red trousers, but nothing that concerned her husband was
+indifferent to her.
+
+"I hope General Chanzy will come," she said, "and tell you all
+about those poor Kabyles and the Legion and that horrid 2d
+Zouaves that you and he laugh over. Are you tired, dear?"
+
+"No. Shall we play? I believe it was my move. How warm it is in
+the sun--no, don't stir, dear--I like it, and my gout is better
+for it. What do you suppose all those young people are doing?
+Hear Betty Castlemaine laugh! It is very fortunate for them,
+Helen, that I married an American with an American's disregard of
+French conventionalities."
+
+"I am very strict," said his wife, smiling; "I can survey them en
+chaperone."
+
+"If you turn around. But you don't."
+
+"I do when it is necessary," said Madame de Morteyn, indignantly;
+"Molly Hesketh is there."
+
+The vicomte laughed and picked up the knight again.
+
+"You see," he said, waving it in the air, "that I also have
+become a very good American. I think no evil until it comes, and
+when it comes I say, 'Shocking!'"
+
+"Georges!"
+
+"That's what I say, my dear--"
+
+"Georges!"
+
+"There, dear, I won't tease. Hark! What is that?"
+
+Madame de Morteyn leaned over the parapet.
+
+"It is Jean Bosquet. Shall I speak to him?"
+
+"Perhaps he has the Paris papers."
+
+"Jean!" she called; and presently the little postman came
+trotting up the long stone steps from the drive. Had he anything?
+Nothing for Monsieur le Vicomte except a bundle of the week's
+journals from Paris. So Madame de Morteyn took the papers, and
+the little postman doffed his cap again and trotted away, blue
+blouse fluttering and sabots echoing along the terrace pavement.
+
+"I am tired of chess," said the old vicomte; "would you mind
+reading the _Gaulois_?"
+
+"The politics, dear?"
+
+"Yes, the weekly summary--if it won't bore you."
+
+"Tais toi! Ecoute. This is dated July 3d. Shall I begin?"
+
+"Yes, Helen."
+
+She held the paper nearer and read: "'A Paris journal publishes a
+despatch through l'agence Havas which declares that a deputation
+from the Spanish Government has left Madrid for Berlin to offer
+the crown of Spain to Leopold von Hohenzollern.'"
+
+"What!" cried the vicomte, angrily. Two chessmen tipped over and
+rolled among the others.
+
+"It's what it says, mon ami; look--see--it is exactly as I read
+it."
+
+"Are those Spaniards crazy?" muttered the vicomte, tugging at his
+imperial. "Look, Helen, read what the next day's journal says."
+
+His wife unfolded the paper dated the 4th of July and found the
+column and read: "'The press of Paris unanimously accuses the
+Imperial Government of allowing Prim and Bismarck to intrigue
+against the interests of France. The French ambassador, Count
+Benedetti, interviewed the King of Prussia at Ems and requested
+him to prevent Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern's acceptance. It
+is rumoured that the King of Prussia declined to interfere.'"
+
+Madame de Morteyn tossed the journal on to the terrace and opened
+another.
+
+"'On the 12th of July the Spanish ambassador to Paris informed
+the Duc de Gramont, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the Prince
+von Hohenzollern renounces his candidacy to the Spanish throne.'"
+
+"A la bonheur!" said the vicomte, with a sigh of relief; "that
+settles the Hohenzollern matter. My dear, can you imagine France
+permitting a German prince to mount the throne of Spain? It was
+more than a menace--it was almost an insult. Do you remember
+Count Bismarck when he was ambassador to France? He is a man who
+fascinates me. How he used to watch the Emperor! I can see him
+yet--those puffy, pale eyes! You saw him also, dear--you
+remember, at Saint-Cloud?"
+
+"Yes; I thought him brusque and malicious."
+
+"I know he is at the bottom of this. I'm glad it is over. Did you
+finish the telegraphic news?"
+
+"Almost all. It says--dear me, Georges!--it says that the Duc de
+Gramont refuses to accept any pledge from the Spanish ambassador
+unless that old Von Werther--the German ambassador, you
+know--guarantees that Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern will never
+again attempt to mount the Spanish throne!"
+
+There was a silence. The old vicomte stirred restlessly and
+knocked over some more chessmen.
+
+"Sufficient unto the day--" he said, at last; "the Duc de Gramont
+is making a mistake to press the matter. The word of the Spanish
+ambassador is enough--until he breaks it. General Leboeuf might
+occupy himself in the interim--profitably, I think."
+
+"General Leboeuf is minister of war. What do you mean, Georges?"
+
+"Yes, dear, Leboeuf is minister of war."
+
+"And you think this German prince may some time again--"
+
+"I think France should be ready if he does. Is she ready? Not if
+Chanzy and I know a Turco from a Kabyle. Perhaps Count Bismarck
+wants us to press his king for guarantees. I don't trust him. If
+he does, we should not oblige him. Gramont is making a grave
+mistake. Suppose the King of Prussia should refuse and say it is
+not his affair? Then we would be obliged to accept that answer,
+or--"
+
+"Or what, Georges?"
+
+"Or--well, my dear--or fight. But Gramont is not wicked enough,
+nor is France crazy enough, to wish to go to war over a
+contingency--a possibility that might never happen. I foresee a
+snub for our ambassador at Ems, but that is all. Do you care to
+play any more? I tipped over my king and his castles."
+
+"Perhaps it is an omen--the King of Prussia, you know, and his
+fortresses. I feel superstitious, Georges!"
+
+The vicomte smiled and set the pieces up on their proper squares.
+
+"It is settled; the Spanish ambassador pledges his word that
+Prince Hohenzollern will not be King of Spain. France should be
+satisfied. It is my move, I believe, and I move so--check to you,
+my dear!"
+
+"I resign, dearest. Listen! Here come the children up the terrace
+steps."
+
+"But--but--Helen, you must not resign so soon. Why should you?"
+
+"Because you are already beaten," she laughed, gently--"your king
+and his castles and all his men! How headstrong you Chasseurs
+d'Afrique are!"
+
+"I'm not beaten!" said the old man, stoutly, and leaned closer
+over the board. Then he also laughed, and said, "Tiens! tiens!
+tiens!" and his wife rose and gave him her arm. Two pretty girls
+came running up the terrace, and the old vicomte stood up,
+crying: "Children! Naughty ones! I see you coming! Madame de
+Morteyn has beaten me at chess. Laugh if you dare! Betty
+Castlemaine, I see you smiling!"
+
+"I?" laughed that young lady, turning her flushed face from her
+aunt to her uncle.
+
+"Yes, you did," repeated the vicomte, "and you are not the niece
+that I love any more. Where have you been? And you, Dorothy
+Marche?--your hair is very much tangled."
+
+"We have been lunching by the Lisse," said Dorothy, "and Jack
+caught a gudgeon; here it is."
+
+"Pooh!" said the old vicomte; "I must show them how to fish.
+Helen, I shall go fishing--"
+
+"Some time," said his wife, gently. "Betty, where are the men?"
+
+"Jack and Barbara Lisle are fishing; Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh
+are in the green boat, and Ricky is rowing them. The others are
+somewhere. Ricky got a telegram, and must go to Berlin."
+
+"Tell Rickerl von Elster that his king is making mischief,"
+laughed the vicomte, "and he may go back to Berlin when he
+chooses." Then, smiling at the young, flushed faces, he leaned on
+his wife's arm and passed slowly along the terrace towards the
+house.
+
+"I wonder why Lorraine has not come?" he said to his wife. "Won't
+she come to-night for the dance?"
+
+"Lorraine is a very sweet but a very uncertain girl," replied
+Madame de Morteyn. She led him through the great bay-window
+opening on the terrace, drew his easy-chair before his desk,
+placed the journals before him, and, stooping, kissed him.
+
+"If you want me, send Charles. I really ought to be with the
+young people a moment. I wonder why Ricky must leave?"
+
+"How far away are you going, Helen?"
+
+"Only to the Lisse."
+
+"Then I shall read about Monsieur Bismarck and his Spanish
+friends until you come. The day is long without you."
+
+They smiled at each other, and she sat down by the window.
+
+"Read," she said; "I can see my children from here. I wonder why
+Ricky is leaving?"
+
+Suddenly, in the silence of the summer noon, far in the east, a
+dull sound shook the stillness. Again they heard it--again, and
+again--a deep boom, muttering, reverberating like summer thunder.
+
+"Why should they fire cannon to-day, Helen?" asked the old man,
+querulously. "Why should they fire cannon beyond the Rhine?"
+
+"It is thunder," she said, gently; "it will storm before long."
+
+"I am tired," said the vicomte. "Helen, I shall sleep. Sit by
+me--so--no--nearer yet! Are the children happy?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"When the cannon cease, I shall fall asleep. Listen! what is
+that?"
+
+"A blackbird singing in the pear-tree."
+
+"And what is that--that sound of galloping? Look out and see,
+Helen."
+
+"It is a gendarme riding fast towards the Rhine."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FARANDOLE
+
+
+That evening Dorothy Marche stood on the terrace in the moonlight
+waving her plumed fan and listening to the orchestra from the
+hamlet of Saint-Lys. The orchestra--two violins, a reed-pipe, a
+biniou, and a harp--were playing away with might and main.
+Through the bay-window she could see the crystal chandeliers
+glittering with prismatic light, the slender gilded chairs, the
+cabinets and canapes, golden, backed with tapestry; and
+everywhere massed banks of ferns and lilies. They were dancing in
+there; she saw Lady Hesketh floating in the determined grip of
+Cecil Page, she saw Sir Thorald proudly prancing to the air of
+the farandole; Betty Castlemaine, Jack, Alixe, Barbara Lisle
+passed the window only to re-pass and pass again in a whirl of
+gauze and filmy colour; and the swish! swish! swish! of silken
+petticoats, and the rub of little feet on the polished floor grew
+into a rhythmic, monotonous cadence, beating, beating the measure
+of the farandole.
+
+Dorothy waved her fan and looked at Rickerl, standing in the
+moonlight beside her.
+
+"Why won't you dance, Ricky?" she asked; "it is your last
+evening, if you are determined to leave to-morrow." He turned to
+her with an abrupt gesture; she thought he was going to speak,
+but he did not, and after a moment she said: "Do you know what
+that despatch from the New York _Herald_ to my brother means?"
+
+"Yes," he said. His voice was dull, almost indifferent.
+
+"Will you tell me?"
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"Is--is it anything dangerous that they want him to do?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ricky--tell me, then! You frighten me."
+
+"To-morrow--perhaps to-night."
+
+"Perhaps to-night?"
+
+"If I receive another telegram. I expect to."
+
+"Then, if you receive another despatch, we shall all know?"
+
+Rickerl von Elster bent his head and laid a gloved hand lightly
+on her own.
+
+"I am very unhappy," he said, simply. "May we not speak of other
+things?"
+
+"Yes, Ricky," she said, faintly. He looked almost handsome there
+in the moonlight, but under his evening dress the square build of
+the Prussian trooper, the rigid back, and sturdy limbs were
+perhaps too apparent for ideal civilian elegance. Dorothy looked
+into his serious young face. He touched his blond mustache, felt
+unconsciously for the sabre that was not dangling from his left
+hip, remembered, coloured, and stood up even straighter.
+
+"We are thinking of the same thing," said Dorothy; "I was trying
+to recall that last time we met--do you remember? In Paris?"
+
+He nodded; eyes fixed on hers.
+
+"At the Diplomatic Ball?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you were in uniform, and your sabre was very beautiful,
+but--do you remember how it clashed and banged on the marble
+stairway, and how the other attaches teased you until you tucked
+it under your left arm? Dear me! I was fascinated by your
+patent-leather sabre-tache, and your little spurs, that rang like
+tiny chimes when you walked. What sentimental creatures young
+girls are! Ne c'est pas, Ricky?"
+
+"I have never forgotten that evening," he said, in a voice so low
+that she leaned involuntarily nearer.
+
+"We were very young then," she said, waving her fan.
+
+"It was not a year ago."
+
+"We were young," she repeated, coldly.
+
+"Yet I shall never forget, Dorothy."
+
+She closed her fan and began to examine the fluffy plumes. Her
+cheeks were red, and she bit her lips continually.
+
+"Do you particularly admire Molly Hesketh's hand?" she asked,
+indifferently.
+
+He turned crimson. How could she know of the episode in the
+orangery? Know? There was no mystery in that; Molly Hesketh had
+told her. But Rickerl von Elster, loyal in little things, saw but
+one explanation--Dorothy must have seen him.
+
+"Yes--I kissed her hand," he said. He did not add that Molly had
+dared him.
+
+Dorothy raised her head with an icy smile.
+
+"Is it honourable to confess such a thing?" she asked, in steady
+tones.
+
+"But--but you knew it, for you saw me--" he stammered.
+
+"I did not!" she flashed out, and walked straight into the house.
+
+"Dorrie!" cried her brother as she swept by him, "what do you
+think? Lorraine de Nesville is coming this evening!"
+
+"Lorraine?" said his sister--"dear me, I am dying to see her."
+
+"Then turn around," whispered Betty Castlemaine, leaning across
+from Cecil's arm. "Oh, Dorrie! what a beauty!"
+
+At the same moment the old vicomte rose from his gilded chair and
+stepped forward to the threshold, saying, "Lorraine! Lorraine!
+Then you have come at last, little bad one?" And he kissed her
+white hands and led her to his wife, murmuring, "Helen, what
+shall we do with the little bad one who never comes to bid two
+old people good-day?"
+
+"Ah, Lorraine!" said Madame de Morteyn; "kiss me, my child."
+
+There she stood, her cheeks faintly touched with colour, her
+splendid eyes shining like azure stars, the candle-light setting
+her heavy hair aglow till it glistened and burned as molten ore
+flashes in a crucible. They pressed around her; she saw, through
+the flare of yellow light, a sea of rosy faces; a vague mist of
+lace set with jewels; and she smiled at them while the colour
+deepened in her cheeks. There was music in her ears and music in
+her heart, and she was dancing now--dancing with a tall, bronzed
+young fellow who held her strong and safe, and whose eyes
+continually sought her own.
+
+"You see," she said, demurely, "that my gowns came to-day from
+Paris."
+
+"It is a dream--this one," he said, smiling back into her eyes,
+"but I shall never forget the scarlet skirt and little bodice of
+velvet, and the silver chains, and your hair--"
+
+"My hair? It is still on my head."
+
+"It was tangled across your face--then."
+
+"Taisez-vous, Monsieur Marche!"
+
+"And you seem to have grown taller--"
+
+"It is my ball-gown."
+
+"And you do not cast down your eyes and say, 'Oui, monsieur,'
+'Non, monsieur'--"
+
+"Non, monsieur."
+
+Again they laughed, looking into each other's eyes, and there was
+music in the room and music in their hearts.
+
+Presently the candle-light gave place to moonlight, and they
+found themselves on the terrace, seated, listening to the voice
+of the wind in the forest; and they heard the little river Lisse
+among the rushes and the murmur of leaves on the eaves.
+
+When they became aware of their own silence they turned to each
+other with the gentle haste born of confusion, for each feared
+that the other might not understand. Then, smiling, half fearful,
+they reassured each other with their silence.
+
+She was the first to break the stillness, hesitating as one who
+breaks the seal of a letter long expected, half dreaded: "I came
+late because my father was restless, and I thought he might need
+me. Did you hear cannon along the Rhine?"
+
+"Yes. Some German fete. I thought at first it might be thunder.
+Give me your fan."
+
+"You do not hold it right--there--"
+
+"Do you feel the breeze? Your fan is perfumed--or is it the
+lilies on the terrace? They are dancing again; must we go back?"
+
+She looked out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a
+nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat
+darted by, turned, rose, dipped, and vanished.
+
+"They are dancing," she repeated.
+
+"Must we go?"
+
+"No."
+
+In the stillness the nightingale grew bolder; the woods seemed
+saturated with song.
+
+"My father is restless; I must return soon," she said, with a
+little sigh. "I shall go in presently and make my adieux. I wish
+you might know my father. Will you? He would like you. He speaks
+to few people except me. I know all that he thinks, all that he
+dreams of. I know also all that he has done, all that he is
+doing, all that he will do--God willing. Why is it I tell you
+this? Ma foi, I do not know. And I am going to tell you more.
+Have you heard that my father has made a balloon?"
+
+"Yes--everybody speaks of it," he answered, gravely.
+
+"But--ah, this is the wonderful part!--he has made a balloon that
+can be inflated in five seconds! Think! All other balloons
+require a long, long while, and many tubes; and one must take
+them to a usine de gaz. My father's balloon needs no gas--that
+is, it needs no common illuminating gas."
+
+"A montgolfier?" asked Marche, curiously.
+
+"Oh, pooh! The idea! No, it is like other balloons, except
+that--well--there is needed merely a handful of silvery dust--to
+which you touch a drop of water--piff! puff! c'est fini! The
+balloon is filled."
+
+"And what is this silvery dust?" he asked, laughing.
+
+"Voila! Do you not wish you knew? I--Lorraine de Nesville--I know!
+It is a secret. If the time ever should come--in case of war, for
+instance--my father will give the secret to France--freely--without
+recompense--a secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy!
+Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"
+
+"And you know?"
+
+"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.
+
+"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations
+get wind of this they might kidnap you."
+
+"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain,
+Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my father--as though he
+bought and sold the welfare of his country!"
+
+"And that map-making fellow this morning--do you suppose he might
+have been hanging about after that sort of thing--trying to pry
+and pick up some scrap of information?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, quietly; "I only saw him making maps.
+Listen! there are two secrets that my father possesses, and they
+are both in writing. I do not know where he keeps them, but I
+know what they are. Shall I tell you? Then listen--I shall
+whisper. One is the chemical formula for the silvery dust, the
+gas of which can fill a balloon in five seconds. The other
+is--you will be astonished--the plan for a navigable balloon!"
+
+"Has he tried it?"
+
+"A dozen times. I went up twice. It steers like a ship."
+
+"Do people know this, too?"
+
+"Germany does. Once we sailed, papa and I, up over our forest and
+across the country to the German frontier. We were not very high;
+we could see the soldiers at the custom-house, and they saw us,
+and--would you believe it?--they fired their horrid guns at
+us--pop! pop! pop! But we were too quick; we simply sailed back
+again against the very air-currents that brought us. One bullet
+made a hole in the silk, but we didn't come down. Papa says a
+dozen bullets cannot bring a balloon down, even when they pierce
+the silk, because the air-pressure is great enough to keep the
+gas in. But he says that if they fire a shell, that is what is to
+be dreaded, for the gas, once aflame!--that ends all. Dear me! we
+talk a great deal of war--you and I. It is time for me to go."
+
+They rose in the moonlight; he gave her back her fan. For a full
+minute they stood silent, facing each other. She broke a lily
+from its stem, and drew it out of the cluster at her breast. She
+did not offer it, but he knew it was his, and he took it.
+
+"Symbol of France," she whispered.
+
+"Symbol of Lorraine," he said, aloud.
+
+A deep boom, sullen as summer thunder, shook the echoes awake
+among the shrouded hills, rolling, reverberating, resounding,
+until the echoes carried it on from valley to valley, off into
+the world of shadows.
+
+The utter silence that followed was broken by a call, a gallop of
+hoofs on the gravel drive, the clink of stirrups, the snorting of
+hard-run horses.
+
+Somebody cried, "A telegram for you, Ricky!" There was a patter
+of feet on the terrace, a chorus of voices: "What is it, Ricky?"
+"Must you go at once?" "Whatever is the matter?"
+
+The young German soldier, very pale, turned to the circle of
+lamp-lit faces.
+
+"France and Germany--I--I--"
+
+"What?" cried Sir Thorald, violently.
+
+"War was declared at noon to-day!"
+
+Lorraine gave a gasp and reached out one hand. Jack Marche took
+it in both of his.
+
+Inside the ballroom the orchestra was still playing the
+farandole.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+COWARDS AND THEIR COURAGE
+
+
+Rickerl took the old vicomte's withered hand; he could not speak;
+his sister Alixe was crying.
+
+"War? War? Allons donc!" muttered the old man. "Helen! Ricky says
+we are to have war. Helen, do you hear? War!"
+
+Then Rickerl hurried away to dress, for he was to ride to the
+Rhine, nor spare whip nor spur; and Barbara Lisle comforted
+little Alixe, who wept as she watched the maids throwing
+everything pell-mell into their trunks; for they, too, were to
+leave at daylight on the Moselle Express for Cologne.
+
+Below, a boy appeared, leading Rickerl's horse from the stables;
+there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures
+passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the
+messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a
+sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the
+rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War
+was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!"
+And always the burden of the busy voices was the same, menacing,
+incredulous, half-whispered, but always the same--"War! war!
+war!"
+
+Booted and spurred, square-shouldered and muscular in his corded
+riding-suit, Rickerl passed the terrace again after the last
+adieux. The last? No, for as his heavy horse stamped out across
+the drive a voice murmured his name, a hand fell on his arm.
+
+"Dorothy," he whispered, bending from his saddle.
+
+"I love you, Ricky," she gasped.
+
+And they say women are cowards!
+
+He lifted her to his breast, held her crushed and panting; she
+put both hands before her eyes.
+
+"There has never been any one but you; do you believe it?" he
+stammered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you are mine!"
+
+"Yes. May God spare you!"
+
+And Rickerl, loyal in little things, swung her gently to the
+ground again, unkissed.
+
+There was a flurry of gravel, a glimpse of a horse rearing,
+plunging, springing into the darkness--that was all. And she
+crept back to the terrace with hot, tearless lids, that burned
+till all her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She
+passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel
+drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian
+pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little
+biniou man from the Cote-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating
+at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone
+was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence
+that her little slippered feet echoed along the gravel--War! war!
+
+At the foot of the steps which skirted the terrace she met her
+brother and Lorraine watching the groom rubbing down the
+messengers' horses. A lantern, glimmering on the ground, shed a
+sickly light under their eyes.
+
+"Dorrie," said Jack, "Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh think that we all
+should start for Paris by the early train. They have already sent
+some of our trunks to Saint-Lys; Mademoiselle de Nesville"--he
+turned with a gesture almost caressing to Lorraine--"Mademoiselle
+de Nesville has generously offered her carriage to help transport
+the luggage, and she is going to wait until it returns."
+
+"And uncle--and our aunt De Morteyn?"
+
+"I shall stay at Morteyn until they decide whether to close the
+house and go to Paris or to stay until October. Dorrie, dear, we
+are very near the frontier here."
+
+"There will be no invasion," said Lorraine, faintly.
+
+"The Rhine is very near," repeated Dorothy. She was thinking of
+Rickerl.
+
+"So you and Betty and Cecil," continued Jack, "are to go with the
+Heskeths to Paris. Poor little Alixe is crying her eyes out
+up-stairs. She and Barbara Lisle are going to Cologne, where
+Ricky will either find them or have his father meet them."
+
+After a moment he added, "It seems incredible, this news. They
+say, in the village, that the King of Prussia insulted the French
+ambassador, Count Benedetti, on the public promenade of Ems. It's
+all about that Hohenzollern business and the Spanish succession.
+Everybody thought it was settled, of course, because the Spanish
+ambassador said so, and Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern withdrew
+his claim. I can't understand it; I can scarcely believe it."
+
+Dorothy stood a moment, looking at the stars in the midnight
+sky. Then she turned with a sigh to Lorraine.
+
+"Good-night," she said, and they kissed each other, these two
+young girls who an hour before had been strangers.
+
+"Shall I see you again? We leave by the early train," whispered
+Dorothy.
+
+"No--I must return when my carriage comes back from the village.
+Good-by, dear--good-by, dear Dorothy."
+
+A moment later, Dorothy, flinging her short ermine-edged cloak
+from her shoulders, entered the empty ballroom and threw herself
+upon the gilded canape.
+
+One by one the candles spluttered, glimmered, flashed up, and
+went out, leaving a trail of smoke in the still air. Up-stairs
+little Alixe was sobbing herself to sleep in Barbara's arms; in
+his own chamber the old vicomte paced to and fro, and to and fro,
+and his sweet-faced wife watched him in silence, her thin hand
+shading her eyes in the lamplight. In the next room Sir Thorald
+and Lady Hesketh sat close together, whispering. Only Betty
+Castlemaine and Cecil Page had lost little of their cheerfulness,
+perhaps because neither were French, and Cecil was not going to
+the war, and--after all, war promised to be an exciting thing,
+and well worth the absorbed attention of two very young lovers.
+Arm in arm, they promenaded the empty halls and galleries,
+meeting no one save here and there a pale-faced maid or scared
+flunky; and at length they entered the gilded ballroom where
+Dorothy lay, flung full length on the canape.
+
+She submitted to Betty's caresses, and went away to bed with her,
+saying good-night to Cecil in a tear-choked voice; and a moment
+later Cecil sought his own chamber, lighted a pipe, and gave
+himself up to delightful visions of Betty, protected from several
+Prussian army-corps by the single might of his strong right arm.
+
+At the foot of the terrace, Lorraine de Nesville stood with Jack,
+watching the dark drive for the lamps of the returning carriage.
+Her maid loitered near, exchanging whispered gossip with the
+groom, who now stood undecided, holding both horses and waiting
+for orders. Presently Jack asked him where the messengers were,
+and he said he didn't know, but that they had perhaps gone to the
+kitchens for refreshments.
+
+"Go and find them, then; here, give me the bridles," said Jack;
+"if they are eating, let them finish; I'll hold their horses. Why
+doesn't Mademoiselle de Nesville's carriage come back from
+Saint-Lys? When you leave the kitchens, go down the road and look
+for it. Tell them to hurry."
+
+The groom touched his cap and hastened away.
+
+"I wish the carriage would come--I wish the carriage would
+hurry," repeated Lorraine, at intervals. "My father is alone; I
+am nervous, I don't know why. What are you reading?"
+
+"My telegram from the New York _Herald_," he answered,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"It is easy to understand now," she said.
+
+"Yes, easy to understand. They want me for war correspondent."
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I don't know--" He hesitated, trying to see her eyes in the
+darkness. "I don't know; shall you stay here in the Moselle
+Valley?"
+
+"Yes--I suppose so."
+
+"You are very near the Rhine."
+
+"There will be--there shall be no invasion," she said,
+feverishly. "France also ends at the Rhine; let them look to
+their own!"
+
+She moved impatiently, stepped from the stones to the damp
+gravel, and walked slowly across the misty lawn. He followed,
+leading the horses behind him and holding his telegram open in
+his right hand. Presently she looked back over her shoulder, saw
+him following, and waited.
+
+"Why, will you go as war correspondent?" she asked when he came
+up, leading the saddled horses.
+
+"I don't know; I was on the _Herald_ staff in New York; they gave
+me a roving commission, which I enjoyed so much that I resigned
+and stayed in Paris. I had not dreamed that I should ever be
+needed--I did not think of anything like this."
+
+"Have you never seen war?"
+
+"Nothing to speak of. I was the _Herald's_ representative at
+Sadowa, and before that I saw some Kabyles shot in Oran. Where
+are you going?"
+
+"To the river. We can hear the carriage when it comes, and I want
+to see the lights of the Chateau de Nesville."
+
+"From the river? Can you?"
+
+"Yes--the trees are cut away north of the boat-house. Look! I
+told you so. My father is there alone."
+
+Far away in the night the lights of the Chateau de Nesville
+glimmered between the trees, smaller, paler, yellower than the
+splendid stars that crowned the black vault above the forest.
+
+After a silence she reached out her hand abruptly and took the
+telegram from between his fingers. In the starlight she read it,
+once, twice; then raised her head and smiled at him.
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I don't know. Yes."
+
+"No," she said, and tore the telegram into bits.
+
+One by one she tossed the pieces on to the bosom of the placid
+Lisse, where they sailed away towards the Moselle like dim, blue
+blossoms floating idly with the current.
+
+"Are you angry?" she whispered.
+
+He saw that she was trembling, and that her face had grown very
+pale.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked, amazed.
+
+"The matter--the matter is this: I--I--Lorraine de Nesville--am
+afraid! I am afraid! It is fear--it is fear!"
+
+"Fear?" he asked, gently.
+
+"Yes!" she cried. "Yes, it is fear! I cannot help it--I never
+before knew it--that I--I could be afraid. Don't--don't leave
+us--my father and me!" she cried, passionately. "We are so alone
+there in the house--I fear the forest--I fear--"
+
+She trembled violently; a wolf howled on the distant hill.
+
+"I shall gallop back to the Chateau de Nesville with you," he said;
+"I shall be close beside you, riding by your carriage-window. Don't
+tremble so--Mademoiselle de Nesville."
+
+"It is terrible," she stammered; "I never knew I was a coward."
+
+"You are anxious for your father," he said, quietly; "you are no
+coward!"
+
+"I am--I tremble--see! I shiver."
+
+"It was the wolf--"
+
+"Ah, yes--the wolf that warned us of war! and the men--that one who
+made maps; I never could do again what I did! Then I was afraid of
+nothing; now I fear everything--the howl of that beast on the hill,
+the wind in the trees, the ripple of the Lisse--C'est plus fort que
+moi--I am a coward. Listen! Can you hear the carriage?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Listen--ah, listen!"
+
+"It is the noise of the river."
+
+"The river? How black it is! Hark!"
+
+"The wind."
+
+"Hark!"
+
+"The wind again--"
+
+"Look!" She seized his arm frantically. "Look! Oh, what--what was
+that?"
+
+The report of a gun, faint but clear, came to their ears.
+Something flashed from the lighted windows of the Chateau de
+Nesville--another flash broke out--another--then three dull
+reports sounded, and the night wind spread the echoes broadcast
+among the wooded hills.
+
+For a second she stood beside him, white, rigid, speechless; then
+her little hand crushed his arm and she pushed him violently
+towards the horses.
+
+"Mount!" she cried; "ride! ride!"
+
+Scarcely conscious of what he did, he backed one of the horses,
+seized the gathered bridle and mane, and flung himself astride.
+The horse reared, backed again, and stood stamping. At the same
+instant he swung about in his saddle and cried, "Go back to the
+house!"
+
+But she was already in the saddle, guiding the other horse, her
+silken skirts crushed, her hair flying, sawing at the bridle-bit
+with gloved fingers. The wind lifted the cloak on her shoulders,
+her little satin slipper sought one stirrup.
+
+"Ride!" she gasped, and lashed her horse.
+
+He saw her pass him in a whirl of silken draperies streaming in
+the wind; the swan's-down cloak hid her body like a cloud. In a
+second he was galloping at her bridle-rein; and both horses, nose
+to nose and neck to neck, pounded across the gravel drive,
+wheeled, leaped forward, and plunged down the soft wood road,
+straight into the heart of the forest. The lace from her corsage
+fluttered in the air; the lilies at her breast fell one by one,
+strewing the road with white blossoms. The wind loosened her
+heavy hair to the neck, seized it, twisted it, and flung it out
+on the wind. Under the clusters of ribbon on her shoulders there
+was a gleam of ivory; her long gloves slipped to the wrists; her
+hair whipped the rounded arms, bare and white below the riotous
+ribbons, snapping and fluttering on her shoulders; her cloak
+unclasped at the throat and whirled to the ground, trampled into
+the forest mould.
+
+They struck a man in the darkness; they heard him shriek; the
+horses staggered an instant, that was all, except a gasp from the
+girl, bending with whitened cheeks close to her horse's mane.
+
+"Look out! A lantern!--close ahead!" panted Marche.
+
+The sharp crack of a revolver cut him short, his horse leaped
+forward, the blood spurting from its neck.
+
+"Are you hit?" he cried.
+
+"No! no! Ride!"
+
+Again and again, but fainter and fainter, came the crack! crack!
+of the revolver, like a long whip snapped in the wind.
+
+"Are you hit?" he asked again.
+
+"Yes, it is nothing! Ride!"
+
+In the darkness and confusion of the plunging horses he managed
+to lean over to her where she bent in her saddle; and, on one
+white, round shoulder, he saw the crimson welt of a bullet, from
+which the blood was welling up out of the satin skin.
+
+And now, in the gloom, the park wall loomed up along the river,
+and he shouted for the lodge-keeper, rising in his stirrups; but
+the iron gate swung wide, and the broad, empty avenue stretched
+up to the Chateau.
+
+They galloped up to the door; he slipped from his horse, swung
+Lorraine to the ground, and sprang up the low steps. The door was
+open, the long hall brilliantly lighted.
+
+"It is I--Lorraine!" cried the girl. A tall, bearded man burst in
+from a room on the left, clutching a fowling-piece.
+
+"Lorraine! They've got the box! The balloon secret was in it!" he
+groaned; "they are in the house yet--" He stared wildly at Marche,
+then at his daughter. His face was discoloured with bruises, his
+thick, blond hair fell in disorder across steel-blue eyes that
+gleamed with fury.
+
+Almost at the same moment there came a crash of glass, a heavy
+fall from the porch, and then a shot.
+
+In an instant Marche was at the door; he saw a game-keeper raise
+his gun and aim at him, and he shrank back as the report roared
+in his ears.
+
+"You fool!" he shouted; "don't shoot at me! drop your gun and
+follow!" He jumped to the ground and started across the garden
+where a dark figure was clutching the wall and trying to climb to
+the top. He was too late--the man was over; but he followed,
+jumped, caught the tiled top, and hurled himself headlong into
+the bushes below.
+
+Close to him a man started from the thicket, and ran down the wet
+road--splash! splash! slop! slop! through the puddles; but Marche
+caught him and dragged him down into the mud, where they rolled
+and thrashed and spattered and struck each other. Twice the man
+tore away and struggled to his feet, and twice Marche fastened to
+his knees until the huge, lumbering body swayed and fell again.
+It might have gone hard with Jack, for the man suddenly dropped
+the steel box he was clutching to his breast and fell upon the
+young fellow with a sullen roar. His knotted, wiry fingers had
+already found Jack's throat; he lifted the young fellow's head
+and strove to break his neck. Then, in a flash, he leaped back
+and lifted a heavy stone from the wall; at the same instant
+somebody fired at him from the wall; he wheeled and sprang into
+the woods.
+
+That was all Jack Marche knew until a lantern flared in his
+eyes, and he saw Lorraine's father, bright-eyed, feverish,
+dishevelled, beside him.
+
+"Raise him!" said a voice that he knew was Lorraine's.
+
+They lifted Jack to his knees; he stumbled to his feet, torn,
+bloody, filthy with mud, but in his arms, clasped tight, was the
+steel box, intact.
+
+"Lorraine!--my box!--look!" cried her father, and the lantern
+shook in his hands as he clutched the casket.
+
+But Lorraine stepped forward and flung both arms around Jack
+Marche's neck.
+
+Her face was deadly pale; the blood oozed from the wounded
+shoulder. For the first time her father saw that she had been
+shot. He stared at her, clutching the steel box in his nervous
+hands.
+
+With all the strength she had left she crushed Jack to her and
+kissed him. Then, weak with the loss of blood, she leaned on her
+father.
+
+"I am going to faint," she whispered; "help me, father."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+TRAINS EAST AND WEST
+
+
+It was dawn when Jack Marche galloped into the court-yard of the
+Chateau Morteyn and wearily dismounted. People were already
+moving about the upper floors; servants stared at him as he
+climbed the steps to the terrace; his face was scratched, his
+clothes smeared with caked mud and blood.
+
+He went straight to his chamber, tore off his clothes, took a
+hasty plunge in a cold tub, and rubbed his aching limbs until
+they glowed. Then he dressed rapidly, donned his riding breeches
+and boots, slipped a revolver into his pocket, and went
+down-stairs, where he could already hear the others at breakfast.
+
+Very quietly and modestly he told his story between sips of
+cafe-au-lait.
+
+"You see," he ended, "that the country is full of spies, who
+hesitate at nothing. There were three or four of them who tried
+to rob the Chateau; they seem perfectly possessed to get at the
+secrets of the Marquis de Nesville's balloons. There is no doubt
+but that for months past they have been making maps of the whole
+region in most minute detail; they have evidently been expecting
+this war for a long time. Incidentally, now that war is declared,
+they have opened hostilities on their own account."
+
+"You did for some of them?" asked Sir Thorald, who had been
+fidgeting and staring at Jack through a gold-edged monocle.
+
+"No--I--we rode down and trampled a man in the dark; I should
+think it would have been enough to brain him, but when I galloped
+back just now he was gone, and I don't know how badly he was
+hit."
+
+"But the fellow that started to smash you with a
+paving-stone--the Marquis de Nesville fired at him, didn't he?"
+insisted Sir Thorald.
+
+"Yes, I think he hit him, but it was a long shot. Lorraine was
+superb--"
+
+He stopped, colouring up a little.
+
+"She did it all," he resumed--"she rode through the woods like a
+whirlwind! Good heavens! I never saw such a cyclone incarnate!
+And her pluck when she was hit!--and then very quietly she went
+to her father and fainted in his arms."
+
+Jack had not told all that had happened. The part that he had not
+told was the part that he thought of most--Lorraine's white arms
+around his neck and the touch of her innocent lips on his
+forehead. In silent consternation the young people listened;
+Dorothy slipped out of her chair and came and rested her hands on
+her brother's shoulder; Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil with
+large, questioning eyes that asked, "Would you do something
+heroic for me?" and Cecil's eyes replied, "Oh, for a chance to
+annihilate a couple of regiments!" This pleased Betty, and she
+ate a muffin with appreciation. The old vicomte leaned heavily on
+his elbow and looked at his wife, who sat opposite, pallid and
+eating nothing. He had decided to remain at Morteyn, but this
+episode disquieted him--not on his own account.
+
+"Helen," he said, "Jack and I will stay, but you must go with the
+children. There is no danger--there can be no invasion, for our
+troops will be passing here by night; I only wish to be sure
+that--that in case--in case things should go dreadfully wrong,
+you would not be compelled to witness anything unpleasant."
+
+Madame de Morteyn shook her head gently.
+
+"Why speak of it?" she said; "you know I will not go."
+
+"I'll stay, too," said Sir Thorald, eagerly; "Cecil and Molly can
+take the children to Paris; Madame de Morteyn, you really should
+go also."
+
+She leaned back and shook her head decisively.
+
+"Then you will both come, you and Madame de Morteyn?" urged Lady
+Hesketh of the vicomte.
+
+The old man hesitated. His wife smiled. She knew he could not
+leave in the face of the enemy; she had been the wife of this old
+African campaigner for thirty years, and she knew what she knew.
+
+"Helen--" he began.
+
+"Yes, dear, we will both stay; the city is too hot in July," she
+said; "Sir Thorald, some coffee? No more? Betty, you want another
+muffin?--they are there by Cecil. Children, I think I hear the
+carriages coming; you must not make Lady Hesketh wait."
+
+"I have half a mind to stay," said Molly Hesketh. Sir Thorald
+said she might if she wanted to enlist, and they all tried to
+smile, but the sickly gray of early morning, sombre, threatening,
+fell on faces haggard with foreboding--young faces, too, lighted
+by the pale flames of the candles.
+
+Alixe von Elster and Barbara Lisle went first; there were tears
+and embraces, and au revoirs and aufwiedersehens.
+
+Little Alixe blanched and trembled when Sir Thorald bent over
+her, not entirely unconscious of the havoc his drooping mustache
+and cynical eyes had made in her credulous German bosom. Molly
+Hesketh kissed her, wishing that she could pinch her; and so they
+left, tearful, anxious, to be driven to Courtenay, and whirled
+from there across the Rhine to Cologne.
+
+Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh lingered on the terrace after the
+others had returned to the breakfast-room.
+
+"Thorald," she said, "you are a brute!"
+
+"Eh?" cried Sir Thorald.
+
+"You're a brute!"
+
+"Molly, what the deuce is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing--if you ever see her again, I'll tell Ricky."
+
+"I might say the same thing in regard to Ricky, my dear," said
+Sir Thorald, mildly.
+
+"It is not true," she said; "I did no damage to him; and you
+know--you know down in the depths of your fickle soul that--that--"
+
+"What, my dear?"
+
+"Never mind!" said Molly, sharply; but she crimsoned when he
+kissed her, and held tightly to his sleeve.
+
+"Good ged!" thought Sir Thorald; "what a devil I am with women!"
+
+But now the carriages drove up--coupes, dog-carts, and a
+victoria.
+
+"They say we ought not to miss this train," said Cecil, coming
+from the stables and flourishing a whip; "they say the line may
+be seized for government use exclusively in a few hours."
+
+The old house-keeper, Madame Paillard, nodded and pointed to her
+son, the under-keeper.
+
+"Francois says, Monsieur Page, that six trains loaded with troops
+passed through Saint-Lys between midnight and dawn; dis,
+Francois, c'est le Sieur Bosz qui t'a renseigne--pas?"
+
+"Oui, mamam!"
+
+"Then hurry," said Lady Hesketh. "Thorald, call the others."
+
+"I," said Cecil, "am going to drive Betty in the dog-cart."
+
+"She'll probably take the reins," said Sir Thorald, cynically.
+
+Cecil brandished his whip and looked determined; but it was Betty
+who drove him to Saint-Lys station, after all.
+
+The adieux were said, even more tearfully this time. Jack kissed
+his sister tenderly, and she wept a little on his shoulder--thinking
+of Rickerl.
+
+One by one the vehicles rolled away down the gravel drive; and
+last of all came Molly Hesketh in the coupe with Jack Marche.
+
+Molly was sad and a trifle distraite. Those periodical mental
+illuminations during which she discovered for the thousandth and odd
+time that she loved her husband usually left her fairly innocuous.
+But she was a born flirt; the virus was bred in the bone, and after
+the first half-mile she opened her batteries--her eyes--as a matter
+of course on Jack.
+
+What she got for her pains was a little sermon ending, "See here,
+Molly--three years ago you played the devil with me until I
+kissed you, and then you were furious and threatened to tell Sir
+Thorald. The truth is, you're in love with him, and there is no
+more harm in you than there is in a china kitten."
+
+"Jack!" she gasped.
+
+"And," he resumed, "you live in Paris, and you see lots of things
+and you hear lots of things that you don't hear and see in
+Lincolnshire. But you're British, Molly, and you are domestic,
+although you hate the idea, and there will never be a desolated
+hearth in the Hesketh household as long as you speak your
+mother-tongue and read Anthony Trollope."
+
+The rest of the road was traversed in silence. They rattled over
+the stones in the single street of Saint-Lys, rolled into the
+gravel oval behind the Gare, and drew up amid a hubbub of
+restless teams, market-wagons, and station-trucks.
+
+"See the soldiers!" said Jack, lifting Lady Hesketh to the
+platform, where the others were already gathered in a circle. A
+train was just gliding out of the station, bound eastward, and
+from every window red caps projected and sunburned, boyish faces
+expanded into grins as they saw Lady Hesketh and her charges.
+
+"Vive l'Angleterre!" they cried. "Vive Madame la Reine! Vive
+Johnbull et son rosbif!" the latter observation aimed at Sir
+Thorald.
+
+Sir Thorald waved his eye-glass to them condescendingly; faster
+and faster moved the train; the red caps and fresh, tanned
+faces, the laughing eyes became a blur and then a streak; and far
+down the glistening track the faint cheers died away and were
+drowned in the roar of the wheels--little whirling wheels that
+were bearing them merrily to their graves at Wissembourg.
+
+"Here comes our train," said Cecil. "Jack, my boy, you'll
+probably see some fun; take care of your hide, old chap!" He
+didn't mean to be patronizing, but he had Betty demurely leaning
+on his arm, and--dear me!--how could he help patronizing the
+other poor devils in the world who had not Betty, and who never
+could have Betty?
+
+"Montez, madame, s'il vous plait!--Montez, messieurs!" cried the
+Chef de Gare; "last train for Paris until Wednesday! All aboard!"
+and he slammed and locked the doors, while the engineer, leaning
+impatiently from his cab, looked back along the line of cars and
+blew his whistle warningly.
+
+"Good-by, Dorrie!" cried Jack.
+
+"Good-by, my darling Jack! Be careful; you will, won't you?" But
+she was still thinking of Rickerl, bless her little heart!
+
+Lady Hesketh waved him a demure adieu from the open window,
+relented, and gave his hand a hasty squeeze with her gloved
+fingers.
+
+"Take care of Lorraine," she said, solemnly; then laughed at his
+telltale eyes, and leaned back on her husband's shoulder, still
+laughing.
+
+The cars were gliding more swiftly past the platform now; he
+caught a glimpse of Betty kissing her hand to him, of Cecil
+bestowing a gracious adieu, of Sir Thorald's eye-glass--then they
+were gone; and far up the tracks the diminishing end of the last
+car dwindled to a dark square, a spot, a dot, and was ingulfed in
+a flurry of dust. As he turned away and passed along the platform
+to the dog-cart, there came a roar, a shriek of a locomotive, a
+rush, and a train swept by towards the east, leaving a blear of
+scarlet in his eyes, and his ears ringing with the soldiers'
+cheers: "Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! A Berlin! A Berlin! A
+Berlin!" A furtive-eyed young peasant beside him shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Bismarck has called for the menu; his cannon are hungry," he
+sneered; "there goes the bill of fare."
+
+"That's very funny," said a fierce little man with a gray
+mustache, "but the bill of fare isn't complete--the class of '71
+has just been called out!" and he pointed to a placard freshly
+pasted on the side of the station.
+
+"The--the class of '71?" muttered the furtive-eyed peasant,
+turning livid.
+
+"Exactly--the bill of fare needs the hors d'oeuvres; you'll go as
+an olive, and probably come back a sardine--in a box."
+
+And the fierce little man grinned, lighted a cigarette, and
+sauntered away, still grinning.
+
+What did he care? He was a pompier and exempt.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE ROAD TO PARADISE
+
+
+The road between Saint-Lys and Morteyn was not a military road,
+but it was firm and smooth, and Jack drove back again towards the
+Chateau at a smart trot, flicking at leaves and twigs with
+Cecil's whip.
+
+The sun had brushed the veil of rain from the horizon; the
+leaves, fresh and tender, stirred and sparkled with dew in the
+morning breeze, and all the air was sweet-scented. In the
+stillness of the fields, where wheat stretched along the road
+like a green river tinged with gold, there was something that
+troubled him. Silence is oppressive to sinners and prophets. He
+concluded he was the former, and sighed restlessly, looking out
+across the fields, where, deep in the stalks of the wheat,
+blood-red poppies opened like raw wounds. At other times he had
+compared them to little fairy camp-fires; but his mood was
+pessimistic, and he saw, in the furrows that the plough had
+raised, the scars on the breast of a tortured earth; and he read
+sermons in bundles of fresh-cut fagots; and death was written
+where a sickle lay beside a pile of grass, crisping to hay in the
+splendid sun of Lorraine.
+
+What he did not see were the corn-flowers peeping at him with
+dewy blue eyes; the vineyards, where the fruit hung faintly
+touched with bloom; the field birds, the rosy-breasted finches,
+the thrush, as speckled as her own eggs--no, nor did he hear
+them; for the silence that weighed on his heart came from his
+heart. Yet all the summer wind was athrill with harmony.
+Thousands of feathered throats swelled and bubbled melody, from
+the clouds to the feathery heath, from the scintillating azure in
+the zenith to the roots of the glittering wheat where the
+corn-flowers lay like bits of blue sky fallen to the earth.
+
+As he drove he thought of Lorraine, of her love for her father
+and her goodness. He already recognized that dominant passion in
+her, her unselfish adoration of her father--a father who sat all
+day behind bolted doors trifling with metals and gases and little
+spinning, noiseless wheels. The selfish to the unselfish, the
+dead to the living, the dwarf to the giant, and the sinner to the
+saint--this is the world and they that dwell therein.
+
+He thought of her as he had seen her last, smiling up into the
+handsome, bearded face that questioned her. No, the wound was
+nothing--a little blood lost--enough to make her faint at his
+feet--that was all. But his precious box was safe--and she had
+flung her loyal arms about the man who saved it and had kissed
+him before her father, because he had secured what was dearer to
+her than life--her father's happiness--a little metal box full of
+it.
+
+Her father was very grateful and very solicitous about her
+wounded shoulder; but he opened his box before he thought about
+bandages. Everything was intact, except the conservatory window
+and his daughter's shoulder. Both could be mended--but his box!
+ah, that, if lost, could never be replaced.
+
+Jack's throat was hard and dry. A lump came into it, and he
+swallowed with a shrug, and flicked at a fly on the headstall. A
+vision of Sir Thorald, bending over little Alixe, came before his
+eyes. "Pah!" he muttered, in disgust. Sir Thorald was one of
+those men who cease to care for a woman when she begins to care
+for them. Jack knew it; that was why he had been so gentle with
+Molly Hesketh, who had turned his head when he was a boy and
+given him his first emotions--passion, hate--and then knowledge;
+for of all the deep emotions that a man shall know before he dies
+the first consciousness of knowledge is the most profound; it
+sounds the depths of heaven and hell in the space of time that
+the heart beats twice.
+
+He was passing through the woods now, the lovely oak and beech
+woods of Lorraine. An ancient dame, bending her crooked back
+beneath a load of fagots, gave him "God bless you!" and he drew
+rein and returned the gift--but his was in silver, with the head
+of his imperial majesty stamped on one side.
+
+As he drove, rabbits ran back into the woods, hoisting their
+white signals of conciliation. "Peace and good will" they seemed
+to read, "but a wise rabbit takes to the woods." Pheasants, too,
+stepped daintily from under the filbert bushes, twisting their
+gorgeous necks curiously as he passed. Once, in the hollow of a
+gorge where a little stream trickled under layers of wet leaves,
+he saw a wild-boar standing hock-deep in the ooze, rooting under
+mosses and rotten branches, absorbed in his rooting. Twice deer
+leaped from the young growth on the edge of the fields and
+bounded lazily into denser cover, only to stop when half
+concealed and stare back at him with gentle, curious eyes. The
+horse pricked up his ears at such times and introduced a few
+waltz steps into his steady if monotonous repertoire, but Jack
+let him have his fling, thinking that the deer were as tame as
+the horse, and both were tamer than man.
+
+Excepting the black panther, man has learned his lesson slowest
+of all, the lesson of acquiescence in the inevitable.
+
+"I'll never learn it," said Jack, aloud. His voice startled
+him--it was trembling.
+
+Lorraine! Lorraine! Life has begun for a very young man. Teach
+him to see and bring him to accept existence in the innocence of
+your knowledge; for, if he and the world collide, he fears the
+result to the world.
+
+A few moments later he drove into Paradise, which is known to
+some as the Chateau de Nesville.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+UNDER THE YOKE
+
+
+During the next two weeks Jack Marche drove into Paradise
+fourteen times, and fourteen times he drove out of Paradise, back
+to the Chateau Morteyn. Heaven is nearer than people suppose; it
+was three miles from the road shrine at Morteyn.
+
+Our Lady of Morteyn, sculptured in the cold stone above the
+shrine, had looked with her wide stone eyes on many lovers, and
+had known they were lovers because their piety was as sudden as
+it was fervid.
+
+Twice a day Jack's riding-cap was reverently doffed as he drew
+bridle before the shrine, going and coming from Paradise.
+
+At evening, too, when the old vicomte slept on his pillow and the
+last light went out in the stables, Our Lady of Morteyn saw a
+very young man sitting, with his head in his hands, at her feet;
+and he took no harm from the cold stones, because Our Lady of
+Morteyn is gentle and gracious, and the summer nights were hot in
+the province of Lorraine.
+
+There had been little stir or excitement in Morteyn. Even in
+Saint-Lys, where all day and all night the troop-trains rushed
+by, the cheers of the war-bound soldiers leaning from the flying
+cars were becoming monotonous in the ears of the sober villagers.
+When the long, flat cars, piled with cannon, passed, the people
+stared at the slender guns, mute, canvas-covered, tilted skyward.
+They stared, too, at the barred cars, rolling past in interminable
+trains, loaded with horses and canvas-jacketed troopers who peered
+between the slats and shouted to the women in the street. Other
+trains came and went, trains weighted with bellowing cattle or
+huddled sheep, trains choked with small square boxes marked
+"Cartouches" or "Obus--7^me"; trains piled high with grain or
+clothing, or folded tents packed between varnished poles and piles
+of tin basins. Once a little excitement came to Saint-Lys when a
+battalion of red-legged infantry tramped into the village square
+and stacked rifles and jeered at the mayor and drank many bottles
+of red wine to the health of the shy-eyed girls peeping at them
+from every lattice. But they were only waiting for the next train,
+and when it came their bugles echoed from the bridge to the square,
+and they went away--went where the others had gone--laughing,
+singing, cheering from the car-windows, where the sun beat down
+on their red caps, and set their buttons glittering like a million
+swarming fire-flies.
+
+The village life, the daily duties, the dull routine from the
+vineyard to the grain-field, and from the etang to the forest had
+not changed in Saint-Lys.
+
+There might be war somewhere; it would never come to Saint-Lys.
+There might be death, yonder towards the Rhine--probably beyond
+it, far beyond it. What of it? Death comes to all, but it comes
+slowly in Saint-Lys; and the days are long, and one must eat to
+live, and there is much to be done between the rising and the
+setting of a peasant's sun.
+
+There, below in Paris, were wise heads and many soldiers. They,
+in Paris, knew what to do, and the war might begin and end with
+nothing but a soiled newspaper in the Cafe Saint-Lys to show for
+it--as far as the people of Saint-Lys knew.
+
+True, at the summons of the mayor, the National Guard of
+Saint-Lys mustered in the square, seven strong and a bugler. This
+was merely a display of force--it meant nothing--but let those
+across the Rhine beware!
+
+The fierce little man with the gray mustache, who was named
+Tricasse, and who commanded the Saint-Lys Pompiers, spoke gravely
+of Francs-corps, and drank too much eau-de-vie every evening. But
+these warlike ebullitions simmered away peacefully in the
+sunshine, and the tranquil current of life flowed as smoothly
+through Saint-Lys as the river Lisse itself, limpid, noiseless,
+under the village bridge.
+
+Only one man had left the village, and that was Brun, the
+furtive-eyed young peasant, the sole representative in Saint-Lys
+of the conscript class of 1871. And he would never have gone had
+not a gendarme pulled him from under his mother's bed and hustled
+him on to the first Paris-bound train, which happened to be a
+cattle train, where Brun mingled his lamentations with the
+bleating of sheep and the desolate bellow of thirsty cows.
+
+Jack Marche heard of these things but saw little of them. The
+great war wave rolling through the provinces towards the Rhine
+skirted them at Saint-Lys, and scarcely disturbed them. They
+heard that Douay was marching through the country somewhere, some
+said towards Wissembourg, some said towards Saarbrueck. But these
+towns were names to the peasants of Saint-Lys--tant pis for the
+two towns! And General Douay--who was he? Probably a fat man in
+red breeches and polished boots, wearing a cocked-hat and a cross
+on his breast. Anyway, they would chase the Prussians and kill a
+few, as they had chased the Russians in the Crimea, and the
+Italians in Rome, and the Kabyles in Oran. The result? Nothing
+but a few new colours for the ribbons in their sweethearts'
+hair--like that pretty Magenta and Solferino and Sebastopol gray.
+"Fichtre! Faut-il gaspiller tout de meme! mais, a la guerre comme
+a la guerre!" which meant nothing in Saint-Lys.
+
+It meant more to Jack Marche, riding one sultry afternoon through
+the woods, idly drumming on his spurred boots with a battered
+riding-crop.
+
+It was his daily afternoon ride to the Chateau de Nesville; the
+shy wood creatures were beginning to know him, even the younger
+rabbits of the most recent generation sat up and mumbled their
+prehensile lips, watching him with large, moist eyes. As for the
+red squirrels in the chestnut-trees, and the dappled deer in the
+carrefours, and the sulky boars that bristled at him from the
+overgrown sentiers, they accepted him on condition that he kept
+to the road. And he did, head bent, thoughtful eyes fixed on his
+saddle-bow, drumming absently with his riding-crop on his spurred
+boots, his bridle loose on his horse's neck.
+
+There was little to break the monotony of the ride; a sudden gush
+of song from a spotted thrush, the rustle of a pheasant in the
+brake, perhaps the modest greeting of a rare keeper patrolling
+his beat--nothing more. He went armed; he carried a long Colt's
+six-shooter in his holster, not because he feared for his own
+skin, but he thought it just as well to be ready in case of
+trouble at the Chateau de Nesville. However, he did not fear
+trouble again; the French armies were moving everywhere on the
+frontier, and the spies, of course, had long ago betaken
+themselves and their projects to the other bank of the Rhine.
+
+The Marquis de Nesville himself felt perfectly secure, now that
+the attempt had been made and had failed.
+
+He told Jack so on the few occasions when he descended from his
+room during the young fellow's visits. He made not the slightest
+objections to Jack's seeing Lorraine when and where he pleased,
+and this very un-Gallic behaviour puzzled Jack until he began to
+comprehend the depths of the man's selfish absorption in his
+balloons. It was more than absorption, it was mania pure and
+simple, an absolute inability to see or hear or think or
+understand anything except his own devices in the little bolted
+chamber above.
+
+He did care for Lorraine to the extent of providing for her every
+want--he did remember her existence when he wanted something
+himself. Also it was true that he would not have permitted a
+Frenchman to visit Lorraine as Jack did. He hated two persons;
+one of these was Jack's uncle, the Vicomte de Morteyn. On the
+other hand, he admired him, too, because the vicomte, like
+himself, was a royalist and shunned the Tuileries as the devil
+shuns holy water. Therefore he was his equal, and he liked him
+because he could hate him without loss of self-respect. The
+reason he hated him was this--the Vicomte de Morteyn had
+pooh-poohed the balloons. That occurred years ago, but he never
+forgot it, and had never seen the old vicomte since. Whether or
+not Lorraine visited the old people at Morteyn, he had neither
+time nor inclination to inquire.
+
+This was the man, tall, gentle, clean-cut of limb and feature,
+and bearded like Jove--this was the man to whom Lorraine devoted
+her whole existence. Every heart-beat was for him, every thought,
+every prayer. And she was very devout.
+
+This also was why she came to Jack so confidently and laid her
+white hands in his when he sprang from his saddle, his heart in
+flames of adoration.
+
+He knew this, he knew that her undisguised pleasure in his
+company was, for her, only another link that welded her closer to
+her father. At night, often, when he had ridden back again, he
+thought of it, and paled with resentment. At times he almost
+hated her father. He could have borne it easier if the Marquis de
+Nesville had been a loving father, even a tyrannically solicitous
+father; but to see such love thrown before a marble-faced man,
+whose expression never changed except when speaking of his
+imbecile machines! "How can he! How can he!" muttered Jack,
+riding through the woods. His face was sombre, almost stern; and
+always he beat the devil's tattoo on his boot with the battered
+riding-crop.
+
+But now he came to the park gate, and the keeper touched his cap
+and smiled, and dragged the heavy grille back till it creaked on
+its hinges.
+
+Lorraine came down the path to meet him; she had never before
+done that, and he brightened and sprang to the ground, radiant
+with happiness.
+
+She had brought some sugar for the horse; the beautiful creature
+followed her, thrusting its soft, satin muzzle into her hand,
+ears pricked forward, wise eyes fixed on her.
+
+"None for me?" asked Jack.
+
+"Sugar?"
+
+With a sudden gesture she held a lump out to him in the centre of
+her pink palm.
+
+Before she could withdraw the hand he had touched it with his
+lips, and, a little gravely, she withdrew it and walked on in
+silence by his side.
+
+Her shoulder had healed, and she no longer wore the silken
+support for her arm. She was dressed in black--the effect of her
+glistening hair and blond skin was dazzling. His eyes wandered
+from the white wrist, dainty and rounded, to the full curved
+neck--to the delicate throat and proud little head. Her body,
+supple as perfect Greek sculpture; her grace and gentle dignity;
+her innocence, sweet as the light in her blue eyes, set him
+dreaming again as he walked at her side, preoccupied, almost
+saddened, a little afraid that such happiness as was his should
+provoke the gods to end it.
+
+He need not have taken thought for the gods, for the gods take
+thought for themselves; and they were already busy at Saarbrueck.
+Their mills are not always slow in grinding; nor, on the other
+hand, are they always sure. They may have been ages ago, but now
+the gods are so out of date that saints and sinners have a chance
+about equally.
+
+They traversed the lawn, skirted the tall wall of solid masonry
+that separated the chase from the park, and, passing a gate at
+the hedge, came to a little stone bridge, beneath which the Lisse
+ran dimpling. They watched the horse pursuing his own way
+tranquilly towards the stables, and, when they saw a groom come
+out and lead him in, they turned to each other, ready to begin
+another day of perfect contentment.
+
+First of all he asked about her shoulder, and she told him
+truthfully that it was well. Then she inquired about the old
+vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, and intrusted pretty little
+messages to him for them, which he, unlike most young men,
+usually remembered to deliver.
+
+"My father," she said, "has not been to breakfast or dinner since
+the day before yesterday. I should have been alarmed, but I
+listened at the door and heard him moving about with his
+machinery. I sent him some very nice things to eat; I don't know
+if he liked them, for he sent no message back. Do you suppose he
+is hungry?"
+
+"No," said Jack; "if he were he would say so." He was careful not
+to speak bitterly, and she noticed nothing.
+
+"I believe," she said, "that he is about to make another
+ascension. He often stays a long time in his room, alone, before
+he is ready. Will it not be delightful? I shall perhaps be
+permitted to go up with him. Don't you wish you might go with
+us?"
+
+"Yes," said Jack, with a little more earnestness than he
+intended.
+
+"Oh! you do? If you are very good, perhaps--perhaps--but I dare
+not promise. If it were my balloon I would take you."
+
+"Would you--really?"
+
+"Of course--you know it. But it isn't my balloon, you know."
+After a moment she went on: "I have been thinking all day how
+noble and good it is of my father to consecrate his life to a
+purpose that shall be of use to France. He has not said so, but I
+know that, if the next ascension proves that his discovery is
+beyond the chance of failure, he will notify the government and
+place his invention at their disposal. Monsieur Marche, when I
+think of his unselfish nobleness, the tears come--I cannot help
+it."
+
+"You, too, are noble," said Jack, resentfully.
+
+"I? Oh, if you knew! I--I am actually wicked! Would you believe
+it, I sometimes think and think and wish that my father could
+spend more time with me--with me!--a most silly and thoughtless
+girl who would sacrifice the welfare of France to her own
+caprice. Think of it! I pray--very often--that I may learn to be
+unselfish; but I must be very bad, for I often cry myself to
+sleep. Is it not wicked?"
+
+"Very," said Jack, but his smile faded and there was a catch in
+his voice.
+
+"You see," she said, with a gesture of despair, "even you feel
+it, too!"
+
+"Do you really wish to know what I do think--of you?" he asked,
+in a low voice.
+
+It was on the tip of her tongue to say "Yes." She checked
+herself, lips apart, and her eyes became troubled.
+
+There was something about Jack Marche that she had not been able
+to understand. It occupied her--it took up a good share of her
+attention, but she did not know where to begin to philosophize,
+nor yet where to end. He was different from other men--that she
+understood. But where was that difference?--in his clear, brown
+eyes, sunny as brown streams in October?--in his serious young
+face?--in his mouth, clean cut and slightly smiling under his
+short, crisp mustache, burned blond by the sun? Where was the
+difference?--in his voice?--in his gestures?--in the turn of his
+head?
+
+Lorraine did not know, but as often as she gave the riddle up she
+recommenced it, idly sometimes, sometimes piqued that the
+solution seemed no nearer. Once, the evening she had met him
+after their first encounter in the forest carrefour--that evening
+on the terrace when she stood looking out into the dazzling
+Lorraine moonlight--she felt that the solution of the riddle had
+been very near. But now, two weeks later, it seemed further off
+than ever. And yet this problem, that occupied her so, must
+surely be worth the solving. What was it, then, in Jack Marche
+that made him what he was?--gentle, sweet-tempered, a delightful
+companion--yes, a companion that she would not now know how to do
+without.
+
+And yet, at times, there came into his eyes and into his voice
+something that troubled her--she could not tell why--something
+that mystified and checked her, and set her thinking again on the
+old, old problem that had seemed so near solution that evening on
+the moonlit terrace.
+
+That was why she started to say "Yes" to his question, and did
+not, but stood with lips half parted and blue eyes troubled.
+
+He looked at her in silence for a moment, then, with a
+half-impatient gesture, turned to the river.
+
+"Shall we sit down on the moss?" she asked, vaguely conscious
+that his sympathies had, for a moment, lost touch with hers.
+
+He followed her down the trodden foot-path to the bank of the
+stream, and, when she had seated herself at the foot of a
+linden-tree, he threw himself at her feet.
+
+They were silent. He picked up a faded bunch of blue corn-flowers
+which they had left there, forgotten, the day before. One by one
+he broke the blossoms from the stalks and tossed them into the
+water.
+
+She, watching them floating away under the bridge, thought of the
+blue bits of paper--the telegram--that she had torn up and tossed
+upon the water two weeks before. He was thinking of the same
+thing, for, when she said, abruptly: "I should not have done
+that!" he knew what she meant, and replied: "Such things are
+always your right--if you care to use it."
+
+She laughed. "Then you believe still in the feudal system? I do
+not; I am a good republican."
+
+"It is easy," he said, also laughing, "for a young lady with
+generations of counts and vicomtes behind her to be a republican.
+It is easier still for a man with generations of republicans
+behind him to turn royalist. It is the way of the world,
+mademoiselle."
+
+"Then you shall say: 'Long live the king!'" she said; "say it
+this instant!"
+
+"Long live--your king!"
+
+"My king?"
+
+"I'm his subject if you are; I'll shout for no other king."
+
+"Now, whatever is he talking about?" thought Lorraine, and the
+suspicion of a cloud gathered in her clear eyes again, but was
+dissipated at once when he said: "I have answered the _Herald's_
+telegram."
+
+"What did you say?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"I accepted--"
+
+"What!"
+
+There was resentment in her voice. She felt that he had done
+something which was tacitly understood to be against her wishes.
+True, what difference did it make to her? None; she would lose a
+delightful companion. Suddenly, something of the significance of
+such a loss came to her. It was not a revelation, scarcely an
+illumination, but she understood that if he went she should be
+lonely--yes, even unhappy. Then, too, unconsciously, she had
+assumed a mental attitude of interest in his movements--of
+partial proprietorship in his thoughts. She felt vaguely that she
+had been overlooked in the decision he had made; that even if she
+had not been consulted, at least he might have told her what he
+intended to do. Lorraine was at a loss to understand herself. But
+she was easily understood. For two weeks her attitude had been
+that of every innocent, lovable girl when in the presence of the
+man whom she frankly cares for; and that attitude was one of
+mental proprietorship. Now, suddenly finding that his sympathies
+and ideas moved independently of her sympathies--that her mental
+influence, which existed until now unconsciously, was in reality
+no influence at all, she awoke to the fact that she perhaps
+counted for nothing with him. Therefore resentment appeared in
+the faintest of straight lines between her eyes.
+
+"Do you care?" he asked, carelessly.
+
+"I? Why, no."
+
+If she had smiled at him and said "Yes," he would have despaired;
+but she frowned a trifle and said "No," and Jack's heart began to
+beat.
+
+"I cabled them two words: 'Accept--provisionally,'" he said.
+
+"Oh, what did you mean?"
+
+"Provisionally meant--with your consent."
+
+"My--my consent?"
+
+"Yes--if it is your pleasure."
+
+Pleasure! Her sweet eyes answered what her lips withheld. Her
+little heart beat high. So then she did influence this cool young
+man, with his brown eyes faintly smiling, and his indolent limbs
+crossed on the moss at her feet. At the same moment her instinct
+told her to tighten her hold. This was so perfectly feminine, so
+instinctively human, that she had done it before she herself was
+aware of it. "I shall think it over," she said, looking at him,
+gravely; "I may permit you to accept."
+
+So was accomplished the admitted subjugation of Jack Marche--a
+stroke of diplomacy on his part; and he passed under the yoke in
+such a manner that even the blindest of maids could see that he
+was not vaulting over it instead.
+
+Having openly and admittedly established her sovereignty, she was
+happy--so happy that she began to feel that perhaps the victory
+was not unshared by him.
+
+"I shall think it over very seriously," she repeated, watching
+his laughing eyes; "I am not sure that I shall permit you to go."
+
+"I only wish to go as a special, not a regular correspondent. I
+wish to be at liberty to roam about and sketch or write what I
+please. I think my material will always be found in your
+vicinity."
+
+Her heart fluttered a little; this surprised her so much that her
+cheeks grew suddenly warm and pink. A little confused, she said
+what she had not dreamed of saying: "You won't go very far away,
+will you?" And before she could modify her speech he had
+answered, impetuously: "Never, until you send me away!"
+
+A mottled thrush on the top of the linden-tree surveyed the scene
+curiously. She had never beheld such a pitiably embarrassed young
+couple in all her life. It was so different in Thrushdom.
+
+Lorraine's first impulse was to go away and close several doors
+and sit down, very still, and think. Her next impulse was to stay
+and see what Jack would do. He seemed to be embarrassed, too--he
+fidgeted and tossed twigs and pebbles into the river. She felt
+that she, who already admittedly was arbiter of his goings and
+comings, should do something to relieve this uneasy and strained
+situation. So she folded her hands on her black dress and said:
+"There is something I have been wishing to tell you for two
+weeks, but I did not because I was not sure that I was right, and
+I did not wish to trouble you unnecessarily. Now, perhaps, you
+would be willing to share the trouble with me. Would you?"
+
+Before the eager answer came to his lips she continued, hastily: "The
+man who made maps--the man whom you struck in the carrefour--is the
+same man who ran away with the box; I know it!"
+
+"That spy?--that tall, square-shouldered fellow with the pink
+skin and little, pale, pinkish eyes?"
+
+"Yes. I know his name, too."
+
+Jack sat up on the moss and listened anxiously.
+
+"His name is Von Steyr--Siurd von Steyr. It was written in pencil
+on the back of one map. The morning after the assault on the
+house, when they thought I was ill in bed, I got up and dressed
+and went down to examine the road where you caught the man and
+saved my father's little steel box. There I found a strip of
+cloth torn from your evening coat, and--oh, Monsieur Marche!--I
+found the great, flat stone with which he tried to crush you,
+just as my father fired from the wall!"
+
+The sudden memory, the thought of what might have happened, came
+to her in a flash for the first time. She looked at him--her
+hands were in his before she could understand why.
+
+"Go on," he whispered.
+
+Her eyes met his half fearfully--she withdrew her fingers with a
+nervous movement and sat silent.
+
+"Tell me," he urged, and took one of her hands again. She did not
+withdraw it--she seemed confused; and presently he dropped her
+hand and sat waiting for her to speak, his heart beating
+furiously.
+
+"There is not much more to tell," she said at last, in a voice
+that seemed not quite under control. "I followed the broken
+bushes and his footmarks along the river until I came to a stone
+where I think he sat down. He was bleeding, too--my father shot
+him--and he tore bits of paper and cloth to cover the wound--he
+even tore up another map. I found part of it, with his name on
+the back again--not all of it, though, but enough. Here it is."
+
+She handed him a bit of paper. On one side were the fragments of
+a map in water-colour; on the other, written in German script, he
+read "Siurd von Steyr."
+
+"It's enough," said Jack; "what a plucky girl you are, anyway!"
+
+"I? You don't think so!--do you?"
+
+"You are the bravest, sweetest--"
+
+"Dear me! You must not say that! You are sadly uneducated, and I
+see I must take you under my control at once. Man is born to
+obey! I have decided about your answer to the _Herald's_
+telegram."
+
+"May I know the result?" he asked, laughingly.
+
+"To-morrow. There is a brook-lily on the border of the sedge-grass.
+You may bring it to me."
+
+So began the education of Jack Marche--under the yoke. And
+Lorraine's education began, too--but she was sublimely unconscious
+of that fact.
+
+This also is a law in the world.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SAARBRUeCK
+
+
+On the first day of August, late in the afternoon, a peasant
+driving an exhausted horse pulled up at the Chateau 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, a prix reduit. 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 had more eau-de-vie than another--it is
+permitted on fete-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 position of special, or rather
+occasional, war correspondent for the New York _Herald_ if 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 Saarbrueck. 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 "mechoin" 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 idle curiosity, but partly a sense
+of obligation, that made him think of riding to Saarbrueck 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 Saarbrueck,
+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 Chateau 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 tender and 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 even in 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
+Chateau, 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 Chateau 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 Saarbrueck 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 Chateau 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 Carriere?"
+
+"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 old
+_Herald_? Nom d'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-Abbes, 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--_what_
+do 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 Saarbrueck. 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 Saarbrueck. Except
+near Saarbrueck 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 Saargemuend, 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 Saarbrueck! 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
+Saarbrueck, 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 with infantry,
+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 Saarbrueck," 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 Saarbrueck 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 Saarbrueck 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!"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
+
+
+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.
+
+"Ohe, Mustapha!" shouted the line soldiers, "Ohe, 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 Saarbrueck 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
+Saarbrueck road. He passed a heavy, fat-necked general, 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 Saarbrueck, 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 Saarbrueck.
+
+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 the cracking 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 London _Times_.
+
+"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 Hotel 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 Saarbrueck--he understood that at a glance. For a moment
+he thought of going to the Hotel 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, and he 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
+a 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 Hotel 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 Saarbrueck
+    with twenty-three pieces of artillery. The bombardment
+    continued until twelve. At two o'clock the Germans,
+    having evacuated Saarbrueck, 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
+    men killed--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 vised 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 hotel 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--"
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+"KEEP THY FAITH"
+
+
+Jack was startled, and he instinctively stood up very straight,
+as he always did when surprised.
+
+Under the Emperor's crimson kepi, 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
+Saarbrueck?"
+
+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
+'Saarbrueck' 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 hotel, 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'Etat, 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
+Saarbrueck.
+
+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 the woods 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 in the 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 shoulder where 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-cochere of the Chateau 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 the end. 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 perfumed by 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 Carriere.
+
+"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 Carriere 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 into Germany 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.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+FROM THE FRONTIER
+
+
+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 Chateau de Nesville?"
+she asked, trying not to laugh.
+
+"Oh!" he said, with affected surprise, "did you wish me to go to
+the Chateau?"
+
+"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 Chateau de Nesville. His heart
+seemed to tug and tug and urge 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 he turned 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 Chateau, 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
+tete-a-tete 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 Chateau, and he laughed
+at her appetite, which made her laugh, too, only she pretended
+not to like it.
+
+At the porch she left him to change her gown, and slipped away
+up-stairs, while he found old Pierre and was dusted and fussed
+over until he couldn't stand it another moment. Luckily he heard
+Lorraine calling her maid on the porch, and he went to her at
+once.
+
+"Papa says you may lunch here--I spoke to him through the
+key-hole. It is all ready; will you come?"
+
+A serious-minded maid served them with salad and thin
+bread-and-butter.
+
+"Tea!" exclaimed Jack.
+
+"Isn't that very American?" asked Lorraine, timidly. "I thought
+you might like it; I understood that all Americans drank tea."
+
+"They do," he said, gravely; "it is a terrible habit--a national
+vice--but they do."
+
+"Now you are laughing at me!" she cried. "Marianne, please to
+remove that tea! No, no, I won't leave it--and you can suffer if
+you wish. And to think that I--"
+
+They were both laughing so that the maid's face grew more
+serious, and she removed the teapot as though she were bearing
+some strange and poisonous creature to a deserved doom.
+
+As they sat opposite each other, smiling, a little flurried at
+finding themselves alone at table together, but eating with the
+appetites of very young lovers, the warm summer wind, blowing
+through the open windows, bore to their ears the songs of forest
+birds. It bore another sound, too; Jack had heard it for the last
+two hours, or had imagined he heard it--a low, monotonous
+vibration, now almost distinct, now lost, now again discernible,
+but too vague, too indefinite to be anything but that faint
+summer harmony which comes from distant breezes, distant
+movements, mingling with the stir of drowsy field insects, half
+torpid in the heat of noon.
+
+Still it was always there; and now, turning his ear to the
+window, he laid down knife and fork to listen.
+
+"I have also noticed it," said Lorraine, answering his unasked
+question.
+
+"Do you hear it now?"
+
+"Yes--more distinctly now."
+
+A few moments later Jack leaned back in his chair and listened
+again.
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine, "it seems to come nearer. What is it?"
+
+"It comes from the southeast. I don't know," he answered.
+
+They rose and walked to the window. She was so near that he
+breathed the subtle fragrance of her hair, the fresh sweetness of
+her white gown, that rustled beside him.
+
+"Hark!" whispered Lorraine; "I can almost hear voices in the
+breezes--the murmur of voices, as if millions of tiny people were
+calling us from the ends and outer edges of the earth."
+
+"There is a throbbing, too. Do you notice it?"
+
+"Yes--like one's heart at night. Ah, now it comes nearer--oh,
+nearer! nearer! Oh, what can it be?"
+
+He knew now; he knew that indefinable battle--rumour that steals
+into the senses long before it is really audible. It is not a
+sound--not even a vibration; it is an immense foreboding that
+weights the air with prophecy.
+
+"From the south and east," he repeated; "from the Landesgrenze."
+
+"The frontier?"
+
+"Yes. Hark!"
+
+"I hear."
+
+"From the frontier," he said again. "From the river Lauter and
+from Wissembourg."
+
+"What is it?" she whispered, close beside him.
+
+"Cannon!"
+
+Yes, it was cannon--they knew it now--cannon throbbing,
+throbbing, throbbing along the horizon where the crags of the
+Geisberg echoed the dull thunder and shook it far out across the
+vineyards of Wissembourg, where the heights of Kapsweyer,
+resounding, hurled back the echoes to the mountains in the north.
+
+"Why--why does it seem to come nearer?" asked Lorraine.
+
+"Nearer?" He knew it had come nearer, but how could he tell her
+what that meant?
+
+"It is a battle--is it not?" she asked again.
+
+"Yes, a battle."
+
+She said nothing more, but stood leaning along the wall, her white
+forehead pressed against the edge of the raised window-sash. Outside,
+the little birds had grown suddenly silent; there was a stillness
+that comes before a rain; the leaves on the shrubbery scarcely moved.
+
+And now, nearer and nearer swelled the rumour of battle,
+undulating, quavering over forest and hill, and the muttering of
+the cannon grew to a rumble that jarred the air.
+
+As currents in the upper atmosphere shift and settle north,
+south, east, west, so the tide of sound wavered and drifted, and
+set westward, flowing nearer and nearer and louder and louder,
+until the hoarse, crashing tumult, still vague and distant, was
+cut by the sharper notes of single cannon that spoke out,
+suddenly impetuous, in the dull din.
+
+The whole Chateau was awake now; maids, grooms, valets,
+gardeners, and keepers were gathering outside the iron grille of
+the park, whispering together and looking out across the fields.
+
+There was nothing to see except pastures and woods, and
+low-rounded hills crowned with vineyards. Nothing more except a
+single strangely shaped cloud, sombre, slender at the base, but
+spreading at the top like a palm.
+
+"I am going up to speak to your father," said Jack, carelessly;
+"may I?"
+
+Interrupt her father! Lorraine fairly gasped.
+
+"Stay here," he added, with the faintest touch of authority in
+his tone; and, before she could protest, he had sped away up the
+staircase and round and round the long circular stairs that led
+to the single turret.
+
+A little out of breath, he knocked at the door which faced the
+top step. There was no answer. He rapped again, impatiently. A
+voice startled him: "Lorraine, I am busy!"
+
+"Open," called Jack; "I must see you!"
+
+"I am busy!" replied the marquis. Irritation and surprise were in
+his tones.
+
+"Open!" called Jack again; "there is no time to lose!"
+
+Suddenly the door was jerked back and the marquis appeared, pale,
+handsome, his eyes cold and blue as icebergs.
+
+"Monsieur Marche--" he began, almost discourteously.
+
+"Pardon," interrupted Jack; "I am going into your room. I wish to
+look out of that turret window. Come also--you must know what to
+expect."
+
+Astonished, almost angry, the Marquis de Nesville followed him to
+the turret window.
+
+"Oh," said Jack, softly, staring out into the sunshine, "it is
+time, is it not, that we knew what was going on along the
+frontier? Look there!"
+
+On the horizon vast shapeless clouds lay piled, gigantic coils
+and masses of vapour, dark, ominous, illuminated by faint, pallid
+lights that played under them incessantly; and over all towered
+one tall column of smoke, spreading above like an enormous
+palm-tree. But this was not all. The vast panorama of hill and
+valley and plain, cut by roads that undulated like narrow satin
+ribbons on a brocaded surface, was covered with moving objects,
+swarming, inundating the landscape. To the south a green hill
+grew black with the human tide, to the north long lines and
+oblongs and squares moved across the land, slowly, almost
+imperceptibly--but they were moving, always moving east.
+
+"It is an army coming," said the marquis.
+
+"It is a rout," said Jack, quietly.
+
+The marquis moved suddenly, as though to avoid a blow.
+
+"What troops are those?" he asked, after a silence.
+
+"It is the French army," replied Jack. "Have you not heard the
+cannonade?"
+
+"No--my machines make some noise when I'm working. I hear it now.
+What is that cloud--a fire?"
+
+"It is the battle cloud."
+
+"And the smoke on the horizon?"
+
+"The smoke from the guns. They are fighting beyond
+Saarbrueck--yes, beyond Pfalzburg and Woerth; they are fighting
+beyond the Lauter."
+
+"Wissembourg?"
+
+"I think so. They are nearer now. Monsieur de Nesville, the
+battle has gone against the French."
+
+"How do you know?" demanded the marquis, harshly.
+
+"I have seen battles. One need only listen and look at the army
+yonder. They will pass Morteyn; I think they will pass for miles
+through the country. It looks to me like a retreat towards Metz,
+but I am not sure. The throngs of troops below are fugitives, not
+the regular geometrical figures that you see to the north. Those
+are regiments and divisions moving towards the west in good
+order."
+
+The two men stepped back into the room and faced each other.
+
+"After the rain the flood, after the rout the invasion," said
+Jack, firmly. "You cannot know it too quickly. You know it now,
+and you can make your plans."
+
+He was thinking of Lorraine's safety when he spoke, but the
+marquis turned instinctively to a mass of machinery and chemical
+paraphernalia behind him.
+
+"You will have your hands full," said Jack, repressing an angry
+sneer; "if you wish, my aunt De Morteyn will charge herself with
+Mademoiselle de Nesville's safety."
+
+"True, Lorraine might go to Morteyn," murmured the marquis,
+absently, examining a smoky retort half filled with a silvery
+heap of dust.
+
+"Then, may I drive her over after dinner?"
+
+"Yes," replied the other, indifferently.
+
+Jack started towards the stairs, hesitated, and turned around.
+
+"Your inventions are not safe, of course, if the German army
+comes. Do you need my help?"
+
+"My inventions are my own affair," said the marquis, angrily.
+
+Jack flushed scarlet, swung on his heels, and marched out of the
+room and down the stairs. On the lower steps he met Lorraine's
+maid, and told her briefly to pack her mistress's trunks for a
+visit to Morteyn.
+
+Lorraine was waiting for him at the window where he had left her,
+a scared, uncertain little maid in truth.
+
+"The battle is very near, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+"No, miles away yet."
+
+"Did you speak to papa? Did he send word to me? Does he want me?"
+
+He found it hard to tell her what message her father had sent,
+but he did.
+
+"I am to go to Morteyn? Oh, I cannot! I cannot! Papa will be
+alone here!" she said, aghast.
+
+"Perhaps you had better see him," he said, almost bitterly.
+
+She hurried away up the stairs; he heard her little eager feet on
+the stone steps that led to the turret; climbing up, up, up,
+until the sound was lost in the upper stories of the house. He
+went out to the stables and ordered the dog-cart and a wagon for
+her trunks. He did not fear that this order might be premature,
+for he thought he had not misjudged the Marquis de Nesville. And
+he had not, for, before the cart was ready, Lorraine, silent,
+pale, tearless, came noiselessly down the stairs holding her
+little cloak over one arm.
+
+"I am to stay a week," she said; "he does not want me." She
+added, hastily, "He is so busy and worried, and there is much to
+be done, and if the Prussians should come he must hide the
+balloon and the box of plans and formula--"
+
+"I know," said Jack, tenderly; "it will lift a weight from his
+mind when he knows you are safe with my aunt."
+
+"He is so good, he thinks only of my safety," faltered Lorraine.
+
+"Come," said Jack, in a voice that sounded husky; "the horse is
+waiting; I am to drive you. Your maid will follow with the trunks
+this evening. Are you ready? Give me your cloak. There--now, are
+you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He aided her to mount the dog-cart--her light touch was on his
+arm. He turned to the groom at the horse's head, sprang to the
+seat, and nodded. Lorraine leaned back and looked up at the
+turret where her father was.
+
+"Allons! En route!" cried Jack, cheerily, snapping his
+ribbon-decked whip.
+
+At the same instant a horseless cavalryman, gray with dust and
+dripping with blood and sweat, staggered out on the road from
+among the trees. He turned a deathly face to theirs, stopped,
+tottered, and called out--"Jack!"
+
+"Georges!" cried Jack, amazed.
+
+"Give me a horse, for God's sake!" he gasped. "I've just killed
+mine. I--I must get to Metz by midnight--"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+AIDE-DE-CAMP
+
+
+Lorraine and Jack sprang to the road from opposite sides of the
+vehicle; Georges' drawn face was stretched into an attempt at a
+smile which was ghastly, for the stiff, black blood that had
+caked in a dripping ridge from his forehead to his chin cracked
+and grew moist and scarlet, and his hollow cheeks whitened under
+the coat of dust. But he drew himself up by an effort and saluted
+Lorraine with a punctilious deference that still had a touch of
+jauntiness to it--the jauntiness of a youthful cavalry officer in
+the presence of a pretty woman.
+
+Old Pierre, who had witnessed the episode from the butler's
+window, came limping down the path, holding a glass and a carafe
+of brandy.
+
+"You are right, Pierre," said Jack. "Georges, drink it up, old
+fellow. There, now you can stand on those pins of yours. What's
+that--a sabre cut?"
+
+"No, a scratch from an Uhlan's lance-tip. Cut like a razor,
+didn't it? I've just killed my horse, trying to get over a ditch.
+Can you give me a mount, Jack?"
+
+"There isn't a horse in the stable that can carry you to Metz,"
+said Lorraine, quietly; "Diable is lame and Porthos is not shod.
+I can give you my pony."
+
+"Can't you get a train?" asked Jack, astonished.
+
+"No, the Uhlans are in our rear, everywhere. The railroad is torn
+up, the viaducts smashed, the wires cut, and general deuce to
+pay. I ran into an Uhlan or two--you notice it perhaps," he
+added, with a grim smile. "Could you drive me to Morteyn? Do you
+think the vicomte would lend me a horse?"
+
+"Of course he would," said Jack; "come, then--there is room for
+three," with an anxious glance at Lorraine.
+
+"Indeed, there is always room for a soldier of France!" cried
+Lorraine. At the same moment she instinctively laid one hand
+lightly on Jack's arm. Their eyes spoke for an instant--the
+generous appeal that shone in hers was met and answered by a
+response that brought the delicate colour into her cheeks.
+
+"Let me hang on behind," pleaded Georges--"I'm so dirty, you
+know." But they bundled him into the seat between them, and Jack
+touched his beribboned whip to the horse's ears, and away they
+went speeding over the soft forest road in the cool of the fading
+day; old Pierre, bottle and glass in hand, gaping after them and
+shaking his gray head.
+
+Jack began to fire volleys of questions at the young hussar as
+soon as they entered the forest, and poor Georges replied as best
+he could.
+
+"I don't know very much about it; I was detached yesterday and
+taken on General Douay's staff. We were at Wissembourg--you know
+that little town on the Lauter where the vineyards cover
+everything and the mountains are pretty steep to the north and
+west. All I know is this: about six o'clock this morning our
+outposts on the hills to the south began banging way in a great
+panic. They had been attacked, it seems, by the 4th Bavarian
+Division, Count Bothmer's, I believe. Our posts fell back to the
+town, where the 1st Turcos reinforced them at the railroad
+station. The artillery were at it on our left, too, and there was
+a most infernal racket. The next thing I saw was those crazy
+Bavarians, with their little flat drums beating, and their
+fur-crested helmets all bobbing, marching calmly up the Geisberg.
+Jack, those fellows went through the vineyards like fiends
+astride a tempest. That was at two o'clock. The Prussian
+Crown-Prince rode into the town an hour before; we couldn't hold
+it--Heaven knows why. That's all I saw--except the death of our
+general."
+
+"General Douay?" cried Lorraine, horrified.
+
+"Yes, he was killed about ten o'clock in the morning. The town
+was stormed through the Hagenauer Thor by the Bavarians. After
+that we still held the Geisberg and the Chateau. You should have
+seen it when we left it. I'll say it was a butcher's shambles.
+I'd say more if Mademoiselle de Nesville were not here." He was
+trying hard to bear up--to speak lightly of the frightful
+calamity that had overwhelmed General Abel Douay and his entire
+division.
+
+"The fight at the Chateau was worth seeing," said Georges,
+airily. "They went at it with drums beating and flags flying. Oh,
+but they fell like leaves in the gardens, there--the paths and
+shrubbery were littered with them, dead, dying, gasping, crawling
+about, like singed flies under a lamp. We had them beaten, too,
+if it hadn't been for their General von Kirchbach. He stood in
+the garden--he'd been hit, too--and bawled for the artillery.
+Then they came at us again in three divisions. Where they got all
+their regiments, I don't know, but their 7th Grenadier Guards
+were there, and their 47th, 58th, 59th, 80th, and 87th regiments
+of the line, not counting a Jaeger battalion and no end of
+artillery. They carried the Three Poplars--a hill--and they began
+devastating everything. We couldn't face their fire--I don't know
+why, Jack; it breaks my heart when I say it, but we couldn't hold
+them. Then they began howling for cannon, and, of course, that
+settled the Chateau. The town was in flames when I left."
+
+After a silence, Jack asked him whether it was a rout or a
+retreat.
+
+"We're falling back in very decent order," said Georges,
+eagerly--"really, we are. Of course, there were some troops that
+got into a sort of panic--the Uhlans are annoying us considerably.
+The Turcos fought well. We fairly riddled the 58th Prussians--their
+king's regiment, you know. It was the 2d Bavarian Corps that did
+for us. We will meet them later."
+
+"Where are you going--to Metz?" inquired Jack, soberly.
+
+"Yes; I've a packet for Bazaine--I don't know what. They're
+trying to reach him by wire, but those confounded Uhlans are
+destroying everything. My dear fellow, you need not worry; we
+have been checked, that's all. Our promenade to Berlin is
+postponed in deference to King Wilhelm's earnest wishes."
+
+They all tried to laugh a little, and Jack chirped to his horse,
+but even that sober animal seemed to feel the depression, for he
+responded in fits and starts and jerks that were unpleasant and
+jarring to Georges' aching head.
+
+The sky had become covered with bands of wet-looking clouds, the
+leaves of the forest stirred noiselessly on their stems. Along
+the river willows quivered and aspens turned their leaves white
+side to the sky. In the querulous notes of the birds there was a
+prophecy of storms, the river muttered among its hollows of
+floods and tempests.
+
+Suddenly a great sombre raven sailed to the road, alighted,
+sidled back, and sat fearlessly watching them.
+
+Lorraine shivered and nestled closer to Jack.
+
+"Oh," she murmured, "I never saw one before--except in pictures."
+
+"They belong in the snow--they have no business here," said Jack;
+"they always make me think of those pictures of Russia--the
+retreat of the Grand Army, you know."
+
+"Wolves and ravens," said Lorraine, in a low voice; "I know why
+they come to us here in France--Monsieur Marche, did I not tell
+you that day in the carrefour?"
+
+"Yes," he answered; "do you really think you are a prophetess?"
+
+"Did you see wolves here?" asked Georges.
+
+"Yes; before war was declared. I told Monsieur Marche--it is a
+legend of our country. He, of course, laughed at it. I also do not
+believe everything I am told--but--I don't know--I have alway
+believed that, ever since I was, oh, very, very small--like that."
+She held one small gloved hand about twelve inches from the floor
+of the cart.
+
+"At such a height and such an age it is natural to believe
+anything," said Jack. "I, too, accepted many strange doctrines
+then."
+
+"You are laughing again," said Lorraine.
+
+So they passed through the forest, trying to be cheerful, even
+succeeding at times. But Georges' face grew paler every minute,
+and his smile was so painful that Lorraine could not bear it and
+turned her head away, her hand tightening on the box-rail
+alongside.
+
+As they were about to turn out into the Morteyn road, where the
+forest ended, Jack suddenly checked the horse and rose to his
+feet.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lorraine. "Oh, I see! Oh, look!"
+
+The Morteyn road was filled with infantry, solid, plodding
+columns, pressing fast towards the west. The fields, too, were
+black with men, engineers, weighted down with their heavy
+equipments, resting in long double rows, eyes vacant, heads bent.
+Above the thickets of rifles sweeping past, mounted officers sat
+in their saddles, as though carried along on the surface of the
+serried tide. Standards fringed with gold slanted in the last
+rays of the sun, sabres glimmered, curving upward from the
+thronged rifles, and over all sounded the shuffle, shuffle of
+worn shoes in the dust, a mournful, monotonous cadence, a
+hopeless measure, whose burden was despair, whose beat was the
+rhythm of breaking hearts.
+
+Oh, but it cut Lorraine to see their boyish faces, dusty, gaunt,
+hollow-eyed, turn to her and turn away without a change, without
+a shade of expression. The mask of blank apathy stamped on every
+visage almost terrified her. On they came, on, on, and still on,
+under a forest of shining rifles. A convoy of munitions crowded
+in the rear of the column, surrounded by troopers of the
+train-des-equipages; then followed more infantry, then cavalry,
+dragoons, who sat listlessly in their high saddles, carbines
+bobbing on their broad backs, whalebone plumes matted with dust.
+
+Georges rose painfully from his seat, stepped to the side, and
+climbed down into the road. He felt in the breast of his dolman
+for the packet, adjusted his sabre, and turned to Lorraine.
+
+"There is a squadron of the Remount Cavalry over in that
+meadow--I can get a horse there," he said. "Thank you, Jack.
+Good-by, Mademoiselle de Nesville, you have been more than
+generous."
+
+"You can have a horse from the Morteyn stables," said Jack; "my
+dear fellow, I can't bear to see you go--to think of your riding
+to Metz to-night."
+
+"It's got to be done, you know," said Georges. He bowed; Lorraine
+stretched out her hand and he gravely touched it with his
+fingers. Then he exchanged a nervous gripe with Jack, and turned
+away hurriedly, crowding between the passing dragoons, traversing
+the meadows until they lost him in the throng.
+
+"We cannot get to the house by the road," said Jack; "we must
+take the stable path;" and he lifted the reins and turned the
+horse's head.
+
+The stable road was narrow, and crossed with sprays of tender
+leaves. The leaves touched Lorraine's eyes, they rubbed across
+her fair brow, robbing her of single threads of glittering hair,
+they brushed a single bright tear from her cheeks and held it,
+glimmering like a drop of dew.
+
+"Behold the end of the world," said Lorraine--"I am weeping."
+
+He turned and looked into her eyes.
+
+"Is that strange?" he asked, gently.
+
+"Yes; I have often wished to cry. I never could--except once
+before--and that was four days ago."
+
+The day of their quarrel! He thrilled from head to foot, but
+dared not speak.
+
+"Four days ago," said Lorraine again. She thought of herself
+gliding from her bed to seek the stable where Jack's horse stood,
+she thought of her hot face pressed to the wounded creature's
+neck. Then, suddenly aware of what she had confessed, she leaned
+back and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Lorraine!" he whispered, brokenly.
+
+But they were already at the Chateau.
+
+"Lorraine, my child!" cried Madame de Morteyn, leaning from the
+terrace. Her voice was drowned in the crash of drums rolling,
+rolling, from the lawn below, and the trumpets broke out in harsh
+chorus, shrill, discordant, terrible.
+
+The Emperor had arrived at Morteyn.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE MARQUIS MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE
+
+
+The Emperor dined with the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn that
+evening in the great dining-room. The Chateau, patrolled by
+doubled guards of the Cent Gardes, was surrounded by triple
+hedges of bayonets and a perfect pest of police spies, secret
+agents, and flunkys. In the breakfast-room General Frossard and
+his staff were also dining; and up-stairs, in a small gilded
+salon, Jack and Lorraine ate soberly, tenderly cared for by the
+old house-keeper.
+
+Outside they could hear the steady tramp of passing infantry
+along the dark road, the clank of artillery, and the muffled
+trample of cavalry. Frossard's Corps was moving rapidly, its back
+to the Rhine.
+
+"I saw the Prince Imperial," said Jack; "he was in the
+conservatory, writing to his mother, the Empress. Have you ever
+seen him, Mademoiselle de Nesville? He is young, really a mere
+child, but he looks very manly in his uniform. He has that same
+charm, that same delicate, winning courtesy that the Emperor is
+famous for. But he looks so pale and tired--like a school-boy in
+the Lycee."
+
+"It would have been unfortunate if the Emperor had stopped at the
+Chateau de Nesville," said Lorraine, sipping her small glass of
+Moselle; "papa hates him."
+
+"Many Royalists do."
+
+"It is not that only; there is something else--something that I
+don't know about. It concerns my brother who died many years ago,
+before I was born. Have I never spoken of my brother? Has papa
+never said anything?"
+
+"No," said Jack, gently.
+
+"Well, when my brother was alive, our family lived in Paris. That
+is all I know, except that my brother died shortly before the empire
+was proclaimed, and papa and mamma came to our country-place here,
+where I was born. Rene's--my brother's--death had something to do
+with my father's hatred of the empire, I know that. But papa will
+never speak of it to me, except to tell me that I must always
+remember that the Emperor has been the curse of the De Nesvilles.
+Hark! Hear the troops passing. Why do they never cheer their
+Emperor?"
+
+"They cheered him at Saarbrueck--I heard them. You are not eating;
+are you tired?"
+
+"A little. I shall go with Marianne, I think; I am sleepy. Are
+you going to sit up? Do you think we can sleep with the noise of
+the horses passing? I should like to see the Emperor at table."
+
+"Wait," said Jack; "I'll go down and find out whether we can't
+slip into the ballroom."
+
+"Then I'll go too," said Lorraine, rising. "Marianne, stay here;
+I will return in a moment;" and she slipped after Jack, down the
+broad staircase and out to the terrace, where a huge cuirassier
+officer stood in the moonlight, his straight sabre shimmering,
+his white mantle open over the silver breastplate.
+
+The ballroom was brilliantly lighted, the gilded canapes and
+chairs were covered with officers in every conceivable uniform,
+lounging, sprawling, chatting, and gesticulating, or pulling
+papers and maps over the floor. A general traced routes across
+the map at his feet with the point of a naked sword; an officer
+of dragoons, squatting on his haunches, followed the movement of
+the sword-point and chewed an unlighted cigarette. Officers were
+coming and going constantly, entering by the hallway and leaving
+through the door-like windows that swung open to the floor. The
+sinister face of a police-spy peered into the conservatory at
+intervals, where a slender, pale-faced boy sat, clothed in a
+colonel's uniform, writing on a carved table. It was the Prince
+Imperial, back from Saarbrueck and his "baptism of fire," back
+also from the Spicheren and the disaster of Woerth. He was writing
+to his mother, that unhappy, anxious woman who looked every day
+from the Tuileries into the streets of a city already clamorous,
+already sullenly suspicious of its Emperor and Empress.
+
+The boy's face was beautiful. He raised his head and sat silently
+biting his pen, eyes wandering. Perhaps he was listening to the
+retreat of Frossard's Corps through the fair province of
+Lorraine--a province that he should never live to see again. A
+few months more, a few battles, a few villages in flames, a few
+cities ravaged, a few thousand corpses piled from the frontier to
+the Loire--and then, what? Why, an emperor the less and an
+emperor the more, and a new name for a province--that is all.
+
+His delicate, high-bred face fell; he shaded his sad eyes with
+one thin hand and wrote again--all that a good son writes to a
+mother, all that a good soldier writes to a sovereign, all that a
+good prince writes to an empress.
+
+"Oh, what sad eyes!" whispered Lorraine; "he is too young to see
+such things."
+
+"He may see worse," said Jack. "Come, shall we walk around the
+lawn to the dining-room?"
+
+They descended the dark steps, her arm resting lightly on his,
+and he guided her through a throng of gossiping cavalrymen and
+hurrying but polite officers towards the western wing of the
+Chateau, the trample of the passing army always in their ears.
+
+As he was about to cross the drive, a figure stepped from the
+shadow of the porte-cochere--a man in a rough tweed suit, who
+lifted his wide-awake politely and asked Jack if he was not
+English.
+
+"American," said Jack, guardedly.
+
+The man was apparently much relieved. He made a frank, manly
+apology for his intrusion, looked appealingly at Lorraine, and
+said, with a laugh: "The fact is, I'm astray in the wrong camp. I
+rode out from the Spicheren and got mixed in the roads, and first
+I knew I fell in with Frossard's Corps, and I can't get away. I
+thought you were an Englishman; you're American, it seems, and
+really I may venture to feel that there is hope for me--may I
+not?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Jack; "whatever I can do, I'll do gladly."
+
+"Then let me observe without hesitation," continued the man,
+smiling under his crisp mustache, "that I'm in search of a modest
+dinner and a shelter of even more modest dimensions. I'm a war
+correspondent, unattached just at present, but following the
+German army. My name is Archibald Grahame."
+
+At the name of the great war correspondent Jack stared, then
+impulsively held out his hand.
+
+"Aha!" said Grahame, "you must be a correspondent, too. Ha! I
+thought I was not wrong."
+
+He bowed again to Lorraine, who returned his manly salute very
+sweetly. "If," she thought, "Jack is inclined to be nice to this
+sturdy young man in tweeds, I also will be as nice as I can."
+
+"My name is Marche--Jack Marche," said Jack, in some trepidation.
+"I am not a correspondent--that is, not an active one."
+
+"You were at Sadowa, and you've been in Oran with Chanzy," said
+Grahame, quickly.
+
+Jack flushed with pleasure to find that the great Archibald
+Grahame had heard of him.
+
+"We must take Mr. Grahame up-stairs at once--must we not?--if he
+is hungry," suggested Lorraine, whose tender heart was touched at
+the thought of a hungry human being.
+
+They all laughed, and Grahame thanked her with that whimsical but
+charming courtesy that endeared him to all who knew him.
+
+"It is awkward, now, isn't it, Mr. Marche? Here I am in France
+with the army I tried to keep away from, roofless, supperless,
+and rather expecting some of these sentinels or police agents may
+begin to inquire into my affairs. If they do they'll take me for
+a spy. I was threatened by the villagers in a little hamlet west
+of Saint-Avold--and how I'm going to get back to my Hohenzollerns
+I haven't the faintest notion."
+
+"There'll surely be some way. My uncle will vouch for you and get
+you a safe-conduct," said Jack. "Perhaps, Mr. Grahame, you had
+better come and dine in our salon up-stairs. Will you? The
+Emperor occupies the large dining-room, and General Frossard and
+his staff have the breakfast-room."
+
+Amused by the young fellow's doubt that a simple salon on the
+first floor might not be commensurate with the hospitality of
+Morteyn, Archibald Grahame stepped pleasantly to the other side
+of the road; and so, with Lorraine between them, they climbed the
+terrace and scaled the stairs to the little gilt salon where
+Lorraine's maid Marianne and the old house-keeper sat awaiting
+her return.
+
+Lorraine was very wide-awake now--she was excited by the stir and
+the brilliant uniforms. She unconsciously took command, too,
+feeling that she should act the hostess in the absence of Madame
+de Morteyn. The old house-keeper, who adored her, supported her
+loyally; so, between Marianne and herself, a very delightful
+dinner was served to the hungry but patient Grahame when he
+returned with Jack from the latter's chamber, where he had left
+most of the dust and travel stains of a long tramp across
+country.
+
+And how the great war correspondent did eat and drink! It made
+Jack hungry again to watch him, so with a laughing apology to
+Lorraine he joined in with a will, enthusiastically applauded and
+encouraged by Grahame.
+
+"I could tell you were a correspondent by your appetite," said
+Grahame. "Dear me! it takes a campaign to make life worth
+living!"
+
+"Life is not worth living, then, without an appetite?" inquired
+Lorraine, mischievously.
+
+"No," said Grahame, seriously; "and you also will be of that
+opinion some day, mademoiselle."
+
+His kindly, humourous eyes turned inquiringly from Jack to
+Lorraine and from Lorraine to Jack. He was puzzled, perhaps, but
+did not betray it.
+
+They were not married, because Lorraine was Mademoiselle de
+Nesville and Jack was Monsieur Marche. Cousins? Probably.
+Engaged? Probably. So Grahame smiled benignly and emptied another
+bottle of Moselle with a frank abandon that fascinated the old
+house-keeper.
+
+"And you don't mean to say that you are going to put me up for
+the night, too?" he asked Jack. "You place me under eternal
+obligation, and I accept with that understanding. If you run into
+my Hohenzollerns, they'll receive you as a brother."
+
+"I don't think he will visit the Hohenzollern Regiment," observed
+Lorraine, demurely.
+
+"No--er--the fact is, I'm not doing much newspaper work now,"
+said Jack.
+
+Grahame was puzzled but bland.
+
+"Tell us, Monsieur Grahame, of what you saw in the Spicheren,"
+said Lorraine. "Is it a very bad defeat? I am sure it cannot be.
+Of course, France will win, sooner or later; nobody doubts that."
+
+Before Grahame could manufacture a suitable reply--and his wit
+was as quick as his courtesy--a door opened and Madame de Morteyn
+entered, sad-eyed but smiling.
+
+Jack jumped up and asked leave to present Mr. Grahame, and the
+old lady received him very sweetly, insisting that he should
+make the Chateau his home as long as he stayed in the vicinity.
+
+A few moments later she went away with Lorraine and her maid, and
+Jack and Archibald Grahame were left together to sip their
+Moselle and smoke some very excellent cigars that Jack found in
+the library.
+
+"Mr. Grahame," said Jack, diffidently, "if it would not be an
+impertinent question, who is going to run away in this campaign?"
+
+Grahame's face fell; his sombre glance swept the beautiful room
+and rested on a picture--the "Battle of Waterloo."
+
+"It will be worse than that," he said, abruptly. "May I take one
+of these cigars? Oh, thank you."
+
+Jack's heart sank, but he smiled and passed a lighted cigar-lamp
+to the other.
+
+"My judgment has been otherwise," he said, "and what you say
+troubles me."
+
+"It troubles me, too," said Grahame, looking out of the dark
+window at the watery clouds, ragged, uncanny, whirling one by one
+like tattered witches across the disk of a misshapen moon.
+
+After a silence Jack relighted his half-burned cigar.
+
+"Then it is invasion?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--invasion."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"Good heavens! the very stones in the fields will rise up!"
+
+"If the people did so too it might be to better purpose,"
+observed Grahame, dryly. Then he emptied his glass, flicked the
+ashes from his cigar, and, sitting erect in his chair, said,
+"See here, Marche, you and I are accustomed to this sort of
+thing, we've seen campaigns and we have learned to judge
+dispassionately and, I think, fairly accurately; but, on my
+honour, I never before have seen the beginning of such a
+tempest--never! You say the very stones will rise up in the
+fields of France. You are right. For the fields will be ploughed
+with solid shot, and the shells will sow the earth with iron from
+the Rhine to the Loire. Good Lord, do these people know what is
+coming over the frontier?"
+
+"Prussians," said Jack.
+
+"Yes, Prussians and a few others--Wuertembergers, Saxons,
+Bavarians, men from Baden, from Hesse, from the Schwarzwald--from
+Hamburg to the Tyrol they are coming in three armies. I saw the
+Spicheren, I saw Wissembourg--I have seen and I know."
+
+Presently he opened a fresh bottle, and, with that whimsical
+smile and frank simplicity that won whom he chose to win, leaned
+towards Jack and began speaking as though the younger man were
+his peer in experience and age:
+
+"Shall I tell you what I saw across the Rhine? I saw the machinery
+at work--the little wheels and cogs turning and grinding and
+setting in motion that stupendous machine that Gneisenau patented
+and Von Moltke improved--the great Mobilization Machine! How this
+machine does its work it is not easy to realize unless one has
+actually watched its operation. I saw it--and what I saw left me
+divided between admiration and--well, damn it all!--sadness.
+
+"You know, Marche, that there are three strata of fighting men in
+Germany--the regular army, the 'reserve,' and the Landwehr. It
+is a mistake into which many fall to believe that the reserve is
+the rear of the regular army. The war strength of a regiment is
+just double its peace strength, and the increment is the reserve.
+The blending of the two in time of war is complete; the medalled
+men of 1866 and of the Holstein campaign, called up from the
+reserve, are welded into the same ranks with the young soldiers
+who are serving their first period of three years. It is an utter
+mistake to think of the Prussian army or the Prussian reserves as
+a militia like yours or ours. The Prussian reserve man has three
+years active service with his colours to point back to. Have ours?
+The mobilization machine grinds its grinding in this wise. The whole
+country is divided into districts, in the central city of each of
+which are the headquarters of the army corps recruited from that
+district. Thence is sent forth the edict for mobilization to the
+towns, the villages, and the quiet country parishes. From the forge,
+from the harvest, from the store, from the school-room, blacksmiths,
+farmers, clerks, school-masters drop everything at an hour's notice.
+
+"The contingent of a village is sent to headquarters. On the
+route it meets other contingents until the rendezvous is reached.
+And then--the transformation! A yokel enters--a soldier leaves.
+The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown
+forward, his legs straightened, his chin 'well off the stock,'
+his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as
+whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are
+orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none
+are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, and the
+barrack gates are never infested by those hordes of soldiers'
+women."
+
+He paused and puffed at his cigar thoughtfully.
+
+"They are such soldiers as the world has not yet seen. Marching?
+I saw them striding steadily forward with the thermometer at
+eighty-five in the shade, with needle-gun, heavy knapsack, eighty
+rounds of ammunition, huge great-coat, camp-kettle, sword, spade,
+water-bottle, haversack, and lots of odds and ends dangling about
+them, with perhaps a loaf or two under one arm. Sunstroke? No.
+Why? Sobriety. No absinthe there, Mr. Marche."
+
+"We beat those men at Saarbrueck," said Jack.
+
+Grahame laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"At Saarbrueck, when war was declared, the total German garrison
+consisted of a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Uhlans.
+Frossard and his whole corps were looking across at Saarbrueck
+over the ridges of the Spicheren, and nobody had the means of
+knowing what everybody knows now, the reason, so discreditable to
+French organization, which prevented him from blowing out of his
+path the few pickets and patrols, and invading the territory
+which had its frontier only nominally guarded. I was in Saarbrueck
+at the time, and I had the pleasure of dodging shells there, too.
+Why, we were all asking each other if it were possible that the
+Frenchmen did not know the weakness of the land. Our Uhlans and
+infantry were manipulated dexterously to make a battalion look
+like a brigade; but we had an army corps in front of us. We held
+the place by sheer impudence."
+
+"I know it," said Jack; "it makes me ill to think of it."
+
+"It ought to make Frossard ill! Had a French army of invasion
+pushed on through Saint-Johann on the 2d of August and marched
+rapidly into the interior, the Germans could not possibly have
+concentrated their scattered regiments, and it is my firm
+conviction that Napoleon would have seen the Rhine without having
+had to fight a pitched battle. Well, Marche, I drink to neither
+one side nor the other, but--here's to the men with backbones.
+Prosit!"
+
+They laughed and clinked glasses. Grahame finished his bottle,
+rose, politely stifled a yawn, and looked humourously at Jack.
+
+"There are two beds in my room; will you take one?" said the
+young fellow.
+
+"Thank you, I will," said Grahame, "and as soon as you please, my
+dear fellow."
+
+So Jack led the way and ushered the other into a huge room with
+two beds, seemingly lost in distant diagonal corners. Grahame
+promptly kicked off his boots, and sat down on his bed.
+
+"I saw a funny thing in Saarbrueck," he said. "It was right in the
+midst of a cannonade--the shells were smashing the chimneys on
+the Hotel Hagen and raising hell generally. And right in the
+midst of the whole blessed mess, cool as a cucumber, came
+sauntering a real live British swell with a coat adorned with
+field-glasses and girdle and a dozen pockets, an eye-glass, a dog
+that seemed dearer to him than life, and a drawl that had not
+been perceptibly quickened by the French cannon. He-aw-had been
+going eastward somewhere to-aw-Constantinople, or Saint-Petersburg,
+or-aw-somewhere, when he-aw-heard that it might be amusing at
+Saarbrueck. A shell knocked a cart-load of tiles around his head,
+and he looked at it through his eye-glass. Marche, I never laughed
+so in my life. He's a good fellow, though--he's trotting about with
+the Hohenzollern Regiment now, and, really, I miss him. His name is
+Hesketh--"
+
+"Not Sir Thorald?" cried Jack.
+
+"Eh?--yes, that's the man. Know him?"
+
+"A little," said Jack, laughing, and went out, bidding Graham
+good-night, and promising to have him roused at dawn.
+
+"Aren't you going to turn in?" called Grahame, fearful of having
+inconvenienced Jack in his own quarters.
+
+"Yes," said the young fellow. "I won't wake you--I'll be back in
+an hour." And he closed the door, and went down-stairs.
+
+For a few moments he stood on the cool terrace, listening to the
+movement of the host below; and always the tramp of feet, the
+snort of horses, and the metallic jingle of passing cannon filled
+his ears.
+
+The big cuirassier sentinel had been joined by two more, all of
+the Hundred-Guards. Jack noticed their carbines, wondering a
+little to see cuirassiers so armed, and marvelling at the long,
+slender, lance-like bayonets that were attached to the muzzles.
+
+Presently he went into the house, and, entering the smoking-room,
+met his aunt coming out.
+
+"Jack," she said, "I am a little nervous--the Emperor is still in
+the dining-room with a crowd of officers, and he has just sent an
+aide-de-camp to the Chateau de Nesville to summon the marquis. It
+will be most awkward; your uncle and he are not friendly, and the
+Marquis de Nesville hates the Emperor."
+
+"Why did the Emperor send for him?" asked Jack, wondering.
+
+"I don't know--he wishes for a private interview with the
+marquis. He may refuse to come--he is a very strange man, you
+know."
+
+"Then, if he is, he may come; that would be stranger still," said
+Jack.
+
+"Your uncle is not well, Jack," continued Madame de Morteyn; "he
+is quite upset by being obliged to entertain the Emperor. You
+know how all the Royalists feel. But, Jack, dear, if you could
+have seen your uncle it would have been a lesson in chivalry to
+you which any young man could ill afford to miss--he was so
+perfectly simple, so proudly courteous--ah, Jack, your uncle is
+one in a nation!"
+
+"He is--and so are you!" said Jack, kissing her faded cheek. "Are
+you going to retire now?"
+
+"Yes; your uncle needs me. The lights are out everywhere.
+Lorraine, dear child, is asleep in the next room to mine. Is Mr.
+Grahame comfortable? I am glad. The Prince Imperial is sleeping
+too, poor child--sleeping like a worn-out baby."
+
+Jack conducted his aunt to her chamber, and bade her good-night.
+Then he went softly back through the darkened house, and across
+the hall to the dining-room. The door was open, letting out a
+flood of lamp-light, and the generals and staff-officers were
+taking leave of the Emperor and filing out one by one, Frossard
+leading, his head bent on his breast. Some went away to rooms
+assigned them, guided by a flunky, some passed across the terrace
+with swords trailing and spurs ringing, and disappeared in the
+darkness. They had not all left the Emperor, when, suddenly,
+Jack heard behind him the voice of the Marquis de Nesville,
+cold, sneering, ironical.
+
+"Oh," he said, seeing Jack standing by the door, "can you tell me
+where I may find the Emperor of the French? I am sent for."
+Turning on the aide-de-camp at his side: "This gentleman
+courteously notified me that the Emperor desired my presence. I
+am here, but I do not choose to go alone, and I shall demand,
+Monsieur Marche, that you accompany me and remain during the
+interview."
+
+The aide-de-camp looked at him darkly, but the marquis sneered in
+his face.
+
+"I want a witness," he said, insolently; "you can tell that to
+your Emperor."
+
+The aide-de-camp, helmet under his arm, from which streamed a
+horse-hair plume, entered the dining-room as the last officer
+left it.
+
+Jack looked uneasily at the marquis, and was about to speak when
+the aid returned and requested the marquis to enter.
+
+"Monsieur Marche, remain here, I beg you," said the marquis,
+coolly; "I shall call you presently. It is a service I ask of
+you. Will you oblige me?"
+
+"Yes," said Jack.
+
+The door opened for a second.
+
+Napoleon III. sat at the long table, his head drooping on his
+breast; he was picking absently at threads in the texture of the
+table-cloth. That was all Jack saw--a glimpse of a table covered
+with half-empty glasses and fruit, an old man picking at the
+cloth in the lamplight; then the door shut, and he was alone in
+the dark hall. Out on the terrace he heard the tramp of the
+cuirassier sentinels, and beyond that the uproar of artillery,
+passing, always passing. He stared about in the darkness, he
+peered up the staircase into the gloom. A bat was flying
+somewhere near--he felt the wind from its mousy wings.
+
+Suddenly the door was flung open beside him, and the marquis
+called to him in a voice vibrating with passion. As he entered
+and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white
+with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of
+the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised
+his impassible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged the young
+man's respectful salutation.
+
+"You have asked me a question," said the marquis, harshly, "and I
+demanded to answer it in the presence of a witness. Is your
+majesty willing that this gentleman shall hear my reply?"
+
+The Emperor looked at him with half-closed, inscrutable eyes,
+then, turning his heavy face to Jack's, smiled wearily and
+inclined his head.
+
+"Good," said the marquis, apparently labouring under tremendous
+excitement. "You ask me to give you, or sell you, or loan you my
+secret for military balloons. My answer is, 'No!'"
+
+The Emperor's face did not change as he said, "I ask it for your
+country, not for myself, monsieur."
+
+"And I will give it to my country, not to you!" said the marquis,
+violently.
+
+Jack looked at the Emperor. He noticed his unkempt hair brushed
+forward, his short thumbs pinching the table-cloth, his closed
+eyes.
+
+The Marquis de Nesville took a step towards him.
+
+"Does your majesty remember the night that Morny lay dying in the
+shadows? And that horrible croak from the darkness when he
+raised himself on one elbow and gasped, 'Sire, prenez garde a la
+Prusse!' Then he died. That was all--a warning, a groan, the
+death-rattle in the shadows by the bed. Then he died."
+
+The Emperor never moved.
+
+"'Look out for Prussia!' That was Morny's last gasp. And now?
+Prussia is there, you are here! And you need aid, and you send
+for me, and I tell you that my secrets are for my country, not
+for you! No, not for you--you who said, 'It is easy to govern the
+French, they only need a war every four years!' Now--here is your
+war! Govern!"
+
+The Emperor's slow eyes rested a moment on the man before him.
+But the man, trembling, pallid with passion, clenched his hands
+and hurled an insult at the Emperor through his set teeth:
+"Napoleon the Little! Listen! When you have gone down in the
+crash of a rotten throne and a blood-bought palace, then, when
+the country has shaken this--this thing--from her bent back, then
+I will give to my country all I have! But never to you, to save
+your name and your race and your throne--never!"
+
+He fairly frothed at the lips as he spoke; his eyes blazed.
+
+"Your coup-d'etat made me childless! I had a son, fairer than
+yours, who lies asleep in there--brave, gentle, loving--a son of
+mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him--shot him to
+death on the boulevards--him among the others--so that you could
+sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them--those piled corpses! I
+saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the
+heaped slain lying before Tortoni's, where the whole street was
+flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you
+ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honore, and when you
+met the barricade you turned pale and rode back again! I saw you;
+I was sitting with my dead boy on my knees--I saw you--"
+
+With a furious cry the marquis tore a revolver from his pocket
+and sprang on the Emperor, and at the same instant Jack seized
+the crazy man by the shoulders and hurled him violently to the
+floor.
+
+Stunned, limp as a rag, the marquis lay at the Emperor's feet,
+his clenched hands slowly relaxing.
+
+The Emperor had not moved.
+
+Scarcely knowing what he did, Jack stooped, drew the revolver
+from the extended fingers, and laid it on the table. Then, with a
+fearful glance at the Emperor, he dragged the marquis to the
+door, opened it with a shove of his foot, and half closed it
+again.
+
+The aide-de-camp stood there, staring at the prostrate man.
+
+"Here, help me with him to his carriage; he is ill," panted
+Jack--"lift him!"
+
+Together they carried him out to the terrace, and down the steps
+to a coupe that stood waiting.
+
+"The marquis is ill," said Jack again; "put him to bed at once.
+Drive fast."
+
+Before the sound of the wheels died away Jack hastened back to
+the dining-room. Through the half-opened door he peered,
+hesitated, turned away, and mounted the stairs slowly to his own
+chamber.
+
+In the dining-room the lamp still burned dimly. Beside it sat the
+Emperor, head bent, picking absently at the table-cloth with
+short, shrunken thumbs.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE INVASION OF LORRAINE
+
+
+It was not yet dawn. Jack, sleeping with his head on his elbow,
+shivered in his sleep, gasped, woke, and sat up in bed. There was
+a quiet footfall by his bed, the scrape of a spur, then silence.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Grahame?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; I didn't mean to wake you. I'm off. I was going to leave a
+letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn--"
+
+"Are you dressed? What time is it?"
+
+"Four o'clock--twenty minutes after. It's a shame to rouse you,
+my dear fellow."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Jack. "Will you strike a
+light--there are candles on my dresser. Ah, that's better."
+
+He sat blinking at Grahame, who, booted and spurred and buttoned
+to the chin, looked at him quizzically.
+
+"You were not going off without your coffee, were you?" asked
+Jack. "Nonsense!--wait." He pulled a bell-rope dangling over his
+head. "Now that means coffee and hot rolls in twenty minutes."
+
+When Jack had bathed and shaved, operations he executed with
+great rapidity, the coffee was brought, and he and Grahame fell
+to by candle-light.
+
+"I thought you were afoot?" said Jack, glancing at the older
+man's spurs.
+
+"I'm going to hunt up a horse; I'm tired of this eternal
+tramping," replied Grahame. "Hello, is this package for me?"
+
+"Yes, there's a cold chicken and some things, and a flask to keep
+you until you find your Hohenzollern Regiment again."
+
+Grahame rose and held out his hand. "Good-by. You've been very
+kind, Marche. Will you say, for me, all that should be said to
+Madame de Morteyn? Good-by once more, my dear fellow. Don't
+forget me--I shall never forget you!"
+
+"Wait," said Jack; "you are going off without a safe-conduct."
+
+"Don't need it; there's not a French soldier in Morteyn."
+
+"Gone?" stammered Jack--"the Emperor, General Frossard, the
+army--"
+
+"Every mother's son of them, and I must hurry--"
+
+Their hands met again in a cordial grasp, then Grahame slipped
+noiselessly into the hallway, and Jack turned to finish dressing
+by the light of his clustered candles.
+
+As he stood before the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with
+studs and buttons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the
+night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impassive
+Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned,
+white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling
+from the glittering revolver.
+
+Lorraine's father! And he had laid hands on him and had flung
+him senseless at the feet of the Man of December! He could
+scarcely button his collar, his fingers trembled so. Perhaps he
+had killed the Marquis de Nesville. Sick at heart, he finished
+dressing, buttoned his coat, flung a cap on his head, and stole
+out into the darkness.
+
+On the terrace below he saw a groom carrying a lantern, and he
+went out hastily.
+
+"Saddle Faust at once," he said. "Have the troops all gone?"
+
+"All, monsieur; the last of the cavalry passed three hours ago;
+the Emperor drove away half an hour later with Lulu--"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"The prince--pardon, monsieur--they call him Lulu in Paris."
+
+"Hurry," said Jack; "I want that horse at once."
+
+Ten minutes later he was galloping furiously down the forest road
+towards the Chateau de Nesville. The darkness was impenetrable,
+so he let the horse find his own path, and gave himself up to a
+profound dejection that at times amounted to blind fear. Before
+his eyes he saw the pallid face of the Marquis de Nesville, he
+saw the man stretched on the floor, horribly still; that was the
+worst, the stillness of the body.
+
+The sky was gray through the trees when he turned into the park
+and skirted the wall to the wicket. The wicket was locked. He
+rang repeatedly, he shook the grille and pounded on the iron
+escutcheon with the butt of his riding-crop; and at length a
+yawning servant appeared from the gate-lodge and sleepily dragged
+open the wicket.
+
+"The marquis was ill, have you heard anything?" asked Jack.
+
+"The marquis is there on the porch," said the servant, with a
+gesture towards the house.
+
+Jack's heart leaped up. "Thank God!" he muttered, and dismounted,
+throwing his bridle to the porter, who now appeared in the
+doorway.
+
+He could see the marquis walking to and fro, hands clasped behind
+his strong, athletic back; his head was turned in Jack's
+direction. "The marquis is crazy," thought Jack, hesitating. He
+was convinced now that long brooding over ancient wrongs had
+unsettled the man's mind. There had always been something in his
+dazzling blue eyes that troubled Jack, and now he knew it was the
+pale light of suppressed frenzy. Still, he would have to face him
+sooner or later, and he did not recoil now that the hour and the
+place and the man had come.
+
+"I'll settle it once for all," he thought, and walked straight up
+the path to the house. The marquis came down the steps to meet
+him.
+
+"I expected you," he said, without a trace of anger. "I have much
+to say to you. Will you come in or shall we sit in the arbour
+there? You will enter? Then come to the turret, Monsieur Marche."
+
+Jack would have refused, but he had not the courage. He was not
+at all pleased at the idea of mounting to a turret with a man
+whom he had laid violent hands on the night before, a man whom he
+had seen succumb to an access of insane fury in the presence of
+the Emperor of France. But he went, cursing the cowardice that
+prevented him from being cautious; and in a few moments he entered
+the chamber where retorts and bottles and steel machinery littered
+every corner, and the pale dawn broke through the window in ghastly
+streams of light, changing the candle-flames to sickly greenish
+blotches.
+
+They sat opposite each other, neither speaking. Jack glanced at a
+heavy steel rod on the floor beside him. It was just as well to
+know it was there, in case of need.
+
+"Monsieur," said the marquis, abruptly, "I owe you a great deal
+more than my life, which is nothing; I owe you my family honour."
+
+This was a new way of looking at the situation; Jack fidgeted in
+his chair and eyed the marquis.
+
+"Thanks to you," he continued, quietly, "I am not an assassin, I
+am not a butcher of dogs. The De Nesvilles were never public
+executioners--they left that to the Bonapartes and Monsieur de
+Paris."
+
+He rose hastily from his chair and held out a hand. Jack took it
+warily and returned the nervous pressure. Then they both resumed
+their seats.
+
+"Let us clear matters up," said the marquis in a wonderfully
+gentle voice, that would have been fascinating to more phlegmatic
+men than Jack--"let us clear up everything and understand each
+other. You, monsieur, dislike me; pardon--you dislike me for
+reasons of your own. I, on the contrary, like you; I like you
+better this moment than I ever did. Had you not come as I
+expected, had you not entered, had you refused to mount to the
+turret, I still should have liked you. Now I also respect you."
+
+Jack twisted and turned in his chair, not knowing what to think
+or say.
+
+
+"Why do you dislike me?" asked the marquis, quietly.
+
+"Because you are not kind to your daughter," said Jack, bluntly.
+
+To his horror the man's eyes filled with tears, big, glittering
+tears that rolled down his immovable face. Then a flush stained
+his forehead; the fever in his cheeks dried the tears.
+
+"Jack," he said, calling the young fellow by his name with a
+peculiarly tender gesture, "I loved my son. My soul died within
+me when Rene died, there on the muddy pavement of the Paris
+boulevards. I sometimes think I am perhaps a little out of my
+mind; I brood on it too much. That is why I flung myself into
+this"--with a sweep of his arm towards the flasks and machinery
+piled around. "Lorraine is a girl, sweet, lovable, loyal. But she
+is not my daughter."
+
+"Lorraine!" stammered Jack.
+
+"Lorraine."
+
+The young fellow sat up in his chair and studied the face of the
+pale man before him.
+
+"Not--your child?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Whose?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+After a silence the marquis stood up, and walked to the window.
+His face was haggard, his hair dishevelled.
+
+"No," he said, "Lorraine is not my daughter. She is not even my
+heiress. She was--she was--found, eighteen years ago."
+
+The room was becoming lighter; the sky grew faintly luminous and
+the mist from the stagnant fen curled up along the turret like
+smoke.
+
+Jack picked up his cap and riding-crop and rose; the marquis
+turned from the window to confront him. His face was no longer
+furrowed with pain, the cold light had crept back into his eyes.
+
+"Monsieur," said Jack, "I ask your permission to address
+Lorraine. I love her."
+
+The marquis stood silent, scarcely breathing.
+
+"You know who and what I am; you probably know what I have. It is
+enough for me; it will be enough for us both. I shall work to
+make it enough. I do not expect or wish for anything from you for
+Lorraine; I do not give it a thought. Lorraine does not love me,
+but," and here he spoke with humility, "I believe that she might.
+If I win her, will you give her to me?"
+
+"Win her?" repeated the marquis, with an ugly look. The man's
+face was changing now, darkening in the morning light.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, violently, "you may say to her what you
+please!" and he opened the door and showed Jack the way out.
+
+Dazed, completely mystified, Jack hurried away to find his horse
+at the gate where he had left him. The marquis was crazy, that
+was certain. These unaccountable moods and passions, following
+each other so abruptly, were nothing else but reactions from a
+life of silent suffering. All the way back to Morteyn he pondered
+on the strange scene in the turret, the repudiation of Lorraine,
+the sudden tenderness for himself, and then the apathy, the
+suppressed anger, the indifference coupled with unexplainable
+emotion.
+
+"No sane man could act like that," he murmured, as he rode into
+the Morteyn gate, and, with a smart slap of his hand on Faust's
+withers, he sent that intelligent animal at a trot towards the
+stables, where a groom awaited him with sponge and bucket.
+
+The gardeners were cleaning up the litter in the roads and paths
+left by the retreating army. The road by the gate was marked with
+hoof and wheel, but the macadam had not suffered very much, and
+already a roller was at work removing furrow and hoof-print.
+
+He entered the dining-room. It was empty. So also was the
+breakfast-room, for breakfast had been served an hour before.
+
+He sent for coffee and muffins and made a hasty breakfast,
+looking out of the window at times for signs of his aunt and
+Lorraine. The maid said that Madame de Morteyn had driven to
+Saint-Lys with the marquis, and that Mademoiselle de Nesville had
+gone to her room. So he finished his coffee, went to his room,
+changed his clothes, and sent a maid to inquire whether Lorraine
+would receive him in the small library at the head of the stairs.
+The maid returned presently, saying that Mademoiselle de Nesville
+would be down in a moment or two, so Jack strolled into the
+library and leaned out of the window to smoke.
+
+When she came in he did not hear her until she spoke.
+
+"Don't throw your cigarette away, monsieur; I permit you to
+smoke--indeed, I command it. How do you do?" This in very timid
+English. "I mean--good-morning--oh, dear, this terrible English
+language! Now you may sit there, in that large leather arm-chair,
+and you may tell me why you did not appear at breakfast. Is
+Monsieur Grahame still sleeping? Gone? Oh, dear! And you have
+been to the Chateau de Nesville? Is my father well? And contented?
+There, I knew he would miss me. Did you give him my dearest love?
+Thank you for remembering. Now tell me--"
+
+"What?" laughed Jack.
+
+"Everything, of course."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+She looked at him, but did not answer.
+
+Then he deliberately sat down and made love to her, not actual,
+open, unblushing love--but he started in to win her, and what his
+tongue refused to tell, his eyes told until trepidation seized
+her, and she sat back speechless, watching him with shy blue eyes
+that always turned when they met his, but always returned when
+his were lowered.
+
+It is a pretty game, this first preliminary of love--like the
+graceful sword-play and salute of two swordsmen before a duel.
+There was no one to cry "Garde a vous!" no one to strike up the
+weapons that were thrust at two unarmoured hearts, for the
+weapons were words and glances, and Love, the umpire, alas! was
+not impartial.
+
+So the timid heart of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she
+knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with
+desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that,
+if not utter treachery, was giving aid and encouragement to the
+enemy.
+
+Besieged, threatened, she sat there in the arm-chair, half
+frightened, half smiling, fearful yet contented, alarmed yet
+secure, now resisting, now letting herself drift on, until the
+result of the combination made Jack's head spin; and he felt
+resentful in his heart, and he said to himself what all men under
+such circumstances say to themselves--"Coquetry!"
+
+One moment he was sure she loved him, the next he was certain she
+did not. This oscillation between heaven and hell made him
+unhappy, and, manlike, he thought the fault was hers. This is the
+foundation for man's belief in the coquetry of women.
+
+As for Lorraine, she thrilled with a gentle fear that was the
+most delightful sensation she had ever known. She looked shyly at
+the strong-limbed, sunburned young fellow opposite, and she began
+to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head,
+every gesture, every change in his face she knew now--knew so
+well that she blushed at her own knowledge.
+
+But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not,
+although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she
+refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then
+she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then
+she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then--But it is
+always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of
+fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love.
+So the morning wore away.
+
+The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library
+with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after
+that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that
+Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the
+vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying on
+the lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy
+to sleep.
+
+He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and
+wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation
+to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two
+letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his
+sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.
+
+    "DEAR JACK,--I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off
+    to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at
+    Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to
+    come back. You're the only person on earth I can write
+    this to.
+
+    "Faithfully yours, MOLLY HESKETH."
+
+Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit
+of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could
+read between the lines--a man in love is less dense than when in
+his normal state--and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought
+of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing
+amid a shower of bricks and bursting shells, staring at war
+through a monocle.
+
+"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to
+Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came
+before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's
+drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment,
+that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led
+him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to
+the 11th Uhlans.
+
+"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half
+aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this
+war lasts."
+
+Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's
+lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's
+troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered
+whether any other troops were between him and Saarbrueck. The
+truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But
+how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And
+there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the
+Germans should pass that way; not at all likely--but suppose they
+should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No,
+he could never go away and leave Lorraine--that was out of the
+question.
+
+He lighted a match and moodily burned Molly's letter to ashes in
+the fireplace. He also stirred the ashes up, for he was
+honourable in little things--like Ricky--and also, alas!
+apparently no novice.
+
+Dorothy's letter lay on the table--her third since she had left
+for Paris. He opened his knife and split the envelope carefully,
+still thinking of Lorraine.
+
+    "MY OWN DEAR JACK,--There is something I have been
+    trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I
+    have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall
+    tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so
+    if you do not read carefully between every line, you may
+    not find it, after all.
+
+    "I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and
+    ill--the excitement in the city and that horrid National
+    Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald
+    is away on business, she says--where, I forgot to ask
+    her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday.
+    Some ragamuffins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her.
+    Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think
+    I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very
+    cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to
+    Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the English
+    papers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me
+    sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear.
+
+    "The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every
+    day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no
+    men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d
+    of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you
+    know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there?
+    Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak
+    of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren.
+    Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and
+    write me _at once_. Don't forget--the _11th Uhlans_. Oh,
+    Jack, darling! can't you understand?
+
+    Your loving sister, DOROTHY."
+
+"Understand? What?" repeated Jack. He read the letter again
+carefully.
+
+"I can't see what the mischief is extraordinary in that," he
+mused, "unless she's giving me a tip about Sir Thorald; but
+no--she can't know anything in that direction. Now what is it
+that she has hidden away? Oh, here's a postscript."
+
+He turned the sheet and read:
+
+    "My love to aunt and uncle, Jack--don't forget. I am
+    writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in
+    Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out.
+    There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about
+    the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one
+    expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to the
+    _Berlin Post_ and the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ and the
+    _Munich Neueste Nachrichten_, but the horrid creature at
+    the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her
+    place. I hope the _Herald_ will give particulars of
+    losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on
+    earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?
+
+    "DORRIE.
+
+    "P. P. S.--Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I
+    ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to
+    find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."
+
+"Now, what on earth interests Dorrie in all these battle
+statistics?" he wondered; "and what in the name of common-sense
+can she find to interest her in the 11th Uhlans? Ricky? Absurd!"
+
+He repeated "absurd" two or three times, but he became more
+thoughtful a moment later, and sat smoking and pondering. That
+would be a nice muddle if she, the niece of a Frenchman--an
+American, too--should fix her affections on a captain of Uhlans
+whose regiment he, Jack Marche, would avoid as he would hope to
+avoid the black small-pox.
+
+"Absurd," he repeated for the fourth time, and tossed his
+cigarette into the open fireplace. And as he rose to go up-stairs
+something out on the road by the gate attracted his attention,
+and he went to the window.
+
+Three horsemen sat in their saddles on the lawn, lance on thigh,
+eyes fixed on him.
+
+They were Uhlans!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+"IN THE HOLLOW OF THY HAND"
+
+
+For a moment he recoiled as though he had received a blow between
+the eyes.
+
+There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over
+one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points,
+schabraques edged with yellow--aye, and tunics also, yellow and
+blue--those were the colours--the colours of the 11th Uhlans.
+
+Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what
+it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done--death
+even though the man he had shot were not dead--death though he
+had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its
+most awful form--hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian,
+foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing
+upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the
+sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling,
+informing, or otherwise, was hung--sometimes with a drum-head
+court-martial, sometimes without.
+
+Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he
+leaned back against the table, cold with fear.
+
+This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the
+needle-guns sent a shower of lead over his rocky observatory;
+the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when
+he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in
+the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle horsemen.
+
+Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did
+not understand ropes.
+
+He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there
+were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back
+from the open window. Had they seen him?
+
+All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled
+like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans,
+plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a
+fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were
+gone.
+
+Utterly unnerved, Jack sank into the arm-chair. What should he
+do? If he stayed at Morteyn he stood a good chance of hanging. He
+could not leave his aunt and uncle, nor could he tell them, for
+the two old people would fall sick with the anxiety. And yet, if
+he stayed at Morteyn, and the Germans came, it might compromise
+the whole household and bring destruction to Chateau and park. He
+had not thought of that before, but now he remembered also
+another German rule, inflexible, unvarying. It was this, that in
+a town or village where the inhabitants resisted by force or
+injured any German soldier, the village should be burned and the
+provisions and stock confiscated for the use of King Wilhelm's
+army.
+
+Shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he sprang to his feet and
+walked hastily to the terrace. Nothing was to be seen on the
+road, nor yet in the meadows beyond. Up-stairs he heard
+Lorraine's voice, and his aunt's voice, too. Sometimes they
+laughed a little in low tones, and he even caught the rustle of
+stiff silken embroidery against the window-sill.
+
+His mind was made up in an instant; his coolness returned as the
+colour returns to a pale cheek. The Uhlans had probably not seen
+him; if they had, it made little difference, for even the picquet
+that had chased him could not have recognized him at that
+distance. Then, again, in a whole regiment it was not likely that
+the three horsemen who had peeped at Morteyn through the
+road-gate could have been part of that same cursed picquet. No,
+the thing to avoid was personal contact with any of the 11th
+Uhlans. This would be a matter of simple prudence; outside of
+that he had nothing to fear from the Prussian army. Whenever he
+saw the schapskas and lances he would be cautious; when these
+lances were pennoned with black and white, and when the schapskas
+and schabraques were edged with yellow, he would keep out of the
+way altogether. It shamed him terribly to think of his momentary
+panic; he cursed himself for a coward, and dug his clenched fists
+into both pockets. But even as he stood there, withering himself
+with self-scorn, he could not help hoping that his aunt and uncle
+would find it convenient to go to Paris soon. That would leave
+him free to take his own chances by remaining, to be near
+Lorraine. For it did not occur to him that he might leave Morteyn
+as long as Lorraine stayed.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when he lighted a pipe and walked
+out to the road, where the smooth macadam no longer bore the
+slightest trace of wheel or hoof, and nobody could have imagined
+that part of an army corps had passed there the night before.
+
+He felt lonely and a little despondent, and he walked along the
+road to the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn and sat down at her
+naked stone feet. And as he sat there smoking, twirling his
+shooting-cap in his hands, without the least warning a horseman,
+advancing noiselessly across the turf, passed him, carbine on
+thigh, busby glittering with the silver skull and crossbones.
+Before he could straighten up another horseman passed, then
+another, then three, then six, then a dozen, all sitting with
+poised carbines, scarcely noticing him at all, the low, blazing
+sun glittering on the silver skulls and crossed thigh-bones, deep
+set in their sombre head-gear.
+
+They were Black Hussars.
+
+A distant movement came to his ear at the same time, the soft
+shock of thousands of footfalls on the highway. He sprang up and
+started forward, but a trooper warned him back with a stern
+gesture, and he stood at the foot of the shrine, excited but
+outwardly cool, listening to the approaching trample.
+
+He knew what it meant now; these passing videttes were the dust
+before the tempest, the prophecy of the deluge. For the sound on
+the distant highway was the sound of infantry, and a host was on
+the march, a host helmeted with steel and shod with steel, a vast
+live bulk, gigantic, scaled in mail, whose limbs were human,
+whose claws were lances and bayonets, whose red tongues were
+flame-jets from a thousand cannon.
+
+The German army had entered France and the province of Lorraine
+was a name.
+
+Like a hydra of three hideous heads the German army had pushed
+its course over the Saar, over the Rhine, over the Lauter; it
+sniffed at the frontier line; licked Wissembourg and the
+Spicheren with flaming tongues, shuddered, coiled, and glided
+over the boundary into the fair land of Lorraine. Then, like some
+dreadful ringed monster, it cast off two segments, north, south,
+and moved forward on its belly, while the two new segments,
+already turned to living bodies, with heads and eyes and
+contracted scales, struggled on alone, diverging to the north and
+south, creeping, squirming, undulating, penetrating villages and
+cities, stretching across hills and rivers, until all the land
+was shining with shed scales and the sky reeked with the smoke of
+flaming tongues. This was the invasion of France. Before it
+Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before
+it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte
+had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour
+lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet
+of the Garde Imperiale.
+
+On the hill-sides of Lorraine were letters of fire, writing for
+all France to read, and every separate letter was a flaming
+village. The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards
+Chalons; Bazaine read it and said, "There is time;" MacMahon,
+Canrobert, Leboeuf, Ladmirault read it and wondered idly what it
+meant, till Vinoy turned a retreat into a triumph, and Gambetta,
+flabby, pompous, unbalanced, bawled platitudes from the Palais
+Bourbon.
+
+In three splendid armies the tide of invasion set in; the Red
+Prince tearing a bloody path to Metz, the Crown Prince riding
+west by south, resting in Nancy, snubbing Toul, spreading out
+into the valley of the Marne to build three monuments of bloody
+bones--Saint-Marie, Amanvilliers, Saint-Privat.
+
+Metz, crouching behind Saint-Quentin and Les Bottes, turned her
+anxious eyes from Thionville to Saint-Julien and back to where
+MacMahon's three rockets should have starred the sky; and what
+she saw was the Red Prince riding like a fiery spectre from east
+to west; what she saw was the spiked helmets of the Feldwache and
+the sodded parapets of Longeau. Chained and naked, the beautiful
+city crouched in the tempest that was to free her forever and
+give her the life she scorned, the life more bitter than death.
+
+Something of this ominous prophecy came to Jack, standing below
+the shrine of Our Lady of Morteyn, listening to the on-coming
+shock of German feet, as he watched the cavalry riding past in
+the glow of the setting sun.
+
+And now the infantry burst into view, a gloomy, solid column tramp,
+tramp along the road--jaegers, with their stiff fore-and-aft shakos,
+dull-green tunics, and snuffy, red-striped trousers tucked into
+dusty half-boots. On they came, on, on--would they never pass? At
+last they were gone, somewhere into the flaming west, and now the
+red sunbeams slanted on eagle crests and tipped the sea of polished
+spiked helmets with fire, for a line regiment was coming, shaking
+the earth with its rhythmical tramp--thud! thud! thud!
+
+He looked across the fields to the hills beyond; more regiments,
+dark masses moving against the sky, covered the landscape far as
+the eye could reach; cavalry, too, were riding on the Saint-Avold
+road through the woods; and beyond that, vague silhouettes of
+moving wagons and horsemen, crawling out into the world of valleys
+that stretched to Bar-le-Duc and Avricourt.
+
+Oppressed, almost choked, as though a rising tide had washed
+against his breast, ever mounting, seething, creeping, climbing,
+he moved forward, waiting for a chance to cross the road and gain
+the Chateau, where he could see the servants huddling over the
+lawn, and the old vicomte, erect, motionless, on the terrace
+beside his wife and Lorraine.
+
+Already in the meadow behind him the first bivouac was pitched;
+on the left stood a park of field artillery, ammunition-wagons in
+the rear, and in front the long lines of picket-ropes to which
+the horses were fastened, their harness piled on the grass behind
+them.
+
+The forge was alight, the farriers busy shoeing horses; the
+armourer also bent beside his blazing forge, and the tinkling of
+his hammer on small-arms rose musically above the dull shuffle of
+leather-shod feet on the road.
+
+To the right of the artillery, bisected as is the German fashion,
+lay two halves of a battalion of infantry. In the foreground the
+officers sat on their camp-chairs, smoking long faience pipes; in
+the rear, driven deep into the turf, the battalion flag stood
+furled in its water-proof case, with the drum-major's halberd
+beside it, and drums and band instruments around it on the grass.
+Behind this lay a straight row of knapsacks, surrounded by the
+rolled great-coats; ten paces to the rear another similar row;
+between these two rows stood stacks of needle-guns, then another
+row of knapsacks, another stack of needle-guns, stretching with
+mathematical exactness to the grove of poplars by the river. A
+cordon of sentinels surrounded the bivouac; there was a group of
+soldiers around a beer-cart, another throng near the wine-cart.
+All was quiet, orderly, and terribly sombre.
+
+Near the poplar-trees the pioneers had dug their trenches and
+lighted fires. Across the trenches, on poles of green wood, were
+slung simmering camp-kettles.
+
+He turned again towards the Chateau; a regiment of Saxon riders
+was passing--had just passed--and he could get across now, for
+the long line had ended and the last Prussian cuirassiers were
+vanishing over the hill, straight into the blaze of the setting
+sun.
+
+As he entered the gate, behind him, from the meadow, an infantry
+band crashed out into a splendid hymn--a hymn in praise of the
+Most High God, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
+
+And the soldiers' hoarse voices chimed in--
+
+    "Thou, who in the hollow of Thy Hand--"
+
+And the deep drums boomed His praise.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE
+
+
+The candles were lighted again in the ballroom, and again the
+delicate, gilded canapes were covered with officers, great
+stalwart fellows with blond hair and blue eyes, cuirassiers in
+white tunics faced with red, cuirassiers in green and white,
+black, yellow, and white, orange and white; dragoons in blue and
+salmon colour, bearing the number "7" on their shoulder-straps,
+dragoons of the Guard in blue and white, dragoons of the 2d
+Regiment in black and blue. There were hussars too, dandies of
+the 19th in their tasselled boots and crimson busby-crowns; Black
+Hussars, bearing, even on their soft fatigue-caps, the emblems of
+death, the skull and crossed thigh-bones. An Uhlan or two of the
+2d Guard Regiment, trimmed with white and piped with scarlet,
+dawdled around the salon, staring at gilded clock and candelabra,
+or touching the grand-piano with hesitating but itching fingers.
+Here and there officers of the general staff stood in consultation,
+great, stiff, strapping men, faultlessly clothed in scarlet and
+black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms.
+The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals,
+some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little
+even when questioned. The huge Saxon officers, beaming with
+good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men
+and the stiff-necked Prussians.
+
+In the long dining-room dinner was nearly ended. Facing each
+other sat the old Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, he pale,
+dignified, exquisitely courteous, she equally pale but more
+gentle in her sweet dignity. On the right sat the Red Prince,
+stiff as steel, jerky in every movement, stern, forbidding,
+unbending as much as his black Prussian blood would let him; on
+the left sat a thin old man, bald as an ivory ball, pallid,
+hairless of face, a frame of iron in a sombre, wrinkled tunic,
+without a single decoration. His short hawk's nose, keen and fine
+as a falcon's beak, quivered with every breath; his thin lips
+rested one upon the other in stern, delicate curves. It was
+Moltke, the master expert, come from Berlin to watch the wheels
+turning in that vast complicated network of machinery which he
+controlled with one fragile finger pressing the button.
+
+There, too, was Von Zastrow, destined to make his error at
+Gravelotte, there was Steinmetz, and the handsome Saxon prince,
+and great, flabby August of Wuertemberg, talking with Alvensleben,
+dainty, pious, aristocratic. Behind, in the shadow, stood
+Manstein and Goben, a grim, gray pair, with menacing eyes.
+Perhaps they were thinking of the Red Prince's parting words at
+the Spicheren: "Your duty is to march forward, always forward,
+find the enemy, prevent his escape, and fight him wherever you
+find him." To which the fastidious and devout Alvensleben
+muttered, "In the name of God," and poor, brave Kamecke,
+shuddering as he thought of his Westphalians and the cul-de-sac
+where he had sent them on the 6th day of August, sighed and
+looked out into deepening twilight.
+
+Outside a Saxon infantry band began to play a masterpiece of
+Beethoven. It seemed to be the signal for breaking up, and the
+Red Prince, with abrupt deference, turned to Madame de Morteyn,
+who gave the signal and rose. The Red Prince stepped back as the
+old vicomte gave his wife a trembling arm. Then he bowed where he
+stood, clothed in his tight, blood-red tunic, tall, powerful,
+square-jawed, cruel-mouthed, and eyed like a wolf. But his
+forehead was fine, broad, and benevolent, and his beard softened
+the wicked curve of his lips.
+
+Jack and Lorraine had again dined together in the little gilded
+salon above, served by Lorraine's maid and wept over by the old
+house-keeper.
+
+The terrified servants scarcely dared to breathe as they crept
+through the halls where, "like a flight of devils from hell" the
+"Prussian ogres" had settled in the house. They came whimpering
+to their mistress, but took courage at the calm, dignified
+attitude of the old vicomte, and began to think that these
+"children-eating Prussians" might perhaps forego their craving
+for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a
+group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to
+their own plumpness and possible desirability for ragouts.
+
+The old marquis himself received his unwelcome guests as though
+he were receiving travelling strangers, to whom, now that they
+were under his roof, faultless hospitality was due, nothing more,
+merely the courtesy of a French nobleman to an uninvited guest.
+
+Ah, but the steel was in his heart to the hilt. He, an old
+soldier of the Malakoff, of Algeria, the brother in arms of
+Changarnier, of Chanzy, he obliged to receive invaders--invaders
+belonging to the same nation which had lined the streets of
+Berlin so long ago, cringing, whining "Vive l'Empereur!" at the
+crack of the thongs of Murat's horsemen!
+
+Yet now it was that he showed himself the chivalrous soldier, the
+old colonel of the old regime, the true beau-sabreur of an epoch
+dead. And the Red Prince Frederick Charles knew it, and bowed low
+as the vicomte left the dining-hall with his gentle, pale-faced
+wife on his arm.
+
+Jack, sitting after dinner with Lorraine in the bay-window above,
+looked down upon the vast camp that covered the whole land, from
+the hills to the Lisse, from the forest to the pastures above
+Saint-Lys. There were no tents--the German army carried none.
+Here and there a canvas-covered wagon glistened white in the
+moonlight; the pale radiance fell on acres of stacked rifles, on
+the brass rims of drums, and the spikes of the sentries' helmets.
+Videttes, vaguely silhouetted on distant knolls, stood almost
+motionless, save for the tossing of their horses' heads. Along
+the river Lisse the infantry pickets lay, the sentinels,
+patrolling their beats with brisk, firm steps, only pausing to
+bring their heavy heels together, wheel squarely, and retrace
+their steps, always alert and sturdy. The wind shifted to the
+west and the faint chimes of Saint-Lys came quavering on the
+breeze.
+
+"The bells!" said Jack; "can you hear them?"
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine, listlessly.
+
+She had been very silent during their dinner. He wondered that
+she had not shown any emotion at the sight of the invading
+soldiers. She had not--she had scarcely even shown curiosity. He
+thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this
+swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and
+the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated,
+at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen,
+trampling the meadows of the province that he loved--the province
+of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know
+two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the
+new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of
+those whom she has sheltered.
+
+So Jack felt the shame and humiliation as though a blow had been
+struck at his own home and kin, and he suffered the more thinking
+what his uncle must suffer. And Lorraine! His heart had bled for
+her when the harsh treble of the little, flat Prussian drums
+first broke out among the hills. He looked for the deep sorrow,
+the patience, the proud endurance, the prouder faith that he
+expected in her; he met with silence, even a distrait indifference.
+
+Surely she could comprehend what this crushing disaster
+prophesied for France? Surely she of all women, sensitive,
+tender, and loyal, must know what love of kin and country meant?
+
+Far away in the southwest the great heart of Paris throbbed in
+silence, for the beautiful, sinful city, confused by the din of
+the riffraff within her walls, blinded by lies and selfish
+counsels, crouched in mute agony, listening for the first ominous
+rumbling of a rotten, tottering Empire.
+
+God alone knows why he gave to France, in the supreme moment of
+her need, the beings who filled heaven with the wind of their
+lungs and brought her to her knees in shame--not for brave men
+dead in vain, not for a wasted land, scourged and flame-shrunken
+from the Rhine to the Loire, not for provinces lost nor cities
+gone forever--but for the strange creatures that her agony
+brought forth, shapes simian and weird, all mouth and convulsive
+movement, little pigmy abortions mouthing and playing antics
+before high Heaven while the land ran blood in every furrow and
+the world was a hell of flame.
+
+Gambetta, that incubus of bombastic flabbiness, roaring prophecy
+and platitude through the dismayed city, kept his eye on the
+balcony of the particular edifice where, later, he should pose as
+an animated Jericho trumpet. So, biding his time, he bellowed,
+but it was the Comedie Francaise that was the loser, not the
+people, when he sailed away in his balloon, posed, squatting
+majestically as the god of war above the clouds of battle. And
+little Thiers, furtive, timid, delighting in senile efforts to
+stir the ferment of chaos till it boiled, he, too, was there,
+owl-like, squeaky-voiced, a true "Bombyx a Lunettes." There, too,
+was Hugo--often ridiculous in his terrible moods, egotistical,
+sloppy, roaring. The Empire pinched Hugo, and he roared; and let
+the rest of the world judge whether, under such circumstances,
+there was majesty in the roar. The spectacle of Hugo, prancing on
+the ramparts and hurling bad names at the German armies, recalls
+the persistent but painful manoeuvres of a lion with a flea. Both
+are terribly in earnest--neither is sublime.
+
+Jack sat leaning on the window-ledge, his chin on both hands,
+watching the moonlight rippling across the sea of steel below.
+Lorraine, also silent, buried in an arm-chair, lay huddled
+somewhere in the shadows, looking up at the stars, scarcely
+visible in the radiance of the moon.
+
+After a while she spoke in a low voice: "Do you remember in
+chapel a week ago--what--"
+
+"Yes, I know what you mean. Can you say it--any of it?"
+
+"Yes, all."
+
+Presently he heard her voice in the darkness repeating the
+splendid lines:
+
+"'In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and
+the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease
+because they are few, and they that look out of the windows be
+darkened.
+
+"'And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of
+the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a
+bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.
+
+"'Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall
+be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the
+grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.
+
+"'Because man goeth to his long home--'"
+
+Her voice broke a little.
+
+"'And the mourners go about the streets--'"
+
+He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a
+moment her fingers touched his, moved a little, and were clasped
+close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too
+deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression--a despair
+scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by
+realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first
+outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched
+hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved.
+Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and
+interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body.
+Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but
+not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as
+yet by the keen shaft of grief.
+
+He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to
+understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him,
+perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised
+everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.
+
+Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped
+her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!"--so
+he waited, there alone in the darkness.
+
+The bells of Saint-Lys sounded again, scarcely vibrating in the
+still air; a bank of sombre cloud buried the moon, and put out
+the little stars one by one until the blackness of the night
+crept in, blotting out river and tree and hill, hiding the silent
+camp in fathomless shadow. He slept.
+
+When he awoke, slowly, confused and uncertain, he found her close
+to him, kneeling on the floor, her face on his knees. He touched
+her arm, fearfully, scarcely daring; he touched her hair, falling
+heavily over her face and shoulders and across his knees. Ah!
+but she was tired--her very soul was weary and sick; and she was
+too young to bear her trouble. Therefore she came back to him who
+had reached out his hand to her. She could not cry--she could
+only lie there and try to live through the bitterness of her
+solitude. For now she knew at last that she was alone on earth.
+The knowledge had come in a moment, it had come with the first
+trample of the Prussian horsemen; she knew that her love, given
+so wholly, so passionately, was nothing, had been nothing, to her
+father. He whom she lived for--was it possible that he could
+abandon her in such an hour? She had waited all day, all night;
+she said in her heart that he would come from his machines and
+his turret to be with her. Together they could have lived through
+the shame of the day--of the bitter days to come; together they
+could have suffered, knowing that they had each other to live
+for.
+
+But she could not face the Prussian scourge alone--she could not.
+These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of
+the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade,
+every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that
+her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world
+could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of
+invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it
+nobly, who could have bidden her hope and pray and wait--he sat
+in his turret turning little wheels while the whole land shook
+with the throes of invasion--their native land, Lorraine.
+
+The death-throes of a nation are felt by all the world. Bismarck
+placed a steel-clad hand upon the pulse of France, and knew
+Lorraine lay dying. Amputation would end all--Moltke had the
+apparatus ready; Bismarck, the great surgeon and greater
+executioner, sat with mailed hand on the pulse of France and
+waited.
+
+The girl, Lorraine, too, knew the crisis had come--sensitive
+prophetess in all that she held sacred! She had never prayed for
+the Emperor, but she always prayed for France when she asked
+forgiveness night and morning. At confession she had accused
+herself sometimes because she could not understand the deeper
+meaning of this daily prayer, but now she understood it; the
+fierce love for native soil that blazes up when that soil is
+stamped upon and spurned.
+
+All the devotion, all the tender adoration, that she had given her
+father turned now to bitter grief for this dear land of hers. It, at
+least, had been her mother, her comforter, her consolation; and
+there it lay before her--it called to her; she responded passionately,
+and gave it all her love. So she lay there in the dark, her hot face
+buried in her hands, close to one whom she needed and who needed her.
+
+He was too wise to speak or move; he loved her too much to touch
+again the hair, flung heavily across her face--to touch her
+flushed brow, her clasped hands, her slender body, delicate and
+warm, firm yet yielding. He waited for the tears to come. And
+when they fell, one by one, great, hot drops, they brought no
+relief until she told him all--all--her last and inmost hope and
+fear.
+
+Then when her white soul lay naked in all its innocence before
+him, and when the last word had been said, he raised her head
+and searched in her pure eyes for one message of love for
+himself.
+
+It was not there; and the last word had been said.
+
+And, even as he looked, holding her there almost in his arms, the
+Prussian trumpets clanged from the dim meadows and the drums
+thundered on the hills, and the invading army roused itself at
+the dawn of another day.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE STRETCHING OF NECKS
+
+
+For two days and nights the German army passed through Morteyn
+and Saint-Lys, on the march towards Metz. All day long the hills
+struck back the echoes of their flat brass drums, and shook with
+the shock of armed squadrons, tramping on into the west.
+Interminable trains of wagons creaked along the sandy Saint-Avold
+road; the whistle of the locomotive was heard again at Saint-Lys,
+where the Bavarians had established a base of supplies and were
+sending their endless, multicoloured trains puffing away towards
+Saarbrueck for provisions and munitions of war that had arrived
+there from Cologne. Generals with their staffs, serious, civil
+fellows, with anxious, near-sighted eyes, stopped at the Chateau
+and were courteously endured, only to be replaced by others
+equally polite and serious. And regularly, after each batch left
+with their marching regiments, there came back to the Chateau by
+courier, the same evening, a packet of visiting-cards and a
+polite letter signed by all the officers entertained, thanking
+the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn for their hospitality.
+
+At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the
+afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the
+hills west of Morteyn, and the last straggling Uhlan followed
+after, twirling his long lance.
+
+Every day Lorraine had watched and waited for one word from her
+father; every day Jack had ridden over to the Chateau de
+Nesville, but the marquis refused to see him or to listen to any
+message, nor did he send any to Lorraine.
+
+Old Pierre told Jack that no Germans had visited the Chateau;
+that the marquis was busy all day with his machinery, and never
+left his turret except to eat at daylight in the grand salon
+below. He also intimated that his master was about ready to make
+another ascension in the new balloon, which, old Pierre affirmed,
+had a revolving screw at either side of the wicker car, like a
+ship; and, like a ship, it could be steered with perfect ease. He
+even took Jack to a little stone structure that stood in a
+meadow, surrounded by trees. In there, according to Pierre, stood
+this marvellous balloon, not yet inflated, of course. That was
+only a matter of five seconds; a handful of the silver dust
+placed at the aperture of the silken bag, a drop of pure water
+touched to it, and, puff! the silver dust turns to vapour and the
+balloon swells out tight and full.
+
+Jack had peeped into the barred window and had seen the wicker
+car of the balloon standing on the cement floor, filled with the
+folded silken covering for the globe of the balloon. He could
+just make out, on either side of the car, two twisted twin
+screws, wrought out of some dull oxidized metal. On returning to
+Morteyn that evening he had told Lorraine.
+
+She explained that the screws were made of a metal called
+aluminum, rare then, because so difficult to extract from its
+combining substances, and almost useless on account of its being
+impossible to weld. Her father, however, had found a way to
+utilize it--how, she did not know. If this ascension proved a
+success the French government would receive the balloon and the
+secret of the steering and propelling gear, along with the
+formula for the silvery dust used to inflate it. Even she
+understood what a terrible engine of war such an aerial ship
+might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after
+fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies
+could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before
+a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from the clouds.
+
+On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left
+Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the
+marquis--for Lorraine's sake.
+
+He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was
+disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned
+lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.
+
+"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't
+worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working
+for France."
+
+He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long
+as she lived. He said, too, that the marquis was labouring for
+France. So he was; but France would never see the terrible war
+engine, nor know the secrets of its management, as long as
+Napoleon III. was struggling to keep his family in the high
+places of France.
+
+"Good-by," he said again. "I shall be back by sundown."
+
+Lorraine leaned over the terrace, looking down at him with blue,
+fathomless eyes.
+
+"By sundown?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Truly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tiens ta Foy."
+
+"Always, Lorraine."
+
+She did not chide him; she longed to call him Jack, but it stuck
+in her white throat when she tried.
+
+"If you do not come back by sundown, then I shall know you
+cannot," she said.
+
+"But I shall."
+
+"Yes, I believe it."
+
+"Come after me if I don't return," he laughed, as he descended
+the steps.
+
+"I shall, if you break your faith," she smiled.
+
+She watched him out of sight--he was going on foot this
+time--then the trees hid him, and she turned back into the house,
+where Madame de Morteyn was preparing to close the Chateau for
+the winter and return to Paris.
+
+It was the old vicomte who had decided; he had stayed and faced
+the music as long as there was any to face--Prussian music, too.
+But now the Prussians had passed on towards Metz--towards Paris,
+also, perhaps, and he wished to be there; it was too sad in the
+autumn of Lorraine.
+
+He had aged fearfully in the last four days; he was in truth an old
+man now. Even he knew it--he who had never before acknowledged age;
+but he felt it at night; for it is when day is ended that the old
+comprehend how old they are.
+
+This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning
+Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to
+Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people
+once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and
+surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and
+return to Morteyn with one servant. This he had promised
+Lorraine, and she had not said no. His aunt also wished it, but
+she did not think it time yet to tell the vicomte.
+
+The servants, with the exception of one maid and the coachman,
+had gone in the morning, by way of Vigny, with the luggage. The
+vicomte and his wife were to travel by carriage to Passy-le-Sel,
+and from there, via Belfort, if the line were open, to Paris by
+rail. Jack, it had been arranged, was to ride to Belfort on
+horseback, and join the old people there for the journey to
+Paris.
+
+So Lorraine turned back into the silent house, where the
+furniture stood in its stiff, white dust-coverings, where cloths
+covered candelabra and mirror, and the piano was bare of
+embroidered scarfs.
+
+She passed through darkened rooms, one after another, through the
+long hall, where no servants remained, through the ballroom and
+dining-room, and out into the conservatory, emptied of every
+palm. She passed on across the interior court, through the
+servants' wicket, and out to the stables. All the stalls save one
+were empty. Faust stood in that one stall switching his tail and
+peering around at her with wise, dark eyes. Then she kissed his
+soft nose, and went sadly back to the house, only to roam over it
+again from terrace to roof, never meeting a living soul, never
+hearing a sound except when she passed the vicomte's suite, where
+Madame de Morteyn and the maid were arranging last details and
+the old vicomte lay asleep in his worn arm-chair.
+
+There was one room she had not visited, one room in which she had
+never set foot, never even peeped into. That was Jack's room. And
+now, by an impulse she could not understand, her little feet led
+her up the stairway, across the broad landing, through the
+gun-room, and there to the door--his door. It was open. She
+glided in.
+
+There was a faint odour of tobacco in the room, a smell of leather,
+too. That came from the curb-bit and bridle hanging on the wall, or
+perhaps from the plastron, foils, and gauntlets over the mantle.
+Pipes lay about in profusion, mixed with silver-backed brushes,
+cigar-boxes, neckties, riding-crops, and gloves.
+
+She stole on tiptoe to the bed, looked at her wide, bright eyes
+in the mirror opposite, flushed, hesitated, bent swiftly, and
+touched the white pillow with her lips.
+
+For a second she knelt there where he might have knelt, morning
+and evening, then slipped to her feet, turned, and was gone.
+
+At sundown Jack returned, animated, face faintly touched with red
+from his three-mile walk. He had seen the marquis; more, too, he
+had seen the balloon--he had examined it, stood in the wicker
+car, tested the aluminum screws. He brought back a message for
+Lorraine, affectionate and kindly, asking for her return home
+early the next morning.
+
+"If we do not find you at Belfort to-morrow," said Madame de
+Morteyn, seriously, "we shall not wait. We shall go straight on
+to Paris. The house is ready to be locked, everything is in
+perfect order, and really, Jack, there is no necessity for your
+coming. Perhaps Lorraine's father may ask you to stay there for a
+few days."
+
+"He has," said Jack, growing a trifle pink.
+
+"Then you need not come to Belfort at all," insisted his aunt.
+Jack protested that he could not let them go to Paris alone.
+
+"But I've sent Faust on already," said Madame de Morteyn,
+smiling.
+
+"Then the Marquis de Nesville will lend me a horse; you can't
+keep me away like that," said Jack; "I will drive Mademoiselle de
+Nesville to her home and then come on horseback and meet you at
+Belfort, as I said I would."
+
+"We won't count on you," said his aunt; "if you're not there when
+the train comes, your uncle and I will abandon you to the mercy
+of Lorraine."
+
+"I shall send him on by freight," said Lorraine, trying to smile.
+
+"I'm going back to the Chateau de Nesville to-night for an hour
+or two," observed Jack, finishing his Moselle; "the marquis
+wanted me to help him on the last touches. He makes an ascent
+to-morrow noon."
+
+"Take a lantern, then," said Madame de Morteyn; "don't you want
+Jules, too--if you're going on foot through the forest?"
+
+"Don't want Jules, and the squirrels won't eat me," laughed Jack,
+looking across at Lorraine. He was thinking of that first dash in
+the night together, she riding with the fury of a storm-witch,
+her ball-gown in ribbons, her splendid hair flashing, he
+galloping at her stirrup, putting his horse at a dark figure that
+rose in their path; and then the collision, the trample, the
+shots in the dark, and her round white shoulder seared with the
+bullet mark.
+
+She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going
+to start.
+
+"Now," he said.
+
+"You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de
+Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her
+chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with
+Lorraine.
+
+Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised
+Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.
+
+"'Tiens ta Foy,'" she repeated.
+
+"Always, Lorraine."
+
+The night was starless. As he stood there on the terrace swinging
+his lantern, he looked back at her, up into her eyes. And as he
+looked she bent down, impulsively stretching out both arms and
+whispering, "At eleven--you have promised, Jack."
+
+At last his name had fallen from her lips--had slipped from them
+easily--sweet as the lips that breathed it.
+
+He tried to answer; he could not, for his heart beat in his
+throat. But he took her two hands and crushed them together and
+kissed the soft, warm palms, passive under his lips. That was
+all--a touch, a glimpse of his face half lit by the lantern
+swinging; and again she called, softly, "Jack, 'Tiens ta Foy!'"
+And he was gone.
+
+The distance to the Chateau de Nesville was three miles; it might
+have been three feet for all Jack knew, moving through the
+forest, swinging his lantern, his eyes on the dim trees towering
+into the blackness overhead, his mind on Lorraine. Where the
+lantern-light fell athwart rugged trunks, he saw her face; where
+the tall shadows wavered and shook, her eyes met his. Her voice
+was in the forest rumour, the low rustle of leafy undergrowth,
+the whisper of waters flowing under silent leaves.
+
+Already the gray wall of the park loomed up in the east, already
+the gables and single turret of the Chateau grew from the shadows
+and took form between the meshed branches of the trees.
+
+The grille swung wide open, but the porter was not there. He
+walked on, hastening a little, crossed the lawn by the summer
+arbour, and approached the house. There was a light in the
+turret, but the rest of the house was dark. As he reached the
+porch and looked into the black hallway, a slight noise in the
+dining-room fell upon his ear, and he opened the door and went
+in. The dining-room was dark; he set his extinguished lantern on
+the table and lighted a lamp by the window, saying: "Pierre, tell
+the marquis I am here--tell him I am to return to Morteyn by
+eleven--Pierre, do you hear me? Where are you, then?"
+
+He raised his head instinctively, his hand on the lamp-globe.
+Pierre was not there, but something moved in the darkness outside
+the window, and he went to the door.
+
+"Pierre!" he called again; and at the same instant an Uhlan
+struck him with his lance-butt across the temples.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+How long it was before he opened his eyes he could not tell. He
+found himself lying on the ground in a meadow surrounded by
+trees. A camp-fire flickered near, lighting the gray side of the
+little stone house where the balloon was kept.
+
+There were sounds--deep, guttural voices raised in dispute or
+threats; he saw a group of shadowy men, swaying, pushing,
+crowding under the trees. The firelight glimmered on a gilt
+button here and there, on a sabre-hilt, on polished schapskas and
+gold-scaled chin-guards. The knot of struggling figures suddenly
+widened out into a half-circle, then came a quick command, a cry
+in French--"Ah! God!"--and something shot up into the air and
+hung from a tree, dangling, full in the firelight.
+
+It was the writhing body of a man.
+
+Jack turned his head away, then covered his eyes with his hands.
+Beside him a tall Uhlan, swathed to the eyes in his great-coat,
+leaned on a lance and smoked in silence.
+
+Suddenly a voice broke out in the night: "Links! vorwaerts!" There
+came a regular tramp of feet--one, two! one, two!--across the
+grass, past the fire, and straight to where Jack sat, his face in
+his arms.
+
+The bright glare of lanterns dazzled him as he looked up, but he
+saw a line of men with bared sabres standing to his right--tall
+Uhlans, buttoned to the chin in their sombre overcoats,
+helmet-cords oscillating in the lantern glow.
+
+Another Uhlan, standing erect before him, had been speaking for a
+second or two before he even heard him.
+
+"Prisoner, do you understand German?" repeated the Uhlan,
+harshly.
+
+"Yes," muttered Jack. He began to shiver, perhaps from the chill
+of the wet earth.
+
+"Stand up!"
+
+Jack stumbled to his numbed feet. A drop of blood rolled into his
+eye and he mechanically wiped it away. He tried to look at the
+man before him; he could not, for his fascinated eyes returned to
+that thing that hung on a rope from the great sprawling
+oak-branch at the edge of the grove.
+
+Like a vague voice in a dream he heard his own name pronounced;
+he heard a sonorous formula repeated in a heavy, dispassionate
+voice--"accused of having resisted a picquet of his Prussian
+Majesty's 11th Regiment of Uhlan cavalry, of having wilfully,
+maliciously, and with murderous design fired upon and wounded
+trooper Kohlmann of said picquet while in pursuit of his duty."
+
+Again he heard the same voice: "The law of non-combatants
+operating in such cases leaves no doubt as to the just penalty
+due."
+
+Jack straightened up and looked the officer in the eyes. Ah! now
+he knew him--the map-maker of the carrefour, the sneak-thief who
+had scaled the park wall with the box--that was the face he had
+struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face,
+with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the
+man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in
+pencil on the maps--Siurd von Steyr!
+
+Von Steyr's eyes grew smaller and paler, and an ugly flush mounted
+to his scarred cheek-bone. But his voice was dispassionate and
+harsh as ever when he said: "The prisoner Marche is at liberty to
+confront witnesses. Trooper Kohlmann!"
+
+There he stood, the same blond, bony Uhlan whom Jack had tumbled
+into the dust, the same colourless giant whom he had dragged with
+trailing spurs across the road to the tree.
+
+From his pouch the soldier produced Jack's silver flask, with his
+name engraved on the bottom, his pipe, still half full of
+tobacco, just as he had dropped it when the field-glasses told
+him that Uhlans, not French lancers, were coming down the
+hill-side.
+
+One by one three other Uhlans advanced from the motionless ranks,
+saluted, briefly identified the prisoner, and stepped back again.
+
+"Have you any statement to make?" demanded Von Steyr.
+
+Jack's teeth were clenched, his throat contracted, he was
+choking. Everything around him swam in darkness--a darkness lit
+by little flames; his veins seemed bursting. He was in their
+midst now, shouldered and shoved across the grass; their hot
+breath fell on his face, their hands crushed his arms, bent back
+his elbows, pushed him forward, faster, faster, towards the tree
+where that thing hung, turning slowly as a squid spins on a
+swivel.
+
+It was the grating of the rope on his throat that crushed the
+first cry out of him: "Von Steyr, shoot me! For the love of God!
+Not--not this--"
+
+He was struggling now--he set his teeth and struck furiously. The
+crowd seemed to increase about him; now there was a mounted man
+in their midst--more mounted men, shouting.
+
+The rope suddenly tightened; the blood pounded in his cheeks, in
+his temples; his tongue seemed to split open. Then he got his
+fingers between the noose and his neck; now the thing loosened
+and he pitched forward, but kept his feet.
+
+"Gott verdammt!" roared a voice above him; "Von Steyr!--here! get
+back there!--get back!"
+
+"Rickerl!" gasped Jack--"tell--tell them--they must shoot--not
+hang--"
+
+He stood glaring at the soldiers before him, face bloody and
+distorted, the rope trailing from one clenched hand. Breathless,
+haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the
+noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up,
+lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive
+horses wheeled.
+
+And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face
+like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car,
+which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.
+
+"This is not the place nor is this the time to judge your
+prisoners," said Rickerl, pushing his horse up to Von Steyr and
+scowling down into his face. "Who called this drum-head court? Is
+that your province? Oh, in my absence? Well, then, I am here! Do
+you see me?"
+
+The insult fell like the sting of a lash across Von Steyr's face.
+He saluted, and, looking straight into Rickerl's eyes, said, "Zum
+Befehl, Herr Hauptmann! I am at your convenience also."
+
+"When you please!" shouted Rickerl, crimson with fury. "Retire!"
+
+Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed
+his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a
+groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his
+hands to his head, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn
+gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as
+a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above
+his head. Then, through the ring of nervous, quivering horses the
+globe of the balloon appeared as by magic--an enormous, looming,
+yellow sphere, tense, glistening, gigantic.
+
+The horses reared, snorting with fright, the Uhlans clung to
+their saddles, shouting and cursing, and the huge balloon,
+swaying from its single rope, pounded and bounced from side to
+side, knocking beast and man into a chaotic mass of frantic
+horses and panic-stricken riders.
+
+With a report like a pistol the rope parted, the great globe
+bounded and shot up into the air; a tumult of harsh shouts arose;
+the crazed horses backed, plunged, and scattered, some falling,
+some bolting into the undergrowth, some rearing and swaying in an
+ecstasy of terror.
+
+The troopers, helpless, gnashing their teeth, shook their long
+lances towards the sky, where the moon was breaking from the
+banked clouds, and the looming balloon hung black above the
+forest, drifting slowly westward.
+
+And now Von Steyr had a weapon in his hands--not a carbine, but a
+long chassepot-rifle, a relic of the despoiled franc-tireur,
+dangling from the oak-tree.
+
+Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!"
+
+"Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!"
+
+The crash of the rifle drowned his voice.
+
+The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest was belted by a blue
+line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in
+the sky. Then far away a light report startled the sudden
+stillness; a dark spot, suspended in mid-air, began to fall,
+swiftly, more swiftly, dropping through the night between sky and
+earth.
+
+"You damned coward!" stammered Rickerl, pointing a shaking hand
+at Von Steyr.
+
+"God keep you when our sabres meet!" said Von Steyr, between his
+teeth.
+
+Rickerl burst into an angry laugh.
+
+"Where is your prisoner?" he cried.
+
+Von Steyr stared around him, right and left--Jack was gone.
+
+"Let others prefer charges," said Rickerl, contemptuously--"if
+you escape my sabre in the morning."
+
+"Let them," said Von Steyr, quietly, but his face worked
+convulsively.
+
+"Second platoon dismount to search for escaped prisoner!" he
+cried. "Open order! Forward!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+RICKERL'S SABRE
+
+
+Jack, lying full length in the depths of the forest, listened
+fearfully for the sounds of the human pack on his heels. The
+blackness was stupefying; the thud of his own heart seemed to
+fill the shrouded forest like the roll of a muffled drum.
+Presently he crept on again, noiselessly, painfully, closing his
+eyes when the invisible twigs brushed his face.
+
+He did not know where he was going, he only thought of getting
+away, anywhere--away from that hangman's rope.
+
+Again he rested, suffocated by the tumult in his breast, burning
+with thirst. For a long while he lay listening; there was not a
+sound in the night. Little by little his coolness returned; he
+thought of Lorraine and his promise, and he knew that now he
+could not keep it. He thought, too, of the marquis, never
+doubting the terrible fate of the half-crazed man. He had seen
+him stun the soldier with a blow of the steel box, he had seen
+the balloon shoot up into the midnight sky, he had heard the shot
+and caught a glimpse of the glare of the burning balloon.
+Somewhere in the forest the battered body of the marquis lay in
+the wreck of the shattered car. The steel box, too, lay
+there--the box that was so precious to the Germans.
+
+He rose to his knees, felt around among the underbrush, bent his
+head and crept on, parting leaves and branches with one hand,
+holding the other over his eyes. The thought that he might be
+moving in a circle filled him with fear. But that was exactly
+what he was doing, for now he found himself close to the park
+wall; and, listening, he heard the river murmuring among the
+alders. He halted, utterly at a loss. If he were caught again
+could Rickerl save him? What could a captain of Uhlans do? True,
+he had interfered with Von Steyr's hangman's work, but that was
+nothing but a reprieve at best.
+
+The murmur of the river filled his ears; his hot throat was
+cracking. Drink he must, at any rate, and he started on in the
+darkness, moving stealthily over the moss. The water was closer
+than he had imagined; he bent above it, first touching it with
+groping hands, then noiselessly bathed his feverish face in the
+dark stream, drinking his fill.
+
+He longed to follow the shallow stream, wading to Morteyn, but he
+dared not risk it; so he went along the bank as far as he could,
+trying to keep within sound of the waters, until again he found
+himself close to the park wall. The stream had vanished again.
+
+Dawn began to gray the forest; little by little the nearest trees
+grew from the darkness, and bushes took vague shapes in the
+gloom. He strained his eyes, peering at every object near him,
+striving to recognize stones, saplings, but he could not. Even
+when dawn at last came up out of the east, and the thickets grew
+distinct, he did not know where he was. A line of vapour through
+the trees marked the course of the little river. Which way was
+it flowing? Even that he could not tell. He looked in vain for
+the park wall; that had vanished utterly with the dawn. Very
+cautiously he advanced over the deep forest mould to the
+willow-fringed bank of the stream. The current was flowing east.
+Where was he? He parted the willows and looked out, and at the
+same instant an Uhlan saw him and shouted.
+
+Running swiftly through the trees, head lowered, hands clenched,
+he heard the sound of galloping on a soft road that seemed to run
+through the forest, parallel to his own course. Then, as he bore
+hastily to the right and plunged into the deeper undergrowth, he
+caught a glimpse of the Chateau close by through the trees.
+Horrified to find himself back at the place from which he had
+started, he doubled in his tracks, ran on, stooping low, splashed
+into the stream and across, and plunged up to the shoulders
+through the tall weeds and bushes until again he felt the forest
+leaves beneath his feet.
+
+The sudden silence around him was disconcerting. Where had the
+Uhlan gone? He ran on, making straight for the depths of the
+woods, for he knew now where he was, and in which direction
+safety lay.
+
+After a while his breath and legs gave out together, and he
+leaned against a beech-tree, his hands pressed to his mouth,
+where the breath struggled for expulsion. And, as he leaned
+there, two Uhlans, mounted, lances advanced, came picking their
+way among the trees, turning their heads cautiously from side to
+side. Behind these two rode six others, apparently unarmed, two
+abreast. He saw at once that nothing could save him, for they
+were making straight for his beech-tree. In that second of
+suspense he made up his mind to die fighting, for he knew what
+capture meant. He fixed his eyes on the foremost Uhlan, and
+waited. When the Uhlan should pass his tree he would fly at him;
+the rest could stab him to death with their lances--that was the
+only way to end it now.
+
+He shrank back, teeth set, nerving himself for the spring--a
+hunted thing turned fierce, a desperate man knowing that death
+was close. How long they were in coming! Had they seen him? When
+would the horse's nose pass the great tree-trunk?
+
+"Halt!" cried a voice very near. The soft trample of horses
+ceased.
+
+"Dismount!"
+
+It seemed an age; the sluggish seconds crawled on. There was the
+sound of feet among the dry forest leaves--the hum of deep
+voices. He waited, trembling, for now it would be a man on foot
+with naked sabre who should sink under his spring. Would he never
+come?
+
+At last, unable to stand the suspense, he moved his eyes to the
+edge of the tree. There they were, a group of Uhlans standing
+near two men who stood facing each other, jackets off, shirts
+open to the throat.
+
+The two men were Rickerl and Von Steyr.
+
+Rickerl rolled up his white shirt-sleeve and tucked the cuff into
+the folds, his naked sabre under his arm. Von Steyr, in shirt,
+riding-breeches, and boots, stood with one leg crossed before the
+other, leaning on his bared sabre. The surgeon and the two
+seconds walked apart, speaking in undertones, with now and then a
+quick gesture from the surgeon. The three troopers held the
+horses of the party, and watched silently. When at last one of
+the Uhlans spoke, they were so near that every word was perfectly
+distinct to Jack:
+
+"Gentlemen, an affair of honour in the face of the enemy is
+always deplorable."
+
+Rickerl burst out violently. "There can be no compromise--no
+adjustment. Is it Lieutenant von Steyr who seeks it? Then I tell
+him he is a hangman and a coward! He hangs a franc-tireur who
+fires on us with explosive bullets, but he himself does not
+hesitate to disgrace his uniform and regiment by firing explosive
+bullets at an escaping wretch in a balloon!"
+
+"You lie!" said Von Steyr, his face convulsed. At the same moment
+the surgeon stepped forward with a gesture, the two seconds
+placed themselves; somebody muttered a formula in a gross bass
+voice and the swordsmen raised their heavy sabres and saluted.
+The next moment they were at it like tigers; their sabres flashed
+above their heads, the sabres of the seconds hovering around the
+outer edge of the circle of glimmering steel like snakes coiling
+to spring.
+
+To and fro swayed the little group under the blinding flashes of
+light, stroke rang on stroke, steel shivered and tinkled and
+clanged on steel.
+
+Fascinated by the spectacle, Jack crouched close to the tree,
+seeing all he dared to see, but keeping a sharp eye on the three
+Uhlans who were holding the horses, and who should have been
+doing sentry duty also. But they were human, and their eyes could
+not be dragged away from the terrible combat before them.
+
+Suddenly, from the woods to the right, a rifle-shot rang out,
+clear and sharp, and one of the Uhlans dropped the three bridles,
+straightened out to his full height, trembled, and lurched
+sideways. The horses, freed, backed into the other horses; the
+two remaining Uhlans tried to seize them, but another shot rang
+out--another, and then another. In the confusion and turmoil a
+voice cried: "Mount, for God's sake!" but one of the horses was
+already free, and was galloping away riderless through the woods.
+
+A terrible yell arose from the underbrush, where a belt of smoke
+hung above the bushes, and again the rifles cracked. Von Steyr
+turned and seized a horse, throwing himself heavily across the
+saddle; the surgeon and the two seconds scrambled into their
+saddles, and the remaining pair of Uhlans, already mounted,
+wheeled their horses and galloped headlong into the woods.
+
+Jack saw Rickerl set his foot in the stirrup, but his horse was
+restive and started, dragging him.
+
+"Hurry, Herr Hauptmann!" cried a Uhlan, passing him at a gallop.
+Rickerl cast a startled glance over his shoulder, where, from the
+thickets, a dozen franc-tireurs were springing towards him,
+shouting and shaking their chassepots. Something had given
+way--Jack saw that--for the horse started on at a trot, snorting
+with fright. He saw Rickerl run after him, seize the bridle,
+stumble, recover, and hang to the stirrup; but the horse tore
+away and left him running on behind, one hand grasping his naked
+sabre, one clutching a bit of the treacherous bridle.
+
+"A mort les Uhlans!" shouted the franc-tireurs, their ferocious
+faces lighting up as Rickerl's horse eluded its rider and crashed
+away through the saplings.
+
+Rickerl cast one swift glance at the savage faces, turned his
+head like a trapped wolf in a pit, hesitated, and started to run.
+A chorus of howls greeted him: "A mort!" "A mort le voleur!" "A
+la lanterne les Uhlans!"
+
+Scarcely conscious of what he was doing, Jack sprang from his
+tree and ran parallel to Rickerl.
+
+"Ricky!" he called in English--"follow me! Hurry! hurry!"
+
+The franc-tireurs could not see Jack, but they heard his voice,
+and answered it with a roar. Rickerl, too, heard it, and he also
+heard the sound of Jack's feet crashing through the willows along
+the river-bottom.
+
+"Jack!" he cried.
+
+"Quick! Take to the river-bank!" shouted Jack in English again.
+In a moment they were running side by side up the river-bottom,
+hidden from the view of the franc-tireurs.
+
+"Do as I do," panted Jack. "Throw your sabre away and follow me.
+It's our last chance." But Rickerl clung to his sabre and ran on.
+And now the park wall rose right in their path, seeming to block
+all progress.
+
+"We can't get over--it's ended," gasped Rickerl.
+
+"Yes, we can--follow," whispered Jack, and dashed straight into
+the river where it washed the base of the wall.
+
+"Do exactly as I do. Follow close," urged Jack; and, wading to the
+edge of the wall, he felt along under the water for a moment, then
+knelt down, ducked his head, gave a wriggle, and disappeared.
+Rickerl followed him, kneeling and ducking his head. At the same
+moment he felt a powerful current pulling him forward, and, groping
+around under the shallow water, his hands encountered the rim of a
+large iron conduit. He stuck his head into it, gave himself a push,
+and shot through the short pipe into a deep pool on the other side
+of the wall, from which Jack dragged him dripping and exhausted.
+
+"You are my prisoner!" said Jack, between his gasps. "Give me
+your sabre, Ricky--quick! Look yonder!" A loud explosion followed
+his words, and a column of smoke rose above the foliage of the
+vineyard before them.
+
+"Artillery!" blurted out Rickerl, in amazement.
+
+"French artillery--look out! Here come the franc-tireurs over the
+wall! Give me that sabre and run for the French lines--if you
+don't want to hang!" And, as Rickerl hesitated, with a scowl of
+hate at the franc-tireurs now swarming over the wall, Jack seized
+the sabre and jerked it violently from his hand.
+
+"You're crazy!" he muttered. "Run for the batteries!--here, this
+way!"
+
+A franc-tireur fired at them point-blank, and the bullet whistled
+between them. "Leave me. Give me my sabre," said Rickerl, in a
+low voice.
+
+"Then we'll both stay."
+
+"Leave me! I'll not hang, I tell you."
+
+"No."
+
+The franc-tireurs were running towards them.
+
+"They'll kill us both. Here they come!"
+
+"You stood by me--" said Jack, in a faint voice.
+
+Rickerl looked him in the eyes, hesitated, and cried, "I
+surrender! Come on! Hurry, Jack--for your sister's sake!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+SIR THORALD IS SILENT
+
+
+It was a long run to the foot of the vineyard hill, where, on the
+crest, deep hidden among the vines, three cannon clanged at
+regular intervals, stroke following stroke, like the thundering
+summons of a gigantic tocsin.
+
+Behind them they saw the franc-tireurs for a moment, thrashing
+waist-deep through the rank marsh weeds; then, as they plunged
+into a wheat-field, the landscape disappeared, and all around the
+yellow grain rustled, waving above their heads, dense, sun-heated,
+suffocating.
+
+Their shoes sank ankle-deep in the reddish-yellow soil; they
+panted, wet with perspiration as they ran. Jack still clutched
+Rickerl's sabre, and the tall corn, brushing the blade, fell
+under the edge, keen as a scythe.
+
+"I can go no farther," breathed Jack, at last. "Wait a moment,
+Ricky."
+
+The hot air in the depths of the wheat was stifling, and they
+stretched their heads above the sea of golden grain, gasping like
+fishes in a bowl.
+
+"Perhaps I won't have to surrender you, after all," said Jack.
+"Do you see that old straw-stack on the slope? If we could reach
+the other slope--"
+
+He held out his hand to gauge the exact direction, then bent
+again and plodded towards it, Rickerl jogging in his footprints.
+
+As they pressed on under the rustling canopy, the sound of the
+cannon receded, for they were skirting the vineyard at the base
+of the hill, bearing always towards the south. And now they came
+to the edge of the long field, beyond which stretched another
+patch of stubble. The straw-stack stood half-way up the slope.
+
+"Here's your sabre," motioned Jack. He was exhausted and reeled
+about in the stubble, but Rickerl passed one arm about him, and,
+sabre clutched in the other hand, aided him to the straw-stack.
+
+The fresh wind strengthened them both; the sweat cooled and dried
+on their throbbing faces. They leaned against the stack,
+breathing heavily, the breeze blowing their wet hair, the solemn
+cannon-din thrilling their ears, stroke on stroke.
+
+"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the
+smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard--"a brigade or two of
+Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy.
+Their rear-guard is making a stand--that's all. Jack, what on
+earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"
+
+Jack, panting full length in the shadow of the straw-stack, told
+Rickerl the whole wretched story, from the time of his leaving
+Forbach, after having sent the despatches to the _Herald_, up to
+the moment he had called to Rickerl there in the meadow,
+surrounded by Uhlans, a rope already choking him senseless.
+
+Rickerl listened impassively, playing with the sabre on his
+knees, glancing right and left across the country with his
+restless baby-blue eyes. When Jack finished he said nothing, but
+it was plain enough how seriously he viewed the matter.
+
+"As for your damned Uhlans," ended Jack, "I have tried to keep
+out of their way. It's a relief to me to know that I didn't kill
+that trooper; but--confound him!--he shot at me so enthusiastically
+that I thought it time to join the party myself. Ricky, would they
+have hanged me if they had given me a fair court-martial?"
+
+"As a favour they might have shot you," replied Rickerl,
+gloomily.
+
+"Then," said Jack, "there are two things left for me to do--go to
+Paris, which I can't unless Mademoiselle de Nesville goes, or
+join some franc-tireur corps and give the German army as good as
+they send. If you Uhlans think," he continued, violently, "that
+you're coming into France to hang and shoot and raise hell
+without getting hell in return, you're a pack of idiots!"
+
+"The war is none of your affair," said Rickerl, flushing. "You
+brought it on yourself--this hanging business. Good heavens! the
+whole thing makes me sick! I can't believe that two weeks ago we
+were all there together at Morteyn--"
+
+"A pretty return you're making for Morteyn hospitality!" blurted
+out Jack. Then, shocked at what he had said, he begged Rickerl's
+pardon and bitterly took himself to task.
+
+"I _am_ a fool, Ricky; I know you've got to follow your regiment,
+and I know it must cut you to the heart. Don't mind what I say;
+I'm so miserable and bewildered, and I haven't got the feeling
+of that rope off my neck yet."
+
+Rickerl raised his hand gently, but his face was hard set.
+
+"Jack, you don't begin to know what a hell I am living in, I who
+care so much for France and the French people, to know that all,
+all is ended forever, that I can never again--"
+
+His voice choked; he cleared it and went on: "The very name of
+Uhlan is held in horror in France now; the word Prussian is a
+curse when it falls from French lips. God knows why we are
+fighting! We Germans obey, that is all. I am a captain in a
+Prussian cavalry regiment; the call comes, that is all that I
+know. And here I am, riding through the land I love; I sit on my
+horse and see the torch touched to field and barn; I see
+railroads torn out of the ground, I see wretched peasants hung to
+the rafters of their own cottages." He lowered his voice; his
+face grew paler. "I see the friend I care most for in all the
+world, a rope around his neck, my own troopers dragging him to
+the vilest death a man can die! That is war! Why? I am a
+Prussian, it is not necessary for me to know; but the regiment
+moves, and I move! it halts, I halt! it charges, retreats, burns,
+tramples, rends, devastates! I am always with it, unless some
+bullet settles me. For this war is nearly ended, Jack, nearly
+ended--a battle or two, a siege or two, nothing more. What can
+stand against us? Not this bewildered France."
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+Rickerl's blue eyes sought his; he rested his square chin on one
+hand and spoke again:
+
+"Jack, do you know that--that I love your sister?"
+
+"Her last letter said as much," replied Jack, coldly.
+
+Rickerl watched his face.
+
+"You are sorry?"
+
+"I don't know; I had hoped she would marry an American. Have you
+spoken?"
+
+"Yes." This was a chivalrous falsehood; it was Dorothy who had
+spoken first, there in the gravel drive as he rode away from
+Morteyn.
+
+Jack glanced at him angrily.
+
+"It was not honourable," he said; "my aunt's permission should
+have been asked, as you know; also, incidentally, my own.
+Does--does Dorothy care for you? Oh, you need not answer that; I
+think she does. Well, this war may change things."
+
+"Yes," said Rickerl, sadly.
+
+"I don't mean that," cried Jack; "Heaven knows I wouldn't have
+you hurt, Ricky; don't think I meant that--"
+
+"I don't," said Rickerl, half smiling; "you risked your skin to
+save me half an hour ago."
+
+"And you called off your bloody pack of hangmen for me," said
+Jack; "I'm devilish grateful, Ricky--indeed I am--and you know
+I'd be glad to have you in the family if--if it wasn't for this
+cursed war. Never mind, Dorothy generally has what she wants,
+even if it's--"
+
+"Even if it's an Uhlan?" suggested Rickerl, gravely.
+
+Jack smiled and laid his hand on Rickerl's arm.
+
+"She ought to see you now, bareheaded, dusty, in your
+shirt-sleeves! You're not much like the attache at the
+Diplomatic ball--eh, Ricky? If you marry Dorothy I'll punch your
+head. Come on, we've got to find out where we are."
+
+"That's my road," observed Rickerl, quietly, pointing across the
+fields.
+
+"Where? Why?"
+
+"Don't you see?"
+
+Jack searched the distant landscape in vain.
+
+"No, are the Germans there? Oh, now I see. Why, it's a squadron
+of your cursed Uhlans!"
+
+"Yes," said Rickerl, mildly.
+
+"Then they've been chased out of the Chateau de Nesville!"
+
+"Probably. They may come back. Jack, can't you get out of this
+country?"
+
+"Perhaps," replied Jack, soberly. He thought of Lorraine, of the
+marquis lying mangled and dead in the forest beside the fragments
+of his balloon.
+
+"Your Lieutenant von Steyr is a dirty butcher," he said. "I hope
+you'll finish him when you find him."
+
+"He fired explosive bullets, which your franc-tireurs use on us,"
+retorted Rickerl, growing red.
+
+"Oh," cried Jack in disgust, "the whole business makes me sick!
+Ricky, give me your hand--there! Don't let this war end our
+friendship. Go to your Uhlans now. As for me, I must get back to
+Morteyn. What Lorraine will do, where she can go, how she will
+stand this ghastly news, I don't know; and I wish there was
+somebody else to tell her. My uncle and aunt have already gone to
+Paris, they said they would not wait for me. Lorraine is at
+Morteyn, alone except for her maid, and she is probably
+frightened at my not returning as I promised. Do you think you
+can get to your Uhlans safely? They passed into the grove beyond
+the hills. What the mischief are those cannon shelling, anyway?
+Well, good-by! Better not come up the hill with me, or you'll
+have to part with your sabre for good. We did lose our franc-tireur
+friends beautifully. I'll write Dorothy; I'll tell her that I
+captured you, sabre and all. Good-by! Good-by, old fellow! If
+you'll promise not to get a bullet in your blond hide I'll promise
+to be a brother-in-law to you!"
+
+Rickerl looked very manly as he stood there, booted, bareheaded,
+his thin shirt, soaked with sweat, outlining his muscular figure.
+
+They lingered a moment, hands closely clasped, looking gravely
+into each other's faces. Then, with a gesture, half sad, half
+friendly, Rickerl started across the stubble towards the distant
+grove where his Uhlans had taken cover.
+
+Jack watched him until his white shirt became a speck, a dot, and
+finally vanished among the trees on the blue hill. When he was
+gone, Jack turned sharply away and climbed the furze-covered
+slope from whence he hoped to see the cannon, now firing only at
+five-minute intervals. As he toiled up the incline he carefully
+kept himself under cover, for he had no desire to meet any lurking
+franc-tireurs. It is true that, even when the franc-tireurs had
+been closest, there in the swamp among the rank marsh grasses, the
+distance was too great for them to have identified him with certainty.
+But he thought it best to keep out of their way until within hail of
+the regular troops, so he took advantage of bushes and inequalities
+of the slope to reconnoitre the landscape before he reached the
+summit of the ridge. There was a tufted thicket of yellow broom in
+flower on the crest of the ridge; behind this he lay and looked out
+across the plain.
+
+A little valley separated this hill from the vineyard, terraced
+up to the north, ridge upon ridge. The cannon smoke shot up from
+the thickets of vines, rose, and drifted to the west, blotting
+out the greater portion of the vineyard. The cannon themselves
+were invisible. At times Jack fancied he saw a human silhouette
+when the white smoke rushed outward, but the spectral vines
+loomed up everywhere through the dense cannon-fog and he could
+not be sure.
+
+However, there were plenty of troops below the hill now--infantry
+of the line trudging along the dusty road in fairly good order,
+and below the vineyard, among the uncut fields of flax, more
+infantry crouched, probably supporting the three-gun battery on
+the hill.
+
+At that distance he could not tell a franc-tireur from any
+regular foot-soldier except line-infantry; their red caps and
+trousers were never to be mistaken. As he looked, he wondered at
+a nation that clothed its troops in a colour that furnished such
+a fearfully distinct mark to the enemy. A French army, moving,
+cannot conceal itself; the red of trousers and caps, the
+mirror-like reflections of cuirass and casque and lance-tip,
+advertise the presence of French troops so persistently that an
+enemy need never fear any open landscape by daylight.
+
+Jack watched the cannonade, lying on his stomach, chin supported
+by both hands. He was perfectly cool now; he neither feared the
+Uhlans nor the franc-tireurs. For a while he vainly tried to
+comprehend the reason of the cannonade; the shells shot out
+across the valley in tall curves, dropping into a distant bit of
+hazy blue woodland, or exploded above the trees; the column of
+infantry below plodded doggedly southward; the infantry in the
+flax-field lay supine. Clearly something was interfering with the
+retreat of the troops--something that threatened them from those
+distant woods. And now he could see cavalry moving about the
+crest of the nearer hills, but, without his glass, it was not
+possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer
+forest that hid the Chateau de Nesville. Somewhere within those
+sombre woods lay the dead marquis.
+
+With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine,
+passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger
+had made him faint; his head grew dizzy.
+
+"It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the
+hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he
+walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed
+it to dull his hunger. The raw place on his neck, where the rope
+had chafed, stung when the perspiration started. He moved quickly
+but warily, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. Once he passed
+a miniature vineyard, heavy with white-wine grapes; and, as he
+threaded a silent path among the vines, he ate his fill and
+slaked his thirst with the cool amber fruit. He had reached the
+edge of the little vineyard, and was about to cross a tangle of
+briers and stubble, when something caught his eye in the thicket;
+it was a man's face--and he stopped.
+
+For a minute they stared at each other, making no movement, no
+sound.
+
+"Sir Thorald!"--faltered Jack.
+
+But Sir Thorald Hesketh could not speak, for he had a bullet
+through his lungs.
+
+As Jack sprang into the brier tangle towards him, a slim figure
+in the black garments of the Sisters of Mercy rose from Sir
+Thorald's side. He saw the white cross on her breast, he saw the
+white face above it and the whiter lips.
+
+It was Alixe von Elster.
+
+At the same instant the road in front was filled with French
+infantry, running.
+
+Alixe caught his arm, her head turned towards the road where the
+infantry were crowding past at double-quick, enveloped in a
+whirling torrent of red dust.
+
+"There is a cart there," she said. "Oh, Jack, find it quickly!
+The driver is on the seat--and I can't leave Sir Thorald."
+
+In his amazement he stood hesitating, looking from the girl to
+Sir Thorald; but she drew him to the edge of the thicket and
+pointed to the road, crying, "Go! go!" and he stumbled down the
+pasture slope to the edge of the road.
+
+Past him plodded the red-legged infantry; he saw, through the
+whirlwind of dust, the vague outlines of a tumbril and horse
+standing below in the ditch, and he ran along the grassy
+depression towards the vehicle. And now he saw the driver,
+kneeling in the cart, his blue blouse a mass of blood, his
+discoloured face staring out at the passing troops.
+
+As he seized the horse's head and started up the slope again,
+firing broke out among the thickets close at hand; the infantry
+swung out to the west in a long sagging line; the chassepots
+began banging right and left. For an instant he caught a glimpse
+of cavalry riding hard across a bit of stubble--Uhlans he saw at
+a glance--then the smoke hid them. But in that brief instant he
+had seen, among the galloping cavalrymen, a mounted figure,
+bareheaded, wearing a white shirt, and he knew that Rickerl was
+riding for his life.
+
+Sick at heart he peered into the straight, low rampart of smoke;
+he watched the spirts of rifle-flame piercing it; he saw it turn
+blacker when a cannon bellowed in the increasing din. The
+infantry were lying down out there in the meadow; shadowy gray
+forms passed, repassed, reeled, ran, dropped, and rose again.
+Close at hand a long line of men lay flat on their bellies in the
+wheat stubble. When each rifle spoke the smoke rippled through
+the short wheat stalks or eddied and curled over the ground like
+the gray foam of an outrushing surf.
+
+He backed the horse and heavy cart, turned both, half blinded by
+the rifle-smoke, and started up the incline. Two bullets,
+speeding over the clover like singing bees, rang loudly on the
+iron-bound cartwheels; the horse plunged and swerved, dragging
+Jack with him, and the dead figure, kneeling in the cart, tumbled
+over the tail-board with a grotesque wave of its stiffening
+limbs. There it lay, sprawling in an impossible posture in the
+ditch. A startled grasshopper alighted on its face, turned
+around, crawled to the ear, and sat there.
+
+And now the volley firing grew to a sustained crackle, through
+which the single cannon boomed and boomed, hidden in the surging
+smoke that rolled in waves, sinking, rising, like the waves of a
+wind-whipped sea.
+
+"Where are you, Alixe?" he shouted.
+
+"Here! Hurry!"
+
+She stood on the edge of the brier tangle as he laboured up the
+slope with the horse and cart. Sir Thorald's breathing was
+horrible to hear when they stooped and lifted him; Alixe was
+crying. They laid him on the blood-soaked straw; Alixe crept in
+beside him and took his head on her knees.
+
+"To Morteyn?" whispered Jack. "Perhaps we can find a surgeon
+nearer--"
+
+"Oh, hurry!" she sobbed; and he climbed heavily to the seat and
+started back towards the road.
+
+The road was empty where he turned in out of the fields, but,
+just above, he heard cannon thundering in the mist. As he drew in
+the reins, undecided, the cannonade suddenly redoubled in fury;
+the infantry fire blazed out with a new violence; above the
+terrific blast he heard trumpets sounding, and beneath it he felt
+the vibration of the earth; horses were neighing out beyond the
+smoke; a thousand voices rose in a far, hoarse shout:
+
+"Hurrah! Preussen!"
+
+The Prussian cavalry were charging the cannon.
+
+Suddenly he heard them close at hand; they loomed everywhere in
+the smoke, they were among the infantry, among the cannoneers; a
+tall rider in silver helmet and armour plunged out into the road
+behind them, his horse staggered, trembled, then man and beast
+collapsed in a shower of bullets. Others were coming, too,
+galloping in through the grain stubble and thickets, shaking
+their long, straight sabres, but the infantry chased them, and
+fell upon them, clubbing, shooting, stabbing, pulling horses and
+men to earth. The cannon, which had ceased, began again; the
+infantry were cheering; trumpets blew persistently, faintly and
+more faintly. In the road a big, bearded man was crawling on his
+hands and knees away from a dead horse. His helmet fell off in
+the dust.
+
+Jack gathered the reins and called to the horse. As the heavy
+cart moved off, the ground began to tremble again with the shock
+of on-coming horses, and again, through the swelling tumult, he
+caught the cry--
+
+"Hurrah! Preussen!"
+
+The Prussian cuirassiers were coming back.
+
+"Is Sir Thorald dying?" he asked of Alixe; "can he live if I lash
+the horse?"
+
+"Look at him, Jack," she muttered.
+
+"I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You--you are
+wounded, are you? there--on the neck--"
+
+"It is his blood on my breast."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE WHITE CROSS
+
+
+At ten o'clock that night Jack stepped from the ballroom to the
+terrace of the Chateau Morteyn and listened to the distant murmur
+of the river Lisse, below the meadow. The day of horror had ended
+with a dozen dropping shots from the outposts, now lining the
+banks of the Lisse from the Chateau de Nesville to Morteyn. The
+French infantry had been pouring into Morteyn since late
+afternoon; they had entered the park when he entered, driving his
+tumbril with its blood-stained burden; they had turned the river
+into a moat, the meadow into an earthwork, the Chateau itself
+into a fortress.
+
+On the concrete terrace beside him a gatling-gun glimmered in the
+starlight; sentinels leaned on their elbows, sprawling across the
+parapets; shadowy ranks of sleeping men lay among the shrubbery
+below, white-faced, exhausted, motionless.
+
+There were low voices from the darkened ballroom, the stir and
+tinkle of spurred boots, the ring of sabres. Out in the hard
+macadamized road, cannon were passing into the park by the iron
+gate; beyond the road masses of men moved in the starlight.
+
+After a moment Jack turned away and entered the house. For the
+hundredth time he mounted the stairs to Lorraine's bedroom door
+and listened, holding his breath. He heard nothing--not a
+cry--not a sob. It had been so from the first, when he had told
+her that her father lay dead somewhere in the forest of Morteyn.
+
+She had said nothing--she went to her room and sat down on the
+bed, white and still. Sir Thorald lay in the next room, breathing
+deeply. Alixe was kneeling beside him, crying silently.
+
+Twice a surgeon from an infantry regiment had come and gone away
+after a glance at Sir Thorald. A captain came later and asked for
+a Sister of Mercy.
+
+"She can't go," said Jack, in a low voice. But little Alixe rose,
+still crying, and followed the captain to the stables, where a
+dozen mangled soldiers lay in the straw and hay.
+
+It was midnight when she returned to find Jack standing beside
+Sir Thorald in the dark. When he saw it was Alixe he led her
+gently into the hall.
+
+"He is conscious now; I will call you when the time comes. Go
+into that room--Lorraine is there, alone. Ah, go, Alixe; it is
+charity!--and you wear the white cross--"
+
+"It is dyed scarlet," she whispered through her tears.
+
+He returned to Sir Thorald, who lay moving his restless hands
+over the sheets and turning his head constantly from side to
+side.
+
+"Go on," said Jack; "finish what you were saying."
+
+"Will she come?"
+
+"Yes--in time."
+
+Sir Thorald relapsed into a rambling, monotonous account of some
+military movement near Wissembourg until Jack spoke again:
+
+"Yes--I know; tell me about Alixe."
+
+"Yes--Alixe," muttered Sir Thorald--"is she here? I was wrong; I
+saw her at Cologne; that was all, Jack--nothing more."
+
+"There is more," said Jack; "tell me."
+
+"Yes, there is more. I saw that--that she loved me. There was a
+scene--I am not always a beast--I tried not to be. Then--then I
+found that there was nothing left but to go away--somewhere--and
+live--without her. It was too late. She knew it--"
+
+"Go on," said Jack.
+
+Suddenly Sir Thorald's voice grew clear.
+
+"Can't you understand?" he asked; "I damned both our souls. She
+is buying hers back with tears and blood--with the white cross on
+her heart and death in her eyes! And I am dying here--and she's
+to drag out the years afterwards--"
+
+He choked; Jack watched him quietly.
+
+Sir Thorald turned his head to him when the coughing ceased.
+
+"She went with a field ambulance; I went, too. I was shot below
+that vineyard. They told her; that is all. Am I dying?"
+
+Jack did not answer.
+
+"Will you write to Molly?" asked Sir Thorald, drowsily.
+
+"Yes. God help you, Sir Thorald."
+
+"Who cares?" muttered Sir Thorald. "I'm a beast--a dying beast.
+May I see Alixe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then tell her to come--now. Soon I'll wish to be alone; that's
+the way beasts die--alone."
+
+He rambled on again about a battle somewhere in the south, and
+Jack went to the door and called, "Alixe!"
+
+She came, pallid and weeping, carrying a lighted candle.
+
+Jack took it from her hand and blew out the flame.
+
+"They won't let us have a light; they fear bombardment. Go in
+now."
+
+"Is he dying?"
+
+"God knows."
+
+"God?" repeated Alixe.
+
+Jack bent and touched the child's forehead with his lips.
+
+"Pray for him," he said; "I shall write his wife to-night."
+
+Alixe went in to the bedside to kneel again and buy back two
+souls with the agony of her child's heart.
+
+"Pray," she said to Sir Thorald.
+
+"Pray," he repeated.
+
+Jack closed the door.
+
+Up and down the dark hall he wandered, pausing at times to listen
+to some far rifle-shot and the answering fusillade along the
+picket-line. Once he stopped an officer on the stairway and asked
+for a priest, but, remembering that Sir Thorald was Protestant,
+turned away with a vague apology and resumed his objectless
+wandering.
+
+At times he fancied he heard cannon, so far away that nothing of
+sound remained, only a faint jar on the night air. Twice he
+looked from the window over the vast black forest, thinking of
+the dead man lying there alone. And then he longed to go to
+Lorraine; he felt that he must touch her, that his hand on hers
+might help her somehow.
+
+At last, deadly weary, he sat down on the stairs by her door to
+try to think out the problems that to-morrow would bring.
+
+His aunt and uncle had gone on to Paris; Lorraine's father was
+dead and her home had been turned into a fort. Saint-Lys was
+heavily occupied by the Germans, and they held the railroad also
+in their possession. It seemed out of the question to stay in
+Morteyn with Lorraine, for an assault on the Chateau was
+imminent. How could he get her to Paris? That was the only place
+for her now.
+
+He thought, too, of his own danger from the Uhlans. He had told
+Lorraine, partly because he wished her to understand their
+position, partly because the story of his capture, trial, and
+escape led up to the tragedy that he scarcely knew how to break
+to her. But he had done it, and she, pale as death, had gone
+silently to her room, motioning him away as he stood awkwardly at
+the door.
+
+That last glimpse of the room remained in his mind, it
+obliterated everything else at moments--Lorraine sitting on her
+bedside, her blue eyes vacant, her face whiter than the pillows.
+
+And so he sat there on the stairs, the dawn creeping into the
+hallway; and his eyes never left the panels of her door. There
+was not a sound from within. This for a while frightened him, and
+again and again he started impulsively towards the door, only to
+turn back again and watch there in the coming dawn. Presently he
+remembered that dawn might bring an attack on the Chateau, and he
+rose and hurried down-stairs to the terrace where a crowd of
+officers stood watching the woods through their night-glasses.
+The general impression among them was that there might be an
+attack. They yawned and smoked and studied the woods, but they
+were polite, and answered all his questions with a courteous
+light-heartedness that jarred on him. He glanced for a moment at
+the infantry, now moving across the meadow towards the river; he
+saw troops standing at ease along the park wall, troops sitting
+in long ranks in the vegetable garden, troops passing the
+stables, carrying pickaxes and wheeling wheelbarrows piled with
+empty canvas sacks.
+
+Sleepy-eyed boyish soldiers of the artillery were harnessing the
+battery horses, rubbing them down, bathing wounded limbs or
+braiding the tails. The farrier was shoeing a great black horse,
+who turned its gentle eyes towards the hay-bales piled in front
+of the stable. One or two slim officers, in pale-blue fur-edged
+pelisses, strolled among the trampled flower-beds, smoking cigars
+and watching a line of men shovelling earth into canvas sacks.
+The odour of soup was in the air; the kitchen echoed with the din
+of pots and pans. Outside, too, the camp-kettles were steaming
+and the rattle of gammels came across the lawn.
+
+"Who is in command here?" asked Jack, turning to a handsome
+dragoon officer who stood leaning on his sabre, the horse-hair
+criniere blowing about his helmet.
+
+"Why, General Farron!" said the officer in surprise.
+
+"Farron!" repeated Jack; "is he back from Africa, here in
+France--here at Morteyn?"
+
+"He is at the Chateau de Nesville," said the officer, smiling.
+"You seem to know him, monsieur."
+
+"Indeed I do," said Jack, warmly. "Do you think he will come
+here?"
+
+"I suppose so. Shall I send you word when he arrives?"
+
+Another officer came up, a general, white-haired and sombre.
+
+"Is this the Vicomte de Morteyn?" he asked, looking at Jack.
+
+"His nephew; the vicomte has gone to Paris. My name is Marche,"
+said Jack.
+
+The general saluted him; Jack bowed.
+
+"I regret the military necessity of occupying the Chateau; the
+government will indemnify Monsieur le Vicomte--"
+
+Jack held up his hand: "My uncle is an old soldier of France--the
+government is welcome; I bid you welcome in the name of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."
+
+The old general flushed and bowed deeply.
+
+"I thank you in the name of the government. Blood will tell. It
+is easy, Monsieur Marche, to see that you are the nephew of the
+Vicomte de Morteyn."
+
+"Monsieur Marche," said the young dragoon officer, respectfully,
+"is a friend of General Farron."
+
+"I had the honour to be attached as correspondent to his
+staff--in Oran," said Jack.
+
+The old general held out his hand with a gesture entirely
+charming.
+
+"I envy General Farron your friendship," he said. "I had a
+son--perhaps your age. He died--yesterday." After a silence, he
+said: "There are ladies in the Chateau?"
+
+"Yes," replied Jack, soberly.
+
+The general turned with a gesture towards the woods. "It is too
+late to move them; we are, it appears, fairly well walled in. The
+cellar, in case of bombardment, is the best you can do for them.
+How many are there?"
+
+"Two, general. One is a Sister of Mercy."
+
+Other officers began to gather on the terrace, glasses
+persistently focussed on the nearer woods. Somebody called to an
+officer below the terrace to hurry the cannon.
+
+Jack made his way through the throng of officers to the stairs,
+mounted them, and knocked at Lorraine's door.
+
+"Is it you--Jack?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come."
+
+He went in.
+
+Lorraine lay on the bed, quiet and pale; it startled him to see
+her so calm. For an instant he hesitated on the threshold, then
+went slowly to the bedside. She held out one hand; he took it.
+
+"I cannot cry," she said; "I cannot. Sit beside me, Jack. Listen:
+I am wicked--I have not a single tear for my father. I have been
+here--so--all night long. I prayed to weep; I cannot. I
+understand he is dead--that I shall never again wait for him,
+watch at his door in the turret, dream he is calling me; I
+understand that he will never call me again--never again--never.
+And I cannot weep. Do you hate me? I am tired--so tired, like a
+child--very young."
+
+She raised her other hand and laid it in his. "I need you," she
+said; "I am too tired, too young, to be so alone. It is myself I
+suffer for; think, Jack, myself, in such a moment. I am selfish,
+I know it. Oh, if I could weep now! Why can I not? I loved my
+father. And now I can only think of his little machines in the
+turret and his balloon, and--oh!--I only remember the long days
+of my life when I waited on the turret stairs hoping he would
+come out, dreaming he would come some day and take me in his arms
+and kiss me and hold me close, as I am to you. And now he never
+will. And I waited all my life!"
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, touching her hair; "you are feverish."
+
+Her head was pressed close to him; his arms held her tightly; she
+sighed like a restless child.
+
+"Never again--never--for he is dead. And yet I could have lived
+forever, waiting for him on the turret stairs. Do you understand?"
+
+Holding her strained to his breast he trembled at the fierce
+hopelessness in her voice. In a moment he recognized that a
+crisis was coming; that she was utterly irresponsible, utterly
+beyond reasoning. Like a spectre her loveless childhood had risen
+and confronted her; and now that there was no longer even hope,
+she had turned desperately upon herself with the blank despair of
+a wounded animal. End it all!--that was her one impulse. He felt
+it already taking shape; she shivered in his arms.
+
+"But there is a God--" he began, fearfully.
+
+She looked up at him with vacant eyes, hot and burning.
+
+He tried again: "I love you, Lorraine--"
+
+Her straight brows knitted and she struggled to free herself.
+
+"Let me go!" she whispered. "I do not wish to live--I can't!--I
+can't!"
+
+Then he played his last card, and, holding her close, looked
+straight into her eyes.
+
+"France needs us all," he said.
+
+She grew quiet. Suddenly the warm blood dyed her cheeks. Then,
+drop by drop, the tears came; her sweet face, wet and flushed,
+nestled quietly close to his own face.
+
+"We will both live for that," he said; "we will do what we can."
+
+For an hour she lay sobbing her heart out in his arms; and when
+she was quiet at last he told her how the land lay trembling
+under the invasion, how their armies had struggled and dwindled
+and lost ground, how France, humbled, drenched with blood and
+tears, still stood upright calling to her children. He spoke of
+the dead, the dying, the mutilated creatures gasping out their
+souls in the ditches.
+
+"Life is worth living," he said. "If our place is not in the
+field with the wounded, not in the hospital, not in the prisons
+where these boys are herded like diseased cattle, then it is
+perhaps at the shrine's foot. Pray for France, Lorraine, pray and
+work, for there is work to do."
+
+"There is work; we will go together," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, together. Perhaps we can help a little. Your father, when
+he died, had the steel box with him. Lorraine, when he is found
+and is laid to rest, we will take that box to the French lines.
+The secret must belong to France!"
+
+She was eager enough now; she sat up on the bed and listened
+with bright, wet eyes while he told her what they two might do
+for her land of France.
+
+"Dear--dear Jack!" she cried, softly.
+
+But he knew that it was not the love of a maid for a man that
+parted her lips; it was the love of the land, of her land of
+Lorraine, that fierce, passionate love of soil that had at last
+blazed up, purified in the long years of a loveless life. All
+that she had felt for her father turned to a burning thrill for
+her country. It is such moments that make children defenders of
+barricades, that make devils or saints of the innocent. The maid
+that rode in mail, crowned, holding aloft the banner of the
+fleur-de-lys, died at the stake; her ashes were the ashes of a
+saint. The maid who flung her bullets from the barricade, who
+carried a dagger to the Rue Haxo, who spat in the faces of the
+line when they shoved her to the wall in the Luxembourg, died too
+for France. Her soul is the soul of a martyr; but all martyrs are
+not saints.
+
+For another hour they sat there, planning, devising, eager to
+begin their predestined work. They spoke of the dead, too, and
+Lorraine wept at last for her father.
+
+"There was a Sister of Mercy here," she said; "I saw her. I could
+not speak to her. Later I knew it was Alixe. You called her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Shall I speak to her?"
+
+He went out into the hall and tapped at the door of the next
+room.
+
+"Alixe?"
+
+"Yes--Jack."
+
+He entered.
+
+Sir Thorald lay very still under the sheets, the crucifix on his
+breast. At first Jack thought he was dead, but the slight motion
+of the chest under the sheets reassured him. He turned to Alixe:
+
+"Go for a minute and comfort Lorraine," he whispered. "Go, my
+child."
+
+"I--I cannot--"
+
+"Go," said Sir Thorald, in a distinct voice.
+
+When she had gone, Jack bent over Sir Thorald. A great pity
+filled him, and he touched the half-opened hand with his own.
+
+Sir Thorald looked up at him wistfully.
+
+"I am not worth it," he said.
+
+"Yes, we all are worth it."
+
+"I am not," gasped Sir Thorald. "Jack, you are good. Do you
+believe, at least, that I loved her?"
+
+"Yes, if you say so."
+
+"I do--in the shadow of death."
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+"I never loved--before," said Sir Thorald.
+
+In the stillness that followed Jack tried to comprehend the good
+or evil in this stricken man. He could not; he only knew that a
+great love that a man might bear a woman made necessary a great
+sacrifice if that love were unlawful. The greater the love the
+more certain the sacrifice--self-sacrifice on the altar of
+unselfish love, for there is no other kind of love that man may
+bear for woman.
+
+It wearied Jack to try to think it out. He could not; he only
+knew that it was not his to judge or to condemn.
+
+"Will you give me your hand?" asked Sir Thorald.
+
+Jack laid his hand in the other's feverish one.
+
+"Don't call her," he said, distinctly; "I am dying."
+
+Presently he withdrew his hand and turned his face to the wall.
+
+For a long time Jack sat there, waiting. At last he spoke: "Sir
+Thorald?"
+
+But Sir Thorald had been dead for an hour.
+
+When Alixe entered Jack took her slim, childish hands and looked
+into her eyes. She understood and went to her dead, laying down
+her tired little head on the sheeted breast.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A DOOR IS LOCKED
+
+
+Lorraine stood on the terrace beside the brass gatling-gun, both
+hands holding to Jack's arm, watching the soldiers stuffing the
+windows of the Chateau with mattresses, quilts, and bedding of
+all kinds.
+
+A stream of engineers was issuing from the hallway, carrying
+tables, chairs, barrels, and chests to the garden below, where
+other soldiers picked them up and bore them across the lawn to
+the rear of the house.
+
+"They are piling all the furniture they can get against the gate
+in the park wall," said Jack; "come out to the kitchen-garden."
+
+She went with him, still holding to his arm. Across the vegetable
+garden a barricade of furniture--sofas, chairs, and wardrobes--lay
+piled against the wooden gate of the high stone wall. Engineers were
+piercing the wall with crowbars and pickaxes, loosening the cement,
+dragging out huge blocks of stone to make embrasures for three cannon
+that stood with their limbers among the broken bell-glasses and
+cucumber-frames in the garden.
+
+A ladder lay against the wall, and on it was perched an officer,
+who rested his field-glasses across the tiled top and stood
+studying the woods. Below him a general and half a dozen
+officers watched the engineers hacking at the wall; a long,
+double line of infantry crouched behind them, the bugler
+kneeling, glancing anxiously at his captain, who stood talking to
+a fat sub-officer in capote and boots.
+
+Artillerymen were gathered about the ammunition-chests, opening
+the lids and carrying shell and shrapnel to the wall; the
+balconies of the Chateau were piled up with breastworks of rugs,
+boxes, and sacks of earth. Here and there a rifleman stood, his
+chassepot resting on the iron railing, his face turned towards
+the woods.
+
+"They are coming," said a soldier, calling back to a comrade, who
+only laughed and passed on towards the kitchen, loaded down with
+sacks of flour.
+
+A restless movement passed through the kneeling battalion of
+infantry.
+
+"Fiche moi la paix, hein!" muttered a lieutenant, looking
+resentfully at a gossiping farrier. Another lieutenant drew his
+sword, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.
+
+"Are they coming?" asked Lorraine.
+
+"I don't know. Watch that officer on the wall. He seems to see
+nothing yet. Don't you think you had better go to the rear of the
+house now?"
+
+"No, not unless you do."
+
+"I will, then."
+
+"No, stay here. I am not afraid. Where is Alixe?"
+
+"With the wounded men in the stable. They have hoisted the red
+cross over the barn; did you notice?"
+
+Before she could answer, one of the soldiers on the balcony of
+the Chateau fired. Another rose from behind a mattress and fired
+also; then half a dozen shots rang out, and the smoke whirled up
+over the roof of the house. The officer on the ladder was
+motioning to the group of officers below; already the artillerymen
+were running the three cannon forward to the port-holes that had
+been pierced in the park wall.
+
+"Come," said Jack.
+
+"Not yet--I am not frightened."
+
+A loud explosion enveloped the wall in sulphurous clouds, and a
+cannon jumped back in recoil. The cannoneers swarmed around it,
+there was a quick movement of a sponger, an order, a falling into
+place of rigid artillerymen, then bang! and another up-rush of
+smoke. And now the other cannon joined in--crash! bang!--and the
+garden swam in the swirling fog. Infantry, too, were firing all
+along the wall, and on the other side of the house the rippling
+crash of the gatling-gun rolled with the rolling volleys. Jack
+led Lorraine to the rear of the Chateau, but she refused to stay,
+and he reluctantly followed her into the house.
+
+From every mattress-stuffed window the red-legged soldiers were
+firing out across the lawn towards the woods; the smoke drifted
+back into the house in thin shreds that soon filled the rooms
+with a blue haze.
+
+Suddenly something struck the chandelier and shattered it to the
+gilt candle-sockets. Lorraine looked at it, startled, but another
+bullet whizzed into the room, starring the long mirror, and
+another knocked the plaster from the fireplace. Jack had her out
+of the room in a second, and presently they found themselves in
+the cellar, the very cement beneath their feet shaking under the
+tremendous shocks of the cannon.
+
+"Wait for me. Do you promise, Lorraine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel
+drive to the stable.
+
+"Alixe!" he called.
+
+She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There
+was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of
+grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely
+knew it.
+
+"What can I do?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"
+
+He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set
+them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four
+surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges,
+basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of
+ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.
+
+"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not--when I
+am ready," he said.
+
+"No; go and stay with her. If I need you I will send."
+
+He could scarcely hear her in the tumult and din, but he
+understood and nodded, watching her busy with her lint and
+bandages. As he turned to go, the first of the wounded, a mere
+boy, was brought in on the shoulders of a comrade. Jack heard him
+scream as they laid him on the table; then he went soberly away
+to the cellar where Lorraine sat, her face in her hands.
+
+"We are holding the Chateau," he said. "Will you stay quietly for
+a little while longer, if I go out again?"
+
+"If you wish," she said.
+
+He longed to take her in his arms. He did not; he merely said,
+"Wait for me," and went away again out into the smoke.
+
+From the upper-story windows, where he had climbed, he could see
+to the edge of the forest. Already three columns of men had
+started out from the trees across the meadow towards the park
+wall. They advanced slowly and steadily, firing as they came on.
+Somewhere, in the smoke, a Prussian band was playing gayly, and
+Jack thought of the Bavarians at the Geisberg, and their bands
+playing as the men fell like leaves in the Chateau gardens.
+
+He had his field-glasses with him, and he fixed them on the
+advancing columns. They were Bavarians, after all--there was no
+mistaking the light-blue uniforms and fur-crested helmets. And
+now he made out their band, plodding stolidly along, trombones
+and bass-drums wheezing and banging away in the rifle-smoke; he
+could even see the band-master swinging his halberd forward.
+
+Suddenly the nearest column broke into a heavy run, cheering
+hoarsely. The other columns came on with a rush; the band halted,
+playing them in at the death with a rollicking quickstep; then
+all was blotted out in the pouring cannon-smoke. Flash on flash
+the explosions followed each other, lighting the gloom with a
+wavering yellow glare, and on the terrace the gatling whirred and
+spluttered its slender streams of flame, while the treble crash
+of the chassepots roared accompaniment.
+
+Once or twice Jack thought he heard the rattle of their little
+harsh, flat drums, but he could see them no longer; they were in
+that smoke-pall somewhere, coming on towards the park wall.
+
+Bugles began to sound--French bugles--clear and sonorous. Across
+the lawn by the river a battalion of French infantry were
+running, firing as they ran. He saw them settle at last like
+quail among the stubble, curling up and crouching in groups and
+bevies, alert heads raised. Then the firing rippled along the
+front, and the lawn became gray with smoke.
+
+As he went down the stairs and into the garden he heard the soldiers
+saying that the charge had been checked. The wounded were being
+borne towards the barn, long lines of them, heads and limbs hanging
+limp. A horse in the garden was ending a death-struggle among the
+cucumber-frames, and the battery-men were cutting the traces to give
+him free play. Upon the roof a thin column of smoke and sparks rose,
+where a Prussian shell--the first as yet--had fallen and exploded
+in the garret. Some soldiers were knocking the sparks from the roof
+with the butts of their rifles.
+
+When he went into the cellar again Lorraine was pacing restlessly
+along the wine-bins.
+
+"I cannot stay here," she said. "Jack, get some bottles of brandy
+and come to the barn. The wounded will need them."
+
+"You cannot go out. I will take them."
+
+"No, I shall go."
+
+"I ask you not to."
+
+"Let me, Jack," she said, coming up to him--"with you."
+
+He could not make her listen; she went with him, her slender arms
+loaded with bottles. The shells were falling in the garden now;
+one burst and flung a shower of earth and glass over them.
+
+"Hurry!" he said. "Are you crazy, Lorraine, to come out into
+this?"
+
+"Don't scold, Jack," she whispered.
+
+When she entered the stable he breathed more freely. He watched
+her face narrowly, but she did not blanch at the sickening
+spectacle of the surgeons' tables.
+
+They placed their bottles of brandy along the side of a
+box-stall, and stood together watching the file of wounded
+passing in at the door.
+
+"They do not need us here, yet," he said. "I wonder where Alixe
+is?"
+
+"There is a Sister of Mercy out on the skirmish-line across the
+lawn," said a soldier of the hospital corps, pointing with bloody
+hands towards the smoke-veiled river.
+
+Jack looked at Lorraine in utter despair.
+
+"I must go; she can't stay there," he muttered.
+
+"Yes, you must go," repeated Lorraine. "She will be shot."
+
+"Will you wait here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+So he went away, thinking bitterly that she did not care whether
+he lived or died--that she let him leave her without a word of
+fear, of kindness. Then, for the first time, he realized that she
+had never, after all, been touched by his devotion; that she had
+never understood, nor cared to understand, his love for her. He
+walked out across the smoky lawn, the din of the rifles in his
+ears, the bitterness of death in his heart. He knew he was going
+into danger--that he was already in peril. Bullets whistled
+through the smoke as he advanced towards the firing-line, where,
+in the fog, dim figures were outlined here and there. He passed
+an officer, standing with bared sword, watching his men digging
+up the sod and piling it into low breastworks. He went on,
+passing others, sometimes two soldiers bearing a wounded man, now
+and then a maimed creature writhing on the grass or hobbling away
+to the rear. The battle-line lay close to him now--long open
+ranks of men, flat on their stomachs, firing into the smoke
+across the river-bank. Their officers loomed up in the gloom,
+some leaning quietly back on their sword-hilts, some pacing to
+and fro, smoking, or watchfully steadying the wearied men.
+
+Almost at once he saw Alixe. She was standing beside a tall
+wounded officer, giving him something to drink from a tin cup.
+
+"Alixe," said Jack, "this is not your place."
+
+She looked at him tranquilly as the wounded man was led away by a
+soldier of the hospital corps.
+
+"It is my place."
+
+"No," he said, violently, "you are trying to find death here!"
+
+"I seek nothing," she said, in a gentle, tired voice; "let me
+go."
+
+"Come back. Alixe--your brother is alive."
+
+She looked at him impassively.
+
+"My brother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have no brother."
+
+He understood and chafed inwardly.
+
+"Come, Alixe," he urged; "for Heaven's sake, try to live and
+forget--"
+
+"I have nothing to forget--everything to remember. Let me pass."
+She touched the blood-stained cross on her breast. "Do you not
+see? That was white once. So was my soul."
+
+"It is now," he said, gently. "Come back."
+
+A wounded man somewhere in the smoke called, "Water! water! In
+the name of God!--my sister--"
+
+"I am coming!" called Alixe, clearly.
+
+"To me first! Hasten, my sister!" groaned another.
+
+"Patience, children--I come!" called Alixe.
+
+With a gesture she passed Jack; a flurry of smoke hid her. The
+pungent powder-fog made his eyes dim; his ears seemed to split
+with the terrific volley firing.
+
+He turned away and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the
+well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the
+firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe,
+following her with his buckets where she passed among the
+wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a
+pail full of water, and he held his finger in the hole until the
+water was all used up. Twice he heard cheering and the splash of
+cavalry in the shallow river, but they seemed to be beaten off
+again, and he went about his business, listless, sombre, a dead
+weight at his heart.
+
+He had been kneeling beside a wounded man for some minutes when
+he became conscious that the firing had almost ceased. Bugles
+were sounding near the Chateau; long files of troops passed him
+in the lifting smoke; officers shouted along the river-bank.
+
+He rose to his feet and looked around for Alixe. She was not in
+sight. He walked towards the river-bank, watching for her, but he
+could not find her.
+
+"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an
+officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.
+
+A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a
+Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Chateau. I think she was
+hurt."
+
+"Hurt!"
+
+"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the
+stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod
+breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and
+entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables;
+Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.
+
+"Where is Alixe?" he asked.
+
+"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the
+terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech
+of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by
+a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed
+into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very
+tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.
+
+"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone
+with Sir Thorald." And he climbed the stairs and knocked softly
+at the door of the death-chamber.
+
+"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay
+here."
+
+She was kneeling at the bedside, her face buried on the breast of
+the dead man.
+
+"Alixe," he said, but his voice broke in spite of him, and he
+went to her and touched her.
+
+Very tenderly he raised her head, looked into her eyes, then
+quietly turned away.
+
+Outside the door he met Lorraine.
+
+"Don't go in," he murmured.
+
+She looked fearfully up into his face.
+
+"Yes," he said, "she was shot through the body."
+
+Then he closed the door and turned the key on the outside,
+leaving the dead to the dead.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+LORRAINE SLEEPS
+
+
+The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of
+water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of
+amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.
+
+Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before,
+although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about,
+gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary
+observation of the Chateau.
+
+Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of
+nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse
+with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the
+cover of the woods.
+
+Around the Chateau the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through
+the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their
+waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches
+dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi,
+grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at
+times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue
+overcoats.
+
+The line of battle stretched from the Chateau Morteyn, parallel
+with the river and the park wall, to the Chateau de Nesville; and
+along this line the officers were riding all day, muffled to the
+chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops
+gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they
+expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work
+excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks
+with earth, while in the Chateau itself preparations were in
+progress for the fighting of fire.
+
+The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched
+over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long
+trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches
+had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of
+each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the
+ground for a head-stone.
+
+Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one
+sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side
+by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse.
+Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It
+was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the
+linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove
+back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his
+face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a
+few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud
+between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned
+with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds.
+Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths
+of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns;
+and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw
+that her fair hands were cut and bleeding from plaiting the
+thorn-covered blossoms.
+
+They spoke briefly, almost coldly. Lorraine hung the two wreaths
+over the head-piece of the cross and, kneeling, signed herself.
+
+When she rose Jack replaced his cap, but said nothing. They stood
+side by side, looking out across the woods, where, behind a
+curtain of mist and rain, the single turret of the Chateau de
+Nesville was hidden.
+
+She seemed restless and preoccupied, and he, answering aloud her
+unasked question, said, "I am going to search the forest to-day.
+I cannot bear to leave you, but it must be done, for your sake
+and for the sake of France."
+
+She answered: "Yes, it must be done. I shall go with you."
+
+"You cannot," he said; "there is danger in the forest."
+
+"You are going?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They said nothing more for a moment or two. He was thinking of
+Alixe and her love for Sir Thorald. Who would have thought it
+could have turned out so? He looked down at the river Lisse,
+where, under the trees of the bank, they had all sat that day--a
+day that already seemed legendary, so far, so far in the
+mist-hung landscape of the past. He seemed to hear Molly
+Hesketh's voice, soft, ironical, upbraiding Sir Thorald; he
+seemed to see them all there in the sunshine--Dorothy, Rickerl,
+Cecil, Betty Castlemaine--he even saw himself strolling up to
+them, gun under arm, while Sir Thorald waved his wine-cup and
+bantered him.
+
+He looked at the river. The green row-boat lay on the bank, keel
+up, shattered by a shell; the trees were covered with yellow,
+seared foliage that dropped continually into the water; the river
+itself was a canal of mud. And, as he looked, a dead man, face
+under water, sped past, caught on something, drifted, spun
+giddily in an eddy, washed to and fro, then floated on under the
+trees.
+
+"You will catch cold here in the rain," he said, abruptly.
+
+"You also, Jack."
+
+They walked a few steps towards the house, then stopped and
+looked at each other.
+
+"You are drenched," he said; "you must go to your room and lie
+down."
+
+"I will--if you wish," she answered.
+
+He drew her rain-cloak around her, buttoned the cape and high
+collar, and settled the hood on her head. She looked up under her
+pointed hood.
+
+"Do you care so much for me?" she asked, listlessly.
+
+"Will you give me the right--always--forever?"
+
+"Do you mean that--that you love me?"
+
+"I have always loved you."
+
+Still she looked up at him from the shadow of her hood.
+
+"I love you, Lorraine."
+
+One arm was around her now, and with the other hand he held both
+of hers.
+
+She spoke, her eyes on his.
+
+"I loved you once. I did not know it then. It was the first night
+there on the terrace--when they were dancing. I loved you
+again--after our quarrel, when you found me by the river. Again
+I loved you, when we were alone in the Chateau and you came to
+see me in the library."
+
+He drew her to him, but she resisted.
+
+"Now it is different," she said. "I do not love you--like that. I
+do not know what I feel; I do not care for that--for that love. I
+need something warmer, stronger, more kindly--something I never
+have had. My childhood is gone, Jack, and yet I am tortured with
+the craving for it; I want to be little again--I want to play
+with children--with young girls; I want to be tired with pleasure
+and go to bed with a mother bending over me. It is that--it is
+that that I need, Jack--a mother to hold me as you do. Oh, if you
+knew--if you knew! Beside my bed I feel about in the dark, half
+asleep, reaching out for the mother I never knew--the mother I
+need. I picture her; she is like my father, only she is always
+with me. I lie back and close my eyes and try to think that she
+is there in the dark--close--close. Her cheeks and hands are
+warm; I can never see her eyes, but I know they are like mine. I
+know, too, that she has always been with me--from the years that
+I have forgotten--always with me, watching me that I come to no
+harm--anxious for me, worrying because my head is hot or my hands
+cold. In my half-sleep I tell her things--little intimate things
+that she must know. We talk of everything--of papa, of the house,
+of my pony, of the woods and the Lisse. With her I have spoken of
+you often, Jack. And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell
+you, Jack. I can never love you like--like that, but I need you,
+and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love. Be
+gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret.
+You are all I have."
+
+The intense grief in her face, the wide, childish eyes, the cold
+little hands tightening in his, all these touched the manhood in
+him, and he answered manfully, putting away from himself all that
+was weak or selfish, all that touched on love of man for woman:
+
+"Let me be all you ask," he said. "My love is of that kind,
+also."
+
+"My darling Jack," she murmured, putting both arms around his
+neck.
+
+He kissed her peacefully.
+
+"Come," he said. "Your shoes are soaking. I am going to take
+charge of you now."
+
+When they entered the house he took her straight to her room,
+drew up an arm-chair, lighted the fire, filled a foot-bath with
+hot water, and, calmly opening the wardrobe, pulled out a warm
+bath-robe. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he knelt and
+unbuttoned her shoes.
+
+"Now," he said, "I'll be back in five minutes. Let me find you
+sitting here, with your feet in that hot water."
+
+Before she could answer, he went out. A thrill of comfort passed
+through her; she drew the wet stockings over her feet, shivered,
+slipped out of skirt and waist, put on the warm, soft bath-robe,
+and, sinking back in the chair, placed both little white feet in
+the foot-bath.
+
+"I am ready, Jack," she called, softly.
+
+He came in with a tray of tea and toast and a bit of cold
+chicken. She followed his movement with tired, shy eyes,
+wondering at his knowledge of little things. They ate their
+luncheon together by the fire. Twice he gravely refilled the
+foot-bath with hotter water, and she settled back in her soft,
+warm chair, sighing contentment.
+
+After a while he lighted a cigarette and read to her--fairy tales
+from Perrault--legends that all children know--all children who
+have known mothers. Lorraine did not know them. At first she
+frowned a little, watching him dubiously, but little by little
+the music of the words and the fragrance of the sweet, vague
+tales crept into her heart, and she listened breathless to the
+stories, older than Egypt--stories that will outlast the last
+pyramid.
+
+Once he laid down his book and told her of the Prince of Argolis
+and AEthra; of the sandals and sword, of Medea, and of the
+wreathed wine-cup. He told her, too, of the Isantee, and the
+legends of the gray gull, of Harpan and Chaske, and the white
+lodge of hope.
+
+She listened like a tired child, her wrist curved under her chin,
+the bath-robe close to her throat. While she listened she moved
+her feet gently in the hot water, nestling back with the thrill
+of the warmth that mounted to her cheeks.
+
+Then they were silent, their eyes on each other.
+
+Down-stairs some rain-soaked officer was playing on the piano old
+songs of Lorraine and Alsace. He tried to sing, too, but his
+voice broke, whether from emotion or hoarseness they could not
+tell. A moment or two later a dripping infantry band marched out
+to the conservatory and began to play. The dismal trombone
+vibrated like a fog-horn, the wet drums buzzed and clattered, the
+trumpets wailed with the rising wind in the chimneys. They
+played for an hour, then stopped abruptly in the middle of
+"Partons pour la Syrie," and Jack and Lorraine heard them
+trampling away--slop, slop--across the gravel drive.
+
+The fire in the room made the air heavy, and he raised one window
+a little way, but the wet wind was rank with the odour of
+disinfectants and ether from the stable hospital, and he closed
+the window after a moment.
+
+"I spent all the morning with the wounded," said Lorraine, from
+the depths of her chair. The child-like light in her eyes had
+gone; nothing but woman's sorrow remained in their gray-blue
+depths.
+
+Jack rose, picked up a big soft towel, and, deliberately lifting
+one of her feet from the water, rubbed it until it turned rosy.
+Then he rubbed the other, wrapped the bath-robe tightly about
+her, lifted her in his arms, threw back the bed-covers, and laid
+her there snug and warm.
+
+"Sleep," he said.
+
+She held up both arms with a divine smile.
+
+"Stay with me until I sleep," she murmured drowsily. Her eyes
+closed; one hand sought his.
+
+After a while she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+LORRAINE AWAKES
+
+
+When Lorraine had been asleep for an hour, Jack stole from the
+room and sought the old general who was in command of the park.
+He found him on the terrace, smoking and watching the woods
+through his field-glasses.
+
+"Monsieur," said Jack, "my ward, Mademoiselle de Nesville, is
+asleep in her chamber. I must go to the forest yonder and try to
+find her father's body. I dare not leave her alone unless I may
+confide her to you."
+
+"My son," said the old man, "I accept the charge. Can you give me
+the next room?"
+
+"The next room is where our little Sister of Mercy died."
+
+"I have journeyed far with death--I am at home in death's
+chamber," said the old general. He followed Jack to the
+death-room, accompanied by his aide-de-camp.
+
+"It will do," he said. Then, turning to an aid, "Place a sentry
+at the next door. When the lady awakes, call me."
+
+"Thank you," said Jack. He lingered a moment and then continued:
+"If I am shot in the woods--if I don't return--General Chanzy
+will take charge of Mademoiselle de Nesville, for my uncle's
+sake. They are sword-brothers."
+
+"I accept the responsibility," said the old general, gravely.
+
+They bowed to each other, and Jack went out and down the stairs
+to the lawn. For a moment he looked up into the sky, trying to
+remember where the balloon might have been when Von Steyr's
+explosive bullet set it on fire. Then he trudged on into the
+wood-road, buckling his revolver-case under his arm and adjusting
+the cross-strap of his field-glasses.
+
+Once in the forest he breathed more freely. There was an odour of
+rotting leaves in the wet air; the branches quivered and dripped,
+and the tree-trunks, moist and black, exhaled a rank aroma of
+lichens and rain-soaked moss.
+
+Along the park wall, across the Lisse, sentinels stood in the rain,
+peering out of their caped overcoats or rambling along the river-bank.
+A spiritless challenge or two halted him for a few moments, but he
+gave the word and passed on. Once or twice squads met him and passed
+with the relief, sick boyish soldiers, crusted with mud. Twice he met
+groups of roving, restless-eyed franc-tireurs in straight caps and
+sheepskin jackets, but they did not molest him nor even question him
+beyond asking the time of day.
+
+And now he passed the carrefour where he and Lorraine had first
+met. Its only tenant was a sentinel, yellow with jaundice, who
+seized his chassepot with shaking hands and called a shrill "Qui
+Vive?"
+
+From the carrefour Jack turned to the left straight into the
+heart of the forest. He risked losing his way; he risked more
+than that, too, for a shot from sentry or franc-tireur was not
+improbable, and, more-over, nobody knew whether Uhlans were in
+the woods or not.
+
+As he advanced the forest growth became thicker; underbrush, long
+uncut, rose higher than his head. Over logs and brush tangles he
+pressed, down into soft, boggy gullys deep with dead leaves,
+across rapid, dark brooks, threads of the river Lisse, over stony
+ledges, stumps, windfalls, and on towards the break in the trees
+from which, on clear days, one could see the turret-spire of the
+Chateau de Nesville. When he reached this point he looked in vain
+for the turret; the rain hid it. Still, he could judge fairly
+well in which direction it lay, and he knew that the distance was
+half a mile.
+
+"The balloon dropped near here," he muttered, and started in a
+circle, taking a gigantic beech-tree as the centre mark.
+Gradually he widened his circuit, stumbling on over the slippery
+leaves, keeping a wary eye out for the thing on the ground that
+he sought.
+
+He had seen no game in the forest, and wondered a little. Once or
+twice he fancied that he heard some animal moving near, but when
+he listened all was quiet, save for the hoarse calling of a raven
+in some near tree. Suddenly he saw the raven, and at the same
+moment it rose, croaking the alarm. Up through a near thicket
+floundered a cloud of black birds, flapping their wings. They
+were ravens, too, all croaking and flapping through the
+rain-soaked branches, mounting higher, higher, only to wheel and
+sail and swoop in circles, round and round in the gray sky above
+his head. He shivered and hesitated, knowing that the dead lay
+there in the thicket. And he was right; but when he saw the
+thing he covered his eyes with both hands and his heart rose in
+his throat. At last he stepped forward and looked into the vacant
+eye-sockets of a skull from which shreds of a long beard still
+hung, wet and straggling.
+
+It lay under the washed-out roots of a fir-tree, the bare ribs
+staring through the torn clothing, the fleshless hands clasped
+about a steel box.
+
+How he brought himself to get the box from that cage of bones he
+never knew. At last he had it, and stepped back, the sweat
+starting from every pore. But his work was not finished. What the
+ravens and wolves had left of the thing he pushed with sticks
+into a hollow, and painfully covered it with forest mould. Over
+this he pulled great lumps of muddy clay, trampling them down
+firmly, until at last the dead lay underground and a heap of
+stones marked the sepulchre.
+
+The ravens had alighted in the tree-tops around the spot,
+watching him gravely, croaking and sidling away when he moved
+with abruptness. Looking up into the tree-tops he saw some shreds
+of stuff clinging to the branches, perhaps tatters from the
+balloon or the dead man's clothing. Near him on the ground lay a
+charred heap that was once the wicker car of the balloon. This he
+scattered with a stick, laid a covering of green moss on the
+mound, placed two sticks crosswise at the head, took off his cap,
+then went his way, the steel box buttoned securely in his breast.
+As he walked on through the forest, a wolf fled from the
+darkening undergrowth, hesitated, turned, cringing half boldly,
+half sullenly, watching him with changeless, incandescent eyes.
+
+Darkness was creeping into the forest when he came out on the
+wood-road. He had a mile and a half before him without lantern or
+starlight, and he hastened forward through the mire, which seemed
+to pull him back at every step. It astonished him that he
+received no challenge in the twilight; he peered across the
+river, but saw no sentinels moving. The stillness was profound,
+save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet
+branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep
+his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of
+the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the
+whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer
+it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it
+passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp
+report, and the steel fragments hurtled through the naked trees.
+
+He was running now; he knew the Prussian guns had opened on the
+Chateau again, and the thought of Lorraine in the tempest of iron
+terrified him. And now the shells were streaming into the woods,
+falling like burning stars from the heavens, bursting over the
+tree-tops; the racket of tearing, splintering limbs was in his
+ears, the dull shock of a shell exploding in the mud, the splash
+of fragments in the river. Behind him a red flare, ever growing,
+wavering, bursting into crimson radiance, told him that the
+Chateau de Nesville was ablaze. The black, trembling shadows cast
+by the trees grew blacker and steadier in the fiery light; the
+muddy road sprang into view under his feet; the river ran
+vermilion. Another light grew in the southern sky, faint yet, but
+growing surely. He ran swiftly, spurred and lashed by fear, for
+this time it was the Chateau Morteyn that sent a column of sparks
+above the trees, higher, higher, under a pall of reddening smoke.
+
+At last he stumbled into the garden, where a mass of plunging
+horses tugged and strained at their harnessed guns and caissons.
+Muddy soldiers put their ragged shoulders to the gun-wheels and
+pushed; teamsters cursed and lashed their horses; officers rode
+through the throng, shouting. A squad of infantry began a
+fusillade from the wall; other squads fired from the lawn, where
+the rear of a long column in retreat stretched across the gardens
+and out into the road.
+
+As Jack ran up the terrace steps the gatling began to whir like a
+watchman's rattle; needle-pointed flames pricked the darkness
+from hedge and wall, where a dark line swayed to and fro under
+the smoke.
+
+Up the stairs he sped, and flung open the door of the bedroom.
+Lorraine stood in the middle of the room, looking out into the
+darkness. She turned at the sound of the opening door:
+
+"Jack!"
+
+"Hurry!" he gasped; "this time they mean business. Where is your
+sentinel? Where is the general? Hurry, my child--dress quickly!"
+
+He went out to the hall again, and looked up and down. On the
+floor below he heard somebody say that the general was dead, and
+he hurried down among a knot of officers who were clustered at
+the windows, night-glasses levelled on the forest. As he entered
+the room a lieutenant fell dead and a shower of bullets struck
+the coping outside.
+
+He hastened away up-stairs again. Lorraine, in cloak and hat, met
+him at the door.
+
+"Keep away from all windows," he said. "Are you ready?"
+
+She placed her arm in his, and he led her down the stairs to the
+rear of the Chateau.
+
+"Have they gone--our soldiers?" faltered Lorraine. "Is it defeat?
+Jack, answer me!"
+
+"They are holding the Chateau to protect the retreat, I think.
+Hark! The gatling is roaring like a furnace! What has happened?"
+
+"I don't know. The old general came to speak to me when I awoke.
+He was very good and kind. Then suddenly the sentinel on the
+stairs fell down and we ran out. He was dead; a bullet had
+entered from the window at the end of the hall. After that I went
+into my room to dress, and the general hurried down-stairs,
+telling me to wait until he called for me. He did not come back;
+the firing began, and some shells hit the house. All the troops
+in the garden began to leave, and I did not know what to do, so I
+waited for you."
+
+Jack glanced right and left. The artillery were leaving by the
+stable road; from every side the infantry streamed past across
+the lawn, running when they came to the garden, where a shower of
+bullets fell among the shrubbery. A captain hastening towards the
+terrace looked at them in surprise.
+
+"What is it?" cried Jack. "Can't you hold the Chateau?"
+
+"The other Chateau has been carried," said the captain. "They are
+taking us on the left flank. Madame," he added, "should go at
+once; this place will be untenable in a few moments."
+
+Lorraine spoke breathlessly: "Are you to hold the Chateau with
+the gatling until the army is safe?"
+
+"Yes, madame," said the captain. "We are obliged to."
+
+There came a sudden lull in the firing. Lorraine caught Jack's
+arm.
+
+"Come," cried Jack, "we've got to go now!"
+
+"I shall stay!" she said; "I know my work is here!"
+
+The German rifle-flames began to sparkle and flicker along the
+river-bank; a bullet rang out against the granite facade behind
+them.
+
+"Come!" he cried, sharply, but she slipped from him and ran
+towards the house.
+
+Drums were beating somewhere in the distant forest--shrill,
+treble drums--and from every hill-side the hollow, harsh Prussian
+trumpets spoke. Then came a sound, deep, menacing--a far cry:
+
+"Hourra! Preussen!"
+
+"Why don't you cheer?" faltered Lorraine, mounting the terrace.
+The artillerymen looked at her in surprise. Jack caught her arm;
+she shook him off impatiently.
+
+"Cheer!" she cried again. "Is France dumb?" She raised her hand.
+
+"Vive la France!" shouted the artillerymen, catching her ardour.
+"Vive la Patrie! Vive Lorraine!"
+
+Again the short, barking, Prussian cheer sounded, and again the
+artillerymen answered it, cheer on cheer, for France, for the
+Land, for the Province of Lorraine. Up in the windows of the
+Chateau the line soldiers were cheering, too; the engineers on
+the roof, stamping out the sparks and flames, swung their caps
+and echoed the shouts from terrace and window.
+
+In the sudden silence that followed they caught the vibration of
+hundreds of hoofs--there came a rush, a shout:
+
+"Hourra! Preussen! Hourra! Hourra!" and into the lawn dashed the
+German cavalry, banging away with carbine and revolver. At the
+same moment, over the park walls swarmed the Bavarians in a
+forest of bayonets. The Chateau vomited flame from every window;
+the gatling, pulled back into the front door, roared out in a
+hundred streaks of fire. Jack dragged Lorraine to the first
+floor; she was terribly excited. Almost at once she knelt down
+and began to load rifles, passing them to Jack, who passed them
+to the soldiers at the windows. Once, when a whole window was
+torn in and the mattress on fire, she quenched the flames with
+water from her pitcher; and when the soldiers hesitated at the
+breach, she started herself, but Jack held her back and led the
+cheering, and piled more mattresses into the shattered window.
+
+Below in the garden the Bavarians were running around the house,
+hammering with rifle-butts at the closed shutters, crouching,
+dodging from stable to garden, perfectly possessed to get into
+the house. Their officers bellowed orders and shook their sabres
+in the very teeth of the rifle blast; the cavalry capered and
+galloped, and flew from thicket to thicket.
+
+Suddenly they all gave way; the garden and lawns were emptied
+save for the writhing wounded and motionless dead.
+
+"Cheer!" gasped Lorraine; and the battered Chateau rang again
+with frenzied cries of triumph.
+
+The wounded were calling for water, and Jack and Lorraine brought
+it in bowls. Here and there the bedding and wood-work had caught
+fire, but the line soldiers knocked it out with their rifle-butts.
+Whenever Lorraine entered a room they cheered her--the young
+officers waved their caps, even a dying bugler raised himself and
+feebly sounded the salute to the colours.
+
+By the light of the candles Jack noticed for the first time that
+Lorraine wore the dress of the Province--that costume that he had
+first seen her in--the scarlet skirt, the velvet bodice, the
+chains of silver. And as she stood loading the rifles in the
+smoke-choked room, the soldiers saw more than that: they saw the
+Province itself in battle there--the Province of Lorraine. And
+they cheered and leaped to the windows, firing frenziedly, crying
+the old battle-cry of Lorraine: "Tiens ta Foy! Frappe! Pour le
+Roy!" while the child in the bodice and scarlet skirt stood up
+straight and snapped back the locks of the loaded chassepots, one
+by one.
+
+"Once again! For France!" cried Lorraine, as the clamour of the
+Prussian drums broke out on the hill-side, and the hoarse
+trumpets signalled from wood to wood.
+
+A thundering cry arose from the Chateau:
+
+"France!"
+
+The sullen boom of a Prussian cannon drowned it; the house shook
+with the impact of a shell, bursting in fury on the terrace.
+
+White faces turned to faces whiter still.
+
+"Cannon!"
+
+"Hold on! For France!" cried Lorraine, feverishly.
+
+"Cannon!" echoed the voices, one to another.
+
+Again the solid walls shook with the shock of a solid shot.
+
+Jack stuffed the steel box into his breast and turned to
+Lorraine.
+
+"It is ended, we cannot stay--" he began; but at that instant
+something struck him a violent blow on the chest, and he fell,
+striking the floor with his head.
+
+In a second Lorraine was at his side, lifting him with all the
+strength of her arms, calling to him: "Jack! Jack! Jack!"
+
+The soldiers were leaving the windows now; the house rocked and
+tottered under the blows of shell and solid shot. Down-stairs an
+officer cried: "Save yourselves!" There was a hurry of feet
+through the halls and on the stairs. A young soldier touched
+Lorraine timidly on the shoulder.
+
+"Give him to me; I will carry him down," he said.
+
+She clung to Jack and turned a blank gaze on the soldier.
+
+"Give him to me," he repeated; "the house is burning." But she
+would not move nor relinquish her hold. Then the soldier seized
+Jack and threw him over his shoulder, running swiftly down the
+stairs, that rocked under his feet. Lorraine cried out and
+followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and
+thunder of the exploding shells dazed and stunned her; but the
+soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she
+followed, stumbling to his side.
+
+"To the trees--yonder--the forest--" he gasped.
+
+They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man
+by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.
+
+"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"
+
+"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against
+a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes
+closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+PRINCESS IMPERIAL
+
+
+The glare from the Chateau Morteyn, now wrapped in torrents of
+curling flame, threw long crimson shafts of light far into the
+forest. The sombre trees glimmered like live cinders; the wet
+moss crisped and bronzed as the red radiance played through the
+thickets. The bright, wavering fire-glow fell full on Jack's
+body; his face was hidden in the shadow of Lorraine's hair.
+
+Twice the timid young soldier drew her away, but she crept back,
+murmuring Jack's name; and at last the soldier seized the body in
+both arms and stumbled on again, calling Lorraine to follow.
+
+Little by little the illumination faded out among the trees; the
+black woods crowded in on every side; the noise of the crackling
+flames, the shouting, the brazen rattle of drums grew fainter and
+fainter, and finally died out in the soft, thick blackness of the
+forest.
+
+When they halted the young soldier placed Jack on the moss, then
+held out his hands. Lorraine touched them. He guided her to the
+prostrate figure; she flung herself face down beside it.
+
+After a moment the soldier touched her again timidly on the
+shoulder:
+
+"Have I done well?"
+
+She sobbed her thanks, rising to her knees. The soldier, a boy of
+eighteen, straightened up; he noiselessly laid his knapsack and
+haversack on the ground, trembled, swayed, and sat down,
+muttering vaguely of God and the honour of France. Presently he
+went away, lurching in the darkness like a drunken man--on, on,
+deep into the forest, where nothing of light or sound penetrated.
+And when he could no longer stand he sat down, his young head in
+his hands, and waited. His body had been shot through and
+through. About midnight he died.
+
+When Jack came to his senses the gray mystery of dawn was passing
+through the silent forest aisles; the beeches, pallid, stark,
+loomed motionless on every side; the pale veil of sky-fog hung
+festooned from tree to tree. There was a sense of breathless
+waiting in the shadowy woods--no sound, no stir, nothing of life
+or palpitation--nothing but foreboding.
+
+Jack crawled to his knees; his chest ached, his mouth cracked
+with a terrible throbbing thirst. Dazed as yet, he did not even
+look around; he did not try to think; but that weight on his
+chest grew to a burning agony, and he tore at his coat and threw
+it open. The flat steel box, pierced by a bullet, fell on the
+ground before his knees. Then he remembered. He ripped open
+waistcoat and shirt and stared at his bare breast. It was
+discoloured--a mass of bruises, but there was no blood there. He
+looked listlessly at the box on the leaves under him, and touched
+his bruised body. Suddenly his mind grew clearer; he stumbled up,
+steadying himself against a tree. His lips moved "Lorraine!" but
+no sound came. Again, in terror, he tried to cry out. He could
+not speak. Then he saw her. She lay among the dead leaves, face
+downward in the moss.
+
+When at last he understood that she was alive he lay down beside
+her, one arm across her body, and sank into a profound sleep.
+
+She woke first. A burning thirst set her weeping in her sleep and
+then roused her. Tear-stained and ghastly pale, she leaned over
+the sleeping man beside her, listened to his breathing, touched
+his hair, then rose and looked fearfully about her. On the
+knapsack under the tree a tin cup was shining. She took it and
+crept down into a gulley, where, through the deep layers of dead
+leaves, water sparkled in a string of tiny iridescent puddles.
+The water, however, was sweet and cold, and, when she had
+satisfied her thirst and had dug into the black loam with the
+edge of the cup, more water, sparkling and pure, gushed up and
+spread out in the miniature basin. She waited for the mud and
+leaves to settle, and when the basin was clear she unbound her
+hair, loosened her bodice, and slipped it off. When she had
+rolled the wide, full sleeves of her chemise to the shoulder she
+bathed her face and breast and arms; they glistened like marble
+tinged with rose in the pale forest dawn. The little scrupulous
+ablutions finished, she dried her face on the fine cambric of the
+under-sleeve, she dried her little ears, her brightening eyes,
+the pink palms of her hand, and every polished finger separately
+from the delicate flushed tip to the wrist, blue-veined and
+slender. She shook out her heavy hair, heavy and gleaming with
+burnished threads, and bound it tighter. She mended the broken
+points of her bodice, then laced it firmly till it pressed and
+warmed her fragrant breast. Then she rose.
+
+There was nothing of fear or sorrow in her splendid eyes; her
+mouth was moist and scarlet, her curved cheeks pure as a child's.
+
+For a moment she stood pensive, her face now grave, now
+sensitive, now touched with that mysterious exaltation that glows
+through the histories of the saints, that shines from tapestries,
+that hides in the dim faces carved on shrines.
+
+For the world was trembling and the land cried out under the
+scourge, and she was ready now for what must be. The land would
+call her where she was awaited; the time, the hour, the place had
+been decreed. She was ready--and where was the bitterness of
+death, when she could face it with the man she loved.
+
+Loved? At the thought her knees trembled under her with the
+weight of this love; faint with its mystery and sweetness, her
+soul turned in its innocence to God. And for the first time in
+her child's life she understood that God lived.
+
+She understood now that the sadness of life was gone forever.
+There was no loneliness now for soul or heart; nothing to fear,
+nothing to regret. Her life was complete. Death seemed an
+incident. If it came to her or to the man she loved, they would
+wait for one another a little while--that was all.
+
+A pale sunbeam stole across the tree-tops. She looked up. A
+little bird sang, head tilted towards the blue. She moved softly
+up the slope, her hair glistening in the early sun, her blue eyes
+dreaming; and when she came to the sleeping man she bent beside
+him and held a cup of sweet water to his lips.
+
+About noon they spoke of hunger, timidly, lest either might think
+the other complained. Her head close against his, her warm arms
+tight around his neck, she told him of the boy soldier, the
+dreadful journey in the night, the terror, and the awakening. She
+told him of the birth of her love for him--how death no longer
+was to be feared or sought. She told him there was nothing to
+alarm him, nothing to make them despair. Sin could not touch
+them; death was God's own gift.
+
+He listened, too happy to even try to understand. Perhaps he
+could not, being only a young man in love. But he knew that all
+she said must be true, perhaps too true for him to comprehend. He
+was satisfied; his life was complete. Something of the contentment
+of a school-boy exhausted with play lingered in his eyes.
+
+They had spoken of the box; she had taken it reverently in her
+hands and touched the broken key, snapped off short in the lock.
+Inside, the Prussian bullet rattled as she turned the box over
+and over, her eyes dim with love for the man who had done all for
+her.
+
+Jack found a loaf of bread in the knapsack. It was hard and dry,
+but they soaked it in the leaf-covered spring and ate it
+deliciously, cheek against cheek.
+
+Little by little their plans took shape. They were to go--Heaven
+knows how!--to find the Emperor. Into his hands they would give
+the box with its secrets, then turn again, always together, ready
+for their work, wherever it might be.
+
+Towards mid-afternoon Lorraine grew drowsy. There was a summer
+warmth in the air; the little forest birds came to the spring
+and preened their feathers in the pale sunshine. Two cicadas,
+high in the tree-tops, droned an endless harmony; hemlock cones
+dropped at intervals on the dead leaves.
+
+When Lorraine lay asleep, her curly head on Jack's folded coat,
+her hands clasped under her cheek, Jack leaned back against the
+tree and picked up the box. He turned it softly, so that the
+bullet within should not rattle. After a moment he opened his
+penknife and touched the broken fragment of the key in the lock.
+Idly turning the knife-blade this way and that, but noiselessly,
+for fear of troubling Lorraine, he thought of the past, the
+present, and the future. Sir Thorald lay dead on the hillock
+above the river Lisse; Alixe slept beside him; Rickerl was
+somewhere in the country, riding with his Uhlan scourges; Molly
+Hesketh waited in Paris for her dead husband; the Marquis de
+Nesville's bones were lying in the forest where he now sat,
+watching the sleeping child of the dead man. His child? Jack
+looked at her tenderly. No, not the child of the Marquis de
+Nesville, but a foundling, a lost waif in the Lorraine Hills,
+perhaps a child of chance. What of it? She would never know. The
+Chateau de Nesville was a smouldering mass of fire; the lands
+could revert to the country; she should never again need them,
+never again see them, for he would take her to his own land when
+trouble of war had passed, and there she should forget pain and
+sorrow and her desolate, loveless childhood; she should only
+remember that in the Province of Lorraine she had met the man she
+loved. All else should be a memory of green trees and vineyards
+and rivers, growing vaguer and dimmer as the healing years passed
+on.
+
+The knife-blade in the box bent, sprang back--the box flew open.
+
+He did not realize it at first; he looked at the three folded
+papers lying within, curiously, indolently. Presently he took
+them and looked at the superscriptions written on the back, in
+the handwriting of the marquis. The three papers were inscribed
+as follows:
+
+    "1. For the French Government after the fall of the
+    Empire."
+
+    "2. For the French Government on the death of Louis
+    Bonaparte, falsely called Emperor."
+
+    "3. To whom it may concern!"
+
+"To whom it may concern!" he repeated, looking at the third
+paper. Presently he opened it and read it, and as he read his
+heart seemed to cease its beating.
+
+    "_TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN_!
+
+    "Grief has unsettled my mind, yet, what I now write is
+    true, and, if there is a God, I solemnly call His curses
+    on me and mine if I lie.
+
+    "My only son, Rene Philip d'Harcourt de Nesville, was
+    assassinated on the Grand Boulevard in Paris, on the 2d
+    of December, 1851. His assassin was a monster named
+    Louis Bonaparte, now known falsely as Napoleon III.,
+    Emperor of the French. His paid murderers shot my boy
+    down, and stabbed him to death with their bayonets, in
+    front of the Cafe Tortoni. I carried his body home; I
+    sat at the window, with my dead boy on my knees, and I
+    saw Louis Bonaparte ride into the Rue St. Honore with
+    his murderous Lancers, and I saw children spit at him
+    and hurl curses at him from the barricade.
+
+    "Now I, Gilbert, Marquis de Nesville, swore to strike.
+    And I struck, not at his life--that can wait. I struck
+    at the root of all his pride and honour--I struck at
+    that which he held dearer than these--at his dynasty!
+
+    "Do the people of France remember when the Empress was
+    first declared enciente? The cannon thundered from the
+    orangerie at Saint-Cloud, the dome of the Invalides
+    blazed rockets, the city glittered under a canopy of
+    coloured fire. Oh, they were very careful of the Empress
+    of the French! They went to Saint-Cloud, and later to
+    Versailles, as they go to holy cities, praying. And the
+    Emperor himself grew younger, they said.
+
+    "Then came the news that the expected heir, a son, had
+    been born dead! Lies!
+
+    "I, Gilbert de Nesville, was in the forest when the
+    Empress of the French fell ill. When separated from the
+    others she called to Morny, and bade him drive for the
+    love of Heaven! And they drove--they drove to the
+    Trianon, and there was no one there. And there the child
+    was born. Morny held it in his arms. He came out to the
+    colonnade holding it in his arms, and calling for a
+    messenger. I came, and when I was close to Morny I
+    struck him in the face and he fell senseless. I took the
+    child and wrapped it in my cloak. This is the truth!
+
+    "They dared not tell it; they dared not, for fear and
+    for shame. They said that an heir had been born dead;
+    and they mourned for their dead son. It was only a
+    daughter. She is alive; she loves me, and, God forgive
+    me, I hate her for defeating my just vengeance.
+
+    "And I call her Lorraine de Nesville."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE SHADOW OF POMP
+
+
+The long evening shadows were lengthening among the trees; sleepy
+birds twitted in dusky thickets; Lorraine slept.
+
+Jack still stood staring at the paper in his hands, trying to
+understand the purport of what he read and reread, until the page
+became a blur and his hot eyes burned.
+
+All the significance of the situation rose before him. This
+child, the daughter of the oath-breaker, the butcher of December,
+the sly, slow diplomate of Europe, the man of Rome, of Mexico,
+the man now reeling back to Chalons under the iron blows of an
+aroused people. In Paris, already, they cursed his name; they
+hurled insults at the poor Empress, that mother in despair.
+Thiers, putting his senile fingers in the porridge, stirred a
+ferment that had not even germinated since the guillotine towered
+in the Place de la Concorde and the tumbrils rattled through the
+streets. He did not know what he was stirring. The same impulse
+that possessed Gladstone to devastate trees animated Thiers. He
+stirred the dangerous mess because he liked to stir, nothing
+more. But from that hell's broth the crimson spectre of the
+Commune was to rise, when the smoke of Sedan had drifted clear of
+a mutilated nation.
+
+Through the heavy clouds of death which were already girdling
+Paris, that flabby Cyclops, Gambetta, was to mouth his monstrous
+platitudes, and brood over the battle-smoke, a nightmare of
+pomposity and fanfaronade--in a balloon. All France was bowed
+down in shame at the sight of the grotesque convoy, who were
+proclaiming her destiny among nations, and their destiny to lead
+her to victory and "la gloire." A scorched, blood-soaked land, a
+pall of smoke through which brave men bared their breasts to the
+blast from the Rhine, and died uncomplainingly, willingly,
+cheerfully, for the mother-land--was it not pitiful?
+
+The sublime martyrdom of the men who marched, who shall write it?
+And who shall write of those others--Bazaine, Napoleon, Thiers,
+Gambetta, Favre, Ollivier?
+
+If Bazaine died, cursed by a nation, his martyrdom, for martyrdom
+it was, was no greater than that of the humblest French peasant,
+who, dying, knew at last that he died, not for France, but
+because the men who sent him were worse than criminal--they were
+imbecile.
+
+The men who marched were sublime; they were the incarnation of
+embattled France; the starving people of Metz, of Strassbourg, of
+Paris, were sublime. But there was nothing sublime about Monsieur
+Adolphe Thiers, nothing heroic about Hugo, nothing respectable
+about Gambetta. The marshal with the fat neck and Spanish
+affiliations, the poor confused, inert, over-fed marshal caged in
+Metz by the Red Prince, harassed, bewildered, stunned by the
+clashing of politics and military strategy, which his meagre
+brain was unable to reconcile or separate--this unfortunate
+incapable was deserving of pity, perhaps of contempt. His cup
+was to be bitterer than that--it was to be drained, too, with the
+shouts of "Traitor" stunning his fleshy ears.
+
+He was no traitor. Cannot France understand that this single word
+"traitor" has brought her to contempt in the eyes of the world?
+There are two words that mar every glorious, sublime page of the
+terrible history of 1870-71, and these two words are "treason"
+and "revenge." Let the nation face the truth, let the people
+write "incapacity" for "treason," and "honour" for "revenge," and
+then the abused term "la gloire" will be justified in the eyes of
+men.
+
+As for Thiers, let men judge him from his three revolutions, let
+the unknown dead in the ditches beyond the enceinte judge him,
+let the spectres of the murdered from Pere Lachaise to the
+bullet-pitted terrace of the Luxembourg judge this meddler, this
+potterer in epoch-making cataclysms. Bismarck, gray, imbittered,
+without honour in an unenlightened court, can still smile when he
+remembers Jules Favre and his prayer for the National Guard.
+
+And these were the men who formed the convoy around the chariot
+of France militant, France in arms!--a cortege at once hideous,
+shameful, ridiculous, grotesque.
+
+What was left of the Empire? Metz still held out; Strassbourg
+trembled under the shock of Prussian mortars; Paris strained its
+eyes for the first silhouette of the Uhlan on the heights of
+Versailles; and through the chill of the dying year the sombre
+Emperor, hunted, driven, threatened, tumbled into the snare of
+Sedan as a sick buzzard flutters exhausted to earth under a
+shower of clubs and stones.
+
+The end was to be brutal: a charge or two of devoted men, a crush
+at the narrow gates, a white flag, a brusque gesture from
+Bismarck, nothing more except a "guard of honour," an imperial
+special train, and Belgian newsboys shrieking along the station
+platform, "Extra! Fall of the Empire! Paris proclaims the
+Republic! Flight of the Empress! Extra!"
+
+Jack, sitting with the paper in his hands, read between the
+lines, and knew that the prophecy of evil days would be
+fulfilled. But as yet the writing on the wall of Alsatian hills
+had not spelled "Sedan," nor did he know of the shambles of
+Mars-la-Tour, the bloody work at Buzancy, the retreat from
+Chalons, and the evacuation of Vitry.
+
+Buzancy marked the beginning of the end. It was nothing but a
+skirmish; the 3d Saxon Cavalry, a squadron or two of the 18th
+Uhlans, and Zwinker's Battery fought a half-dozen squadrons of
+chasseurs. But the red-letter mark on the result was unmistakable.
+Bazaine's correspondence was captured. On the same day the second
+sortie occurred from Strassbourg. It was time, for the trenches
+and parallels had been pushed within six hundred paces of the
+glacis. And so it was everywhere, the whole country was in a
+ferment of disorganized but desperate resistance of astonishment,
+indignation, dismay.
+
+The nation could not realize that it was too late, that it was
+not conquest but invasion which the armies of France must prepare
+for. Blow after blow fell, disaster after disaster stunned the
+country, while the government studied new and effective forms of
+lying and evasion, and the hunted Emperor drifted on to his doom
+in the pitfall of Sedan.
+
+All Alsace except Belfort, Strassbourg, Schlettstadt, and Neuf
+Brisac was in German hands, under German power, governed by
+German law. The Uhlans scoured the country as clean as possible,
+but the franc-tireurs roamed from forest to forest, sometimes
+gallantly facing martyrdom, sometimes looting, burning,
+pillaging, and murdering. If Germans maintain that the only good
+franc-tireur is a dead franc-tireur, they are not always
+justified. Let them sit first in judgment on Andreas Hofer.
+England had Hereward; America, Harry Lee; and, when the South is
+ready to acknowledge Mosby and Quantrell of the same feather, it
+will be time for France to blush for her franc-tireurs. Noble and
+ignoble, patriots and cowards, the justified and the misguided
+wore the straight kepi and the sheepskin jacket. All figs in
+Spain are not poisoned.
+
+With the fall of the Chateau Morteyn, the war in Lorraine would
+degenerate into a combat between picquets of Uhlans and roving
+franc-tireurs. There would be executions of spies, vengeance on
+peasants, examples made of franc-tireurs, and all the horrors of
+irregular warfare. Jack knew this; he understood it perfectly
+when the muddy French infantry tramped out of the Chateau Morteyn
+and vanished among the dark hills in the rain.
+
+For himself, had he been alone, there would have been nothing to
+keep him in the devastated province. Indeed, considering his
+peculiarly strained relations with the Uhlans of Rickerl's
+regiment, it behooved him to get across the Belgian frontier
+very promptly.
+
+Now he not only had Lorraine, he had the woman who loved him and
+who was ready to sacrifice herself and him too for the honour of
+France. She lived for one thing--the box, with its pitiful
+contents, its secrets of aerial navigation and destruction, must
+be placed at the service of France. The government was France
+now, and the Empress was the government. Lorraine knew nothing of
+the reasons her father had had for his hatred of the Emperor and
+the Empire. Personal grievances, even when those grievances were
+her father's, even though they might be justified, would never
+deter her from placing the secrets that might aid, might save,
+France with the man who, at that moment, in her eyes, represented
+the safety, security, the very existence of the land she loved.
+
+Jack knew this. Whether she was right or not did not occur to him
+to ask. But the irony of it, the grim necessity of such a fate,
+staggered him--a daughter seeking her father at the verge of his
+ruin--a child, long lost, forgotten, unrecognized, unclaimed,
+finding the blind path to a father who, when she had been torn
+from him, dared not seek for her, dared not whisper of her
+existence except to Morny in the cloaked shadows of secret
+places.
+
+For good or ill Jack made up his mind; he had decided for himself
+and for her. Her loveless, lonely childhood had been enough of
+sorrow for one young life; she should have no further storm, no
+more heartaches, nothing but peace and love and the strong arm of
+a man to shield her. Let her remember the only father she had
+ever known--let her remember him with faithful love and sorrow
+as she would. For the wrong he had done, let him account to
+another tribunal; her, the echo of that crime and hate and
+passion must never reach.
+
+Why should he, the man who loved her, bring to her this heritage
+of ruin? Why should he tear the veil from her trusting eyes and
+show her a land bought with blood and broken oaths, sold in blood
+and infamy? Why should he show her this, and say, "This is the
+work of your imperial family! There is your father!--some call
+him the Assassin of December! There is your mother!--read the
+pages of an Eastern diary! There, too, is your brother, a sick
+child of fifteen, baptized at Saarbrueck, endowed at Sedan?"
+
+It was enough that France lay prostrate, that the wounded
+screamed from the blood-wet fields, that the quiet dead lay under
+the pall of smoke from the nation's funeral pyre. It was enough
+that the parents suffer, that the son drag out an existence among
+indifferent or hostile people in an alien land. The daughter
+should never know, never weep when they wept, never pray when
+they prayed. This was retribution--not his, he only watched in
+silence the working of divine justice.
+
+He tore the paper into fragments and ground them under his heel
+deep into the soft forest mould.
+
+Lorraine slept.
+
+He stood a long while in silence looking down at her. She was
+breathing quietly, regularly; her long, curling lashes rested on
+curved cheeks, delicate as an infant's.
+
+Half fearfully he stooped to arouse her. A footfall sounded on
+the dead leaves behind him, and a franc-tireur touched him on the
+shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+CA IRA!
+
+
+"What do you want?" asked Jack, in a voice that vibrated
+unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips
+grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped
+from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the
+subdued afternoon haze--wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless
+sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and
+trousers thinly banded with orange braid. They looked at him
+without speaking, almost without curiosity, fingering their
+gunlocks, bayoneted rifles unslung.
+
+"Your name?" said the man who had touched him on the shoulder.
+
+He did not reply at once. One of the men began to laugh.
+
+"He's the vicomte's nephew," said another; and, pointing at
+Lorraine, who, now aroused, sat up on the moss beside Jack, he
+continued: "And that is the little chatelaine of the Chateau de
+Nesville." He took off his straight-visored cap.
+
+The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine
+stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were
+doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground.
+
+"Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she
+said. "Oh, and there is le Pere Passerat, and little Emile Brun!
+Emile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?" The dark
+faces lighted up; somebody snickered; Brun, the conscript of the
+class of '71 who had been hauled by the heels from under his
+mother's bed, looked confused and twiddled his thumbs.
+
+One by one the franc-tireurs came shambling up to pay their
+awkward respects to Lorraine and to Jack, while Tricasse pulled
+his bristling mustache and clattered his sabre in its sheath
+approvingly. When his men had acquitted themselves with all the
+awkward sincerity of Lorraine peasants, he advanced with a superb
+bow and flourish, lifting his cap from his gray head:
+
+"In my quality of ex-pompier and commandant of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn'--my battalion"--here he made a sweeping gesture as
+though briefly reviewing an army corps instead of a dozen
+wolfish-eyed peasants--"I extend to our honoured and beloved
+Chatelaine de Nesville, and to our honoured guest, Monsieur
+Marche, the protection and safe-conduct of the 'Terrors of
+Morteyn.'"
+
+As he spoke his expression became exalted. He, Tricasse,
+ex-pompier and exempt, was posing as the saviour of his province,
+and he felt that, though German armies stretched in endless ranks
+from the Loire to the Meuse, he, Tricasse, was the man of
+destiny, the man of the place and the hour when beauty was in
+distress.
+
+Lorraine, her eyes dim with gentle tears, held out both slender
+hands; Tricasse bent low and touched them with his grizzled
+mustache. Then he straightened up, frowned at his men, and said
+"Attention!" in a very fierce voice.
+
+The half-starved fellows shuffled into a single rank; their faces
+were wreathed in sheepish smiles. Jack noticed that a Bavarian
+helmet and side-arm hung from the knapsack of one, a mere
+freckled lad, downy and dimpled. Tricasse drew his sabre, turned,
+marched solemnly along the front, wheeled again, and saluted.
+
+Jack lifted his cap; Lorraine, her arm in his, bowed and smiled
+tearfully.
+
+"The dear, brave fellows!" she cried, impulsively, whereat every
+man reddened, and Tricasse grew giddy with emotion. He tried to
+speak; his emotion was great.
+
+"In my capacity of ex-pompier," he gasped, then went to pieces,
+and hid his eyes in his hands. The "Terrors of Morteyn" wept with
+him to a man.
+
+Presently, with a gesture to Tricasse, Jack led Lorraine down the
+slope, past the spring, and on through the forest, three
+"Terrors" leading, rifles poised, Tricasse and the others
+following, alert and balancing their cocked rifles.
+
+"How far is your camp?" asked Jack. "We need food and the warmth
+of a fire. Tell me, Monsieur Tricasse, what is left of the two
+chateaux?"
+
+Lorraine bent nearer as the old man said: "The Chateau de Nesville
+is a mass of cinders; Morteyn, a stone skeleton. Pierre is dead.
+There are many dead there--many, many dead. The Prussians burned
+Saint-Lys yesterday; they shot Bosquet, the letter-carrier; they
+hung his boy to the railroad trestle, then shot him to pieces. The
+Cure is a prisoner; the Mayor of Saint-Lys and the Notary have
+been sent to the camp at Strassbourg. We, my 'Terrors of Morteyn'
+and I, are still facing the vandals; except for us, the Province
+of Lorraine is empty of Frenchmen in armed resistance."
+
+The old man, in his grotesque uniform, touched his bristling
+mustache and muttered: "Nom d'une pipe!" several times to steady
+his voice.
+
+Lorraine and Jack pressed on silently, sorrowfully, hand in hand,
+watching the scouts ahead, who were creeping on through the
+trees, heads turning from side to side, rifles raised. They
+passed along the back of a thickly wooded ridge for some
+distance, perhaps a mile, before the thin blue line of a
+smouldering camp-fire rose almost in their very faces. A low
+challenge from a clump of birch-trees was answered, there came
+the sound of rifles dropping, the noise of feet among the leaves,
+a whisper, and before they knew it they were standing at the
+mouth of a hole in the bank, from which came the odour of
+beef-broth simmering. Two or three franc-tireurs passed them,
+looking up curiously into their faces. Tricasse dragged a
+dilapidated cane-chair from the dirt-cave and placed it before
+Lorraine as though he were inviting her to an imperial throne.
+
+"Thank you," she said, sweetly, and seated herself, not
+relinquishing Jack's hand.
+
+Two tin basins of soup were brought to them; they ate it, soaking
+bits of crust in it.
+
+The men pretended not to watch them. With all their instinctive
+delicacy these clumsy peasants busied themselves in guard-mounting,
+weapon cleaning, and their cuisine, as though there was no such
+thing as a pretty woman within miles. But it tried their gallantry
+as Frenchmen and their tact as Lorraine peasants. Furtive glances,
+deprecatory and timid, were met by the sweetest of smiles from
+Lorraine or a kindly nod from Jack. Tricasse, utterly unbalanced by
+his new role of protector of beauty, gave orders in fierce, agitated
+whispers, and made sudden aimless promenades around the birch thicket.
+In one of these prowls he discovered a toad staring at the camp-fire,
+and he drew his sword with a furious gesture, as though no living
+toad were good enough to intrude on the Chatelaine of the Chateau de
+Nesville; but the toad hopped away, and Tricasse unbent his brows
+and resumed his agitated prowl.
+
+When Lorraine had finished her soup, Jack took both plates into
+the cave and gave them to a man who, squatted on his haunches,
+was washing dishes. Lorraine followed him and sat down on a
+blanket, leaning back against the side of the cave.
+
+"Wait for me," said Jack. She drew his head down to hers.
+
+They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the
+amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and
+found Tricasse, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad
+ridge.
+
+A road ran under the overhanging bank.
+
+"I didn't know we were so near a road," said Jack, startled.
+Tricasse laid his finger on his lips.
+
+"It is the high-road to Saint-Lys. We have settled more than one
+Uhlan dog on that curve there by the oak-tree. Look! Here comes
+one of our men. See! He's got something, too."
+
+Sure enough, around the bend in the road slunk a franc-tireur,
+loaded down with what appeared to be mail-sacks. Cautiously he
+reconnoitred the bank, the road, the forest on the other side,
+whistled softly, and, at Tricasse's answering whistle, came
+puffing and blowing up the slope, and flung a mail-bag, a rifle,
+a Bavarian helmet, and a German knapsack to the ground.
+
+"The big police officer?" inquired Tricasse, eagerly.
+
+"Yes, the big one with the red beard. He died hard. I used the
+bayonet only," said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the
+dried blood on his hairy fists. "I got a Bavarian sentry, too;
+there's the proof."
+
+Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with
+his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal
+it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling
+them like cards.
+
+One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest
+into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.
+
+"There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going
+to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding
+the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail
+delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur
+Marche?"
+
+"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly.
+
+He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned
+his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the
+franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from
+Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.
+
+"Put out the fire, too," called Tricasse, softly. "I begin to
+smell it."
+
+When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Tricasse,
+folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the
+flat steel box was.
+
+"Letters from Paris," he said. "The Uhlans have appeared in the
+Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and
+enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege."
+
+"Paris!" blurted out Tricasse, aghast.
+
+Jack nodded, silently.
+
+After a moment he resumed: "The Emperor is said to be with the
+army near Mezieres on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going
+to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do."
+
+Tricasse stared at him, incapable of speech.
+
+"Very well," said Jack, gently, "think it over. Tell me, at
+least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this
+evening."
+
+He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by
+the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously
+over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a
+careless footstep might perhaps be heard by passing Uhlans. In a
+few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow,
+where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.
+
+Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat
+down on the blankets beside her.
+
+"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In
+it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the
+other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my
+uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened
+because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The
+Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city
+is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or
+Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all
+going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know
+nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they
+need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my
+duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you
+must not go--it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to
+Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with
+a free heart."
+
+She placed both hands and then her lips over his mouth.
+
+"Hush," she said; "I am going with you; it is useless, Jack, to
+try to persuade me. Hush, my darling; there, be sensible; our
+path is very hard and cruel, but it does not separate us; we
+tread it together, always together, Jack." He struggled to speak;
+she held him close, and laid her head against his breast,
+contented, thoughtful, her eyes dreaming in the half-light of
+France reconquered, of noble deeds and sacrifices, of the great
+bells of churches thundering God's praise to a humble, thankful
+nation, proud in its faith, generous in its victory. As she lay
+dreaming close to the man she loved, a sudden tumult startled the
+sleeping echoes of the cave--the scuffling and thrashing of a
+shod horse among dead leaves and branches. There came a groan, a
+crash, the sound of a blow; then silence.
+
+Outside, the franc-tireurs, rifles slanting, were moving swiftly
+out into the hollow, stooping low among the trees. As they
+hurried from the cave another franc-tireur came up, leading a
+riderless cavalry horse by one hand; in the other he held his
+rifle, the butt dripping with blood.
+
+"Silence," he motioned to them, pointing to the wooded ridge
+beyond. Jack looked intently at the cavalry horse. The schabraque
+was blue, edged with yellow; the saddle-cloth bore the number
+"11."
+
+"Uhlan?" He formed the word with his lips.
+
+The franc-tireur nodded with a ghastly smile and glanced down at
+his dripping gunstock.
+
+Lorraine's hand closed on Jack's arm.
+
+"Come to the hill," she said; "I cannot stand that."
+
+On the crest of the wooded ridge crouched Tricasse, bared sabre
+stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around
+him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in
+the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts,
+their sinewy fingers played continually with the rifle-hammers.
+
+Jack hesitated, his arm around Lorraine's body, his eyes fixed
+nervously on the bend in the road.
+
+Something was coming; there were cries, the trample of horses,
+the shuffle of footsteps. Suddenly an Uhlan rode cautiously
+around the bend, glanced right and left, looked back, signalled,
+and started on. Behind him crowded a dozen more Uhlans, lances
+glancing, pennants streaming in the wind.
+
+"They've got a woman!" whispered Lorraine.
+
+They had a man, too--a powerful, bearded peasant, with a great
+livid welt across his bloodless face. A rope hung around his
+neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle-bow of an
+Uhlan. But what made Jack's heart fairly leap into his mouth was
+to see Siurd von Steyr suddenly wheel in his saddle and lash the
+woman across the face with his doubled bridle.
+
+She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his
+stirrup.
+
+"Get out, damn you!" roared Von Steyr. "Here--I'll settle this
+now. Shoot that French dog!"
+
+"My husband, O God!" screamed the woman, struggling in the dust.
+In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred
+forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around
+his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and
+tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to
+pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt,
+another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a
+wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan's face, deeper,
+deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.
+
+"Fire!" shrieked Tricasse--"the woman's dead!"
+
+Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering,
+sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure passed like a flash
+through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew
+back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the
+franc-tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene
+was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were
+torn from their frantic horses until only one remained--Von
+Steyr--drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head.
+They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot
+eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat
+him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck
+him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad
+cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when
+they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated
+the rabid thing that ran among them.
+
+But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road
+galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with
+harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the
+franc-tireurs were surrounded.
+
+Then Tricasse raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the
+dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the
+dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and
+the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the
+road:
+
+    "'Ca ira! Ca ira!'"
+
+It was the horrible song of the Terror.
+
+
+    "'Que faut-il au Republicain?
+    Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!
+
+    "'Du fer pour travailler,
+    Du plomb pour nous venger,
+    Et du pain pour nos freres!'"
+
+
+And the fierce voices sang:
+
+
+    "'Dansons la Carmagnole!
+    Dansons la Carmagnole!
+      Ca ira! Ca ira!
+    Tous les cochons a la lanterne!
+      Ca ira! Ca ira!
+    Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!'"
+
+
+The road trembled under the advancing cavalry; they surged around
+the bend, a chaos of rearing horses and levelled lances; a ring
+of fire around the little group of franc-tireurs, a cry from the
+whirl of flame and smoke:
+
+"France!"
+
+So they died.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE BRACONNIER
+
+
+Lorraine had turned ghastly white; Jack's shocked face was
+colourless as he drew her away from the ridge with him into the
+forest. The appalling horror had stunned her; her knees gave way,
+she stumbled, but Jack held her up by main force, pushing the
+undergrowth aside and plunging straight on towards the thickest
+depths of the woods. He had not the faintest idea where he was;
+he only knew that for the moment it was absolutely necessary for
+them to get as far away as possible from the Uhlans and their
+butcher's work. Lorraine knew it, too; she tried to recover her
+coolness and her strength.
+
+"Here is another road," she said, faintly; "Jack--I--I am not
+strong--I am--a--little--faint--" Tears were running over her
+cheeks.
+
+Jack peered out through the trees into the narrow wood-road.
+Immediately a man hailed him from somewhere among the trees, and
+he shrank back, teeth set, eyes fixed in desperation.
+
+"Who are you?" came the summons again in French. Jack did not
+answer. Presently a man in a blue blouse, carrying a whip,
+stepped out into the road from the bushes on the farther side of
+the slope.
+
+"Hallo!" he called, softly.
+
+Jack looked at him. The man returned his glance with a friendly
+and puzzled smile.
+
+"What do you want?" asked Jack, suspiciously.
+
+"Parbleu! what do you want yourself?" asked the peasant, and
+showed his teeth in a frank laugh.
+
+Jack was silent.
+
+The peasant's eyes fell on Lorraine, leaning against a tree, her
+blanched face half hidden under the masses of her hair. "Oho!" he
+said--"a woman!"
+
+Without the least hesitation he came quickly across the road and
+close up to Jack.
+
+"Thought you might be one of those German spies," he said. "Is
+the lady ill? Coeur Dieu! but she is white! Monsieur, what has
+happened? I am Brocard--Jean Brocard; they know me here in the
+forest--"
+
+"Eh!" broke in Jack--"you say you are Brocard the poacher?"
+
+"Hey! That's it--Brocard, braconnier--at your service. And you
+are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the
+little chatelaine De Nesville! Coeur Dieu! Have the Prussians
+brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche--I know you and I
+know the little chatelaine--oh, I know!--I, who have watched you
+at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while
+I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must
+live! Yes, I am Brocard--I do not lie. I have taken enough game
+from your uncle in my time; can I be of service to his nephew?"
+
+He took off his cap with a merry smile, entirely frank, almost
+impudent. Jack could have hugged him; he did not; he simply told
+him the exact truth, word by word, slowly and without bitterness,
+his arm around Lorraine, her head on his shoulder.
+
+"Coeur Dieu!" muttered Brocard, gazing pityingly at Lorraine;
+"I've half a mind to turn franc-tireur myself and drill holes in
+the hides of these Prussian swine!"
+
+He stepped out into the road and beckoned Jack and Lorraine. When
+they came to his side he pointed to a stone cottage, low and
+badly thatched, hidden among the trunks of the young beech
+growth. A team of horses harnessed to a carriage was standing
+before the door; smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney.
+
+"I have a guest," he said; "you need not fear him. Come!"
+
+In a dozen steps they entered the low doorway, Brocard leading,
+Lorraine leaning heavily on Jack's shoulder.
+
+"Pst! There is a thick-headed Englishman in the next room; let
+him sleep in peace," murmured Brocard.
+
+He threw a blanket over the bed, shoved the logs in the fireplace
+with his hobnailed boots until the sparks whirled upward, and the
+little flames began to rustle and snap.
+
+Lorraine sank down on the bed, covering her head with her arms;
+Jack dropped into a chair by the fire, looking miserably from
+Lorraine to Brocard.
+
+The latter clasped his big rough hands between his knees and
+leaned forward, chewing a stem of a dead leaf, his bright eyes
+fixed on the reviving fire.
+
+"Morteyn! Morteyn!" he repeated; "it exists no longer. There are
+many dead there--dead in the garden, in the court, on the
+lawn--dead floating in the pond, the river--dead rotting in the
+thickets, the groves, the forest. I saw them--I, Brocard the
+poacher."
+
+After a moment he resumed:
+
+"There were more poachers than Jean Brocard in Morteyn. I saw the
+Prussian officers stand in the carrefours and shoot the deer as
+they ran in, a line of soldiers beating the woods behind them. I
+saw the Saxons laugh as they shot at the pheasants and partridges;
+I saw them firing their revolvers at rabbits and hares. They brought
+to their camp-fires a great camp-wagon piled high with game--boars,
+deer, pheasants, and hares. For that I hated them. Perhaps I touched
+one or two of them while I was firing at white blackbirds--I really
+cannot tell."
+
+He turned an amused yellow eye on Jack, but his face sobered the
+next moment, and he continued: "I heard the fusillade on the
+Saint-Lys highway; I did not go to inquire if they were amusing
+themselves. Ma foi! I myself keep away from Uhlans when God
+permits. And so these Uhlan wolves got old Tricasse at last. Zut!
+C'est embetant! And poor old Passerat, too--and Brun, and all the
+rest! Tonnerre de Dieu! I--but, no--no! I am doing very well--I,
+Jean Brocard, poacher; I am doing quite well, in my little way."
+
+An ugly curling of his lip, a glimpse of two white teeth--that
+was all Jack saw; but he understood that the poacher had probably
+already sent more than one Prussian to his account.
+
+"That's all very well," he said, slowly--he had little sympathy
+with guerilla assassination--"but I'd rather hear how you are
+going to get us out of the country and through the Prussian
+lines."
+
+"You take much for granted," laughed the poacher. "Now, did I
+offer to do any such thing?"
+
+"But you will," said Jack, "for the honour of the Province and
+the vicomte, whose game, it appears, has afforded you both
+pleasure and profit."
+
+"Coeur Dieu!" cried Brocard, laughing until his bright eyes grew
+moist. "You have spoken the truth, Monsieur Marche. But you have
+not added what I place first of all; it is for the gracious
+chatelaine of the Chateau de Nesville that I, Jean Brocard, play
+at hazard with the Prussians, the stakes being my skin. I will
+bring you through the lines; leave it to me."
+
+Before Jack could speak again the door of the next room opened,
+and a man appeared, dressed in tweeds, booted and spurred, and
+carrying a travelling-satchel. There was a moment's astonished
+silence.
+
+"Marche!" cried Archibald Grahame; "what the deuce are you doing
+here?" They shook hands, looking questioningly at each other.
+
+"Times have changed since we breakfasted by candle-light at
+Morteyn," said Jack, trying to regain his coolness.
+
+"I know--I know," said Grahame, sympathetically. "It's devilish
+rough on you all--on Madame de Morteyn. I can never forget her
+charming welcome. Dear me, but this war is disgusting; isn't it
+now? And what the devil are you doing here? Heavens, man, you're
+a sight!"
+
+Lorraine sat up on the bed at the sound of the voices. When
+Grahame saw her, saw her plight--the worn shoes, the torn,
+stained bodice and skirt, the pale face and sad eyes--he was too
+much affected to speak. Jack told him their situation in a dozen
+words; the sight of Lorraine's face told the rest.
+
+"Now we'll arrange that," cried Grahame. "Don't worry, Marche.
+Pray do not alarm yourself, Mademoiselle de Nesville, for I have
+a species of post-chaise at the door and a pair of alleged
+horses, and the whole outfit is at your disposal; indeed it is,
+and so am I. Come now!--and so am I." He hesitated, and then
+continued: "I have passes and papers, and enough to get you
+through a dozen lines. Now, where do you wish to go?"
+
+"When are you to start?" replied Jack, gratefully.
+
+"Say in half an hour. Can Mademoiselle de Nesville stand it?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," said Lorraine, with a tired, quaint politeness
+that made them smile.
+
+"Then we wish to get as near to the French Army as we can," said
+Jack. "I have a mission of importance. If you could drive us to
+the Luxembourg frontier we would be all right--if we had any
+money."
+
+"You shall have everything," cried Grahame; "you shall be driven
+where you wish. I'm looking for a battle, but I can't seem to
+find one. I've been driving about this wreck of a country for the
+last three days; I missed Amonvillers on the 18th, and Rezonville
+two days before. I saw the battles of Reichshofen and Borney. The
+Germans lost three thousand five hundred men at Beaumont, and I
+was not there either. But there's a bigger thing on the carpet,
+somewhere near the Meuse, and I'm trying to find out where and
+when. I've wasted a lot of time loafing about Metz. I want to see
+something on a larger scale, not that the Metz business isn't
+large enough--two hundred thousand men, six hundred cannon--and
+the Red Prince--licking their chops and getting up an appetite
+for poor old Bazaine and his battered, diseased, starved,
+disheartened army, caged under the forts and citadel of a city
+scarcely provisioned for a regiment."
+
+Lorraine, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked at him silently,
+but her eyes were full of a horror and anguish that Grahame could
+not help seeing.
+
+"The Emperor is with the army yet," he said, cheerfully. "Who
+knows what may happen in the next twenty-four hours? Mademoiselle
+de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour
+of France."
+
+"Yes," said Lorraine.
+
+Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out
+into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young
+French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss
+plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg
+frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in
+the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.
+
+"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon;
+this cannot go on. We will find the Emperor and do our part.
+Don't look that way, Lorraine, my darling!" He took her in his
+arms. She put both arms around his neck, and hid her face.
+
+For a while he held her, watching the fire with troubled eyes.
+The room grew darker; a wind arose among the forest trees,
+stirring dried leaves on brittle stems; the ashes on the hearth
+drifted like gray snowflakes.
+
+Her stillness began to trouble him. He bent in the dusk to see
+her face. She was asleep. Terror, pity, anguish, the dreadful
+uncertainty, had strained her child's nerves to the utmost; after
+that came the deep fatigue that follows torture, and she lay in
+his arms, limp, pallid, exhausted. Her sleep was almost the
+unconsciousness of coma; she scarcely breathed.
+
+The fire on the hearth went out; the smoking embers glimmered
+under feathery ashes. Grahame entered, carrying a lantern.
+
+"Come," he whispered. "Poor little thing!--can't I help you,
+Marche? Wait; here's a rug. So--wrap it around her feet. Can you
+carry her? Then follow; here, touch my coat--I'm going to put out
+the light in my lantern. Now--gently. Here we are."
+
+Jack climbed into the post-chaise; Grahame, holding Lorraine in
+his arms, leaned in, and Jack took her again. She had not
+awakened.
+
+"Brocard and I are going to sit in front," whispered Grahame. "Is
+all right within?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Jack.
+
+The chaise moved on for a moment, then suddenly stopped with a
+jerk.
+
+Jack heard Grahame whisper, "Sit still, you fool! I've got
+passes; sit still!"
+
+"Let go!" murmured Brocard.
+
+"Sit still!" repeated Grahame, in an angry whisper; "it's all
+right, I tell you. Be silent!"
+
+There was a noiseless struggle, a curse half breathed, then a
+figure slipped from the chaise into the road.
+
+Grahame sank back. "Marche, that damned poacher will hang us all.
+What am I to do?"
+
+"What is it?" asked Jack, in a scarcely audible voice.
+
+"Can't you hear? There's an Uhlan in the road in front. That fool
+means to kill him."
+
+Jack strained his eyes in the darkness; the road ahead was black
+and silent.
+
+"You can't see him," whispered Grahame. "Brocard caught the
+distant rattle of his lance in the stirrup. He's gone to kill
+him, the bloodthirsty imbecile!"
+
+"To shoot him?" asked Jack, aghast.
+
+"No; he's got his broad wood-knife--that's the way these brutes
+kill. Hark! Good God!"
+
+A scream rang through the forest; something was coming towards
+them, too--a horse, galloping, galloping, pounding, thundering
+past--a frantic horse that tossed its head and tore on through
+the night, mane flying, bridle loose. And there, crouched on the
+saddle, two men swayed, locked in a death-clench--an Uhlan with
+ghostly face and bared teeth, and Brocard, the poacher, cramped
+and clinging like a panther to his prey, his broad knife flashing
+in the gloom.
+
+In a second they were gone; far away in the forest the hoof
+strokes echoed farther and farther, duller, duller, then ceased.
+
+"Drive on," muttered Jack, with lips that could barely form the
+words.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+THE MESSAGE OF THE FLAG
+
+
+It was dawn when Lorraine awoke, stifling a cry of dismay. At the
+same moment she saw Jack, asleep, huddled into a corner of the
+post-chaise, his bloodless, sunken face smeared with the fine red
+dust that drifted in from the creaking wheels. Grahame, driving
+on the front seat, heard her move.
+
+"Are you better?" he asked, cheerfully.
+
+"Yes, thank you; I am better. Where are we?"
+
+Grahame's face sobered.
+
+"I'll tell you the truth," he said; "I don't know, and I can't
+find out. One thing is certain--we've passed the last German
+post, that is all I know. We ought to be near the frontier."
+
+He looked back at Jack, smiled again, and lowered his voice:
+
+"It's fortunate we have passed the German lines, because that
+last cavalry outpost took all my papers and refused to return
+them. I haven't an idea what to do now, except to go on as far as
+we can. I wish we could find a village; the horses are not
+exhausted, but they need rest."
+
+Lorraine listened, scarcely conscious of what he said. She leaned
+over Jack, looking down into his face, brushing the dust from his
+brow with her finger-tips, smoothing his hair, with a timid,
+hesitating glance at Grahame, who understood and gravely turned
+his back.
+
+Jack slept. She nestled down, pressing her soft, cool cheek close
+to his; her eyes drooped; her lips parted. So they slept
+together, cheek to cheek.
+
+A mist drove across the meadows; from the plains, dotted with
+poplars, a damp wind blew in puffs, driving the fog before it
+until the blank vapour dulled the faint morning light and the
+dawn faded into a colourless twilight. Spectral poplars, rank on
+rank, loomed up in the mist, endless rows of them, fading from
+sight as the vapours crowded in, appearing again as the fog
+thinned in a current of cooler wind.
+
+Grahame, driving slowly, began to nod in the thickening fog. At
+moments he roused himself; the horses walked on and the wheels
+creaked in the red dust. Hour after hour passed, but it grew no
+lighter. Drowsy and listless-eyed the horses toiled up and down
+the little hills, and moved stiffly on along the interminable
+road, shrouded in a gray fog that hid the very road-side
+shrubbery from sight, choked thicket and grove, and blotted the
+grimy carriage windows.
+
+Jack was awakened with startling abruptness by Grahame, who shook
+his shoulders, leaning into the post-chaise from the driver's
+seat.
+
+"There's something in front, Marche," he said. "We've fallen in
+with a baggage convoy, I fancy. Listen! Don't you hear the
+camp-wagons? Confound this fog! I can't see a rod ahead."
+
+Lorraine, also now wide awake, leaned from the window. The blank
+vapour choked everything. Jack rubbed his eyes; his limbs ached;
+he could scarcely move. Somebody was running on the road in
+front--the sound of heavy boots in the dust came nearer and
+nearer.
+
+"Look out!" shouted Grahame, in French; "there's a team here in
+the road! Passez au large!"
+
+At the sound of his voice phantoms surged up in the mist around
+them; from every side faces looked into the carriage windows,
+passing, repassing, disappearing, only to appear again--ghostly,
+shadowy, spectral.
+
+"Soldiers!" muttered Jack.
+
+At the same instant Grahame seized the lines and wheeled his
+horses just in time to avoid collision with a big wagon in front.
+As the post-chaise passed, more wagons loomed up in the fog, one
+behind another; soldiers took form around them, voices came to
+their ears, dulled by the mist.
+
+Suddenly a pale shaft of light streamed through the fog above;
+the restless, shifting vapours glimmered; a dazzling blot grew
+from the mist. It was the sun. Little by little the landscape
+became more distinct; the pallid, watery sky lightened; a streak
+of blue cut the zenith. Everywhere in the road great, lumbering
+wagons stood, loaded with straw; the sickly morning light fell on
+silent files of infantry, lining the road on either hand.
+
+"It's a convoy of wounded," said Grahame. "We're in the middle of
+it. Shall we go back?"
+
+A wagon in front of them started on; at the first jolt a cry sounded
+from the straw, another, another--the deep sighs of the dying, the
+groans of the stricken, the muttered curses of teamsters--rose in
+one terrible plaint. Another wagon started--the wounded wailed;
+another started--another--another--and the long train creaked on, the
+air vibrating with the weak protestations of miserable, mangled
+creatures tossing their thin arms towards the sky. And now, too, the
+soldiers were moving out into the road-side bushes, unslinging rifles
+and fixing bayonets; a mounted officer galloped past, shouting
+something; other mounted officers followed; a bugle sounded
+persistently from the distant head of the column.
+
+Everywhere soldiers were running along the road now, grouping
+together under the poplar-trees, heads turned to the plain. Some
+teamsters pushed an empty wagon out beyond the line of trees and
+overturned it; others stood up in their wagons, reins gathered,
+long whips swinging. The wounded moaned incessantly; some sat up
+in the straw, heads turned also towards the dim, gray plain.
+
+"It's an attack," said Grahame, coolly. "Marche, we're in for it
+now!"
+
+After a moment, he added, "What did I tell you? Look there!"
+
+Out on the plain, where the mist was clearing along the edge of a
+belt of trees, something was moving.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lorraine, in a scarcely audible voice.
+
+Before Grahame could speak a tumult of cries and groans burst out
+along the line of wagons; a bugle clanged furiously; the
+teamsters shouted and pointed with their whips.
+
+Out of the shadow of the grove two glittering double lines of
+horsemen trotted, halted, formed, extended right and left, and
+trotted on again. To the right another darker and more compact
+square of horsemen broke into a gallop, swinging a thicket of
+lances above their heads, from which fluttered a mass of black
+and white pennons.
+
+"Cuirassiers and Uhlans!" muttered Grahame, under his breath. He
+stood up in his seat; Jack rose also, straining his eyes, but
+Lorraine hid her face in her hands and crouched in the chaise,
+her head buried in the cushions.
+
+The silence was enervating; even the horses turned their gentle
+eyes wonderingly to that line of steel and lances; even the
+wounded, tremulous, haggard, held their breath between clenched
+teeth and stiff, swollen lips.
+
+"Nom de Dieu! Serrez les rangs, tas de bleus!" yelled an officer,
+riding along the edge of the road, revolver in one hand, naked
+sabre flashing in the other.
+
+A dozen artillerymen were pushing a mitrailleuse up behind the
+overturned wagon. It stuck in the ditch.
+
+"A nous, la ligne!" they shouted, dragging at the wheels until a
+handful of fantassins ran out and pulled the little death machine
+into place.
+
+"Du calme! Du calme! Ne tirez pas trop vite, menagez vos
+cartouches! Tenez ferme, mes enfants!" said an old officer,
+dismounting and walking coolly out beyond the line of trees.
+
+"Oui! oui! comptez sur nous! Vive le Colonel!" shouted the
+soldiers, shaking their chassepots in the air.
+
+On came the long lines, distinct now--the blue and yellow of the
+Uhlans, the white and scarlet of the cuirassiers, plain against
+the gray trees and grayer pastures. Suddenly a level sheet of
+flame played around the stalled wagons; the smoke gushed out
+over the dark ground; the air split with the crash of rifles. In
+the uproar bugles blew furiously and the harsh German cavalry
+trumpets, peal on peal, nearer, nearer, nearer, answered their
+clangour.
+
+"Hourra! Preussen!"
+
+The deep, thundering shout rose hoarsely through the rifles'
+roaring fusillade; horses reared; teamsters lashed and swore, and
+the rattle of harness and wheel broke out and was smothered in
+the sheeted crashing of the volleys and the shock of the coming
+charge.
+
+And now it burst like an ocean roller, smashing into the wagon
+lines, a turmoil of smoke and flashes, a chaos of maddened,
+plunging horses and bayonets, and the flashing downward strokes
+of heavy sabres. Grahame seized the reins, and lashed his horses;
+a cuirassier drove his bloody, foam-covered charger into the road
+in front and fell, butchered by a dozen bayonets.
+
+Three Uhlans followed, whirling their lances and crashing through
+the lines, their frantic horses crazed by blows and wounds. More
+cuirassiers galloped up; the crush became horrible. A horse and
+steel-clad rider were hurled bodily under the wagon-wheels--an
+Uhlan, transfixed by a bayonet, still clung to his shattered
+lance-butt, screaming, staggering in his stirrups. Suddenly the
+window of the post-chaise was smashed in and a horse and rider
+pitched under the wheels, almost overturning carriage and
+occupants.
+
+"Easy, Marche!" shouted Grahame. "Don't try to get out!"
+
+Jack heard him, but sprang into the road. For an instant he
+reeled about in the crush and smoke, then, stooping, he seized a
+prostrate man, lifted him, and with one tremendous effort pitched
+him into the chaise.
+
+Grahame, standing up in the driver's seat, watched him in
+amazement for a moment; but his horses demanded all his attention
+now, for they were backing under the pressure of the cart in
+front.
+
+As for Jack, once in the chaise again he pulled the unconscious
+man to the seat, calling Lorraine to hold him up. Then he tore
+the Uhlan's helmet from the stunned man's head and flung it out
+into the road; after it he threw sabre and revolver.
+
+"Give me that rug!" he cried to Lorraine, and he seized it and
+wrapped it around the Uhlan's legs.
+
+Grahame had managed to get clear of the other wagon now and was
+driving out into the pasture, almost obscured by rifle smoke.
+
+"Oh, Jack!" faltered Lorraine--"it is Rickerl!"
+
+It was Rickerl, stunned by the fall from his horse, lying back
+between them.
+
+"They'd kill him if they saw his uniform!" muttered Jack. "Hark!
+the French are cheering! They've repulsed the charge! Grahame, do
+you hear?--do you hear?"
+
+"I hear!" shouted Grahame. "These horses are crazy; I can't hold
+them."
+
+The troops around them, hidden in the smoke, began to cheer
+frantically; the mitrailleuse whirred and rolled out its hail of
+death.
+
+"Vive la France! Mort aux Prussiens!" howled the soldiers. A
+mounted officer, his cap on the point of his sabre, his face laid
+open by a lance-thrust, stood shouting, "Vive la Nation! Vive la
+Nation!" while a boyish bugler shook his brass bugle in the air,
+speechless with joy.
+
+Grahame drove the terrified horses along the line of wagons for a
+few paces, then, wheeling, let them gallop straight out into the
+pasture on the left of the road, where a double line of trees in
+the distance marked the course of a parallel road.
+
+The chaise lurched and jolted; Rickerl, unconscious still, fell
+in a limp heap, but Jack and Lorraine held him up and watched the
+horses, now galloping under slackened reins.
+
+"There are houses there! Look!" cried Grahame. "By Jove, there's
+a Luxembourg gendarme, too. I--I believe we're in Luxembourg,
+Marche! Upon my soul, we are! See! There is a frontier post!"
+
+He tried to stop the horses; two strange-looking soldiers,
+wearing glossy shakos and white-and-blue aiguillettes, began to
+bawl at him; a group of peasants before the cottages fled,
+screaming.
+
+Grahame threw all his strength into his arms and dragged the
+horses to a stand-still.
+
+"Are we in Luxembourg?" he called to the gendarmes, who ran up,
+gesticulating violently. "Are we? Good! Hold those horses, if you
+please, gentlemen. There's a wounded man here. Carry him to one
+of those houses. Marche, lift him, if you can. Hello! his arm is
+broken at the wrist. Go easy--you, I mean--Now!"
+
+Lorraine, aided by Jack, stepped from the post-chaise and stood
+shivering as two peasants came forward and lifted Rickerl. When
+they had taken him away to one of the stone houses she turned
+quietly to a gendarme and said: "Monsieur, can you tell me where
+the Emperor is?"
+
+"The Emperor?" repeated the gendarme. "The Emperor is with his
+army, below there along the Meuse. They are fighting--since four
+this morning--at Sedan."
+
+He pointed to the southeast.
+
+She looked out across the wide plain.
+
+"That convoy is going to Sedan," said the gendarme. "The army is
+near Sedan; there is a battle there."
+
+"Thank you," said Lorraine, quietly. "Jack, the Emperor is near
+Sedan."
+
+"Yes," he nodded; "we will go when you can stand it."
+
+"I am ready. Oh, we must not wait, Jack; did you not see how they
+even attacked the wounded?"
+
+He turned and looked into her eyes.
+
+"It is the first French cheer I have heard," she continued,
+feverishly. "They beat back those Prussians and cheered for
+France! Oh, Jack, there is time yet! France is rising now--France
+is resisting. We must do our part; we must not wait. Jack, I am
+ready!"
+
+"We can't walk," he muttered.
+
+"We will go with the convoy. They are on the way to Sedan, where
+the Emperor is. Jack, they are fighting at Sedan! Do you
+understand?"
+
+She came closer, looking up into his troubled eyes.
+
+"Show me the box," she whispered.
+
+He drew the flat steel box from his coat.
+
+After a moment she said, "Nothing must stop us now. I am ready!"
+
+"You are not ready," he replied, sullenly; "you need rest."
+
+"'Tiens ta Foy,' Jack."
+
+The colour dyed his pale cheeks and he straightened up. "Always,
+Lorraine."
+
+Grahame called to them from the cottage: "You can get a horse and
+wagon here! Come and eat something at once!"
+
+Slowly, with weary, drooping heads, they walked across the road,
+past a wretched custom-house, where two painted sentry-boxes
+leaned, past a squalid barnyard full of amber-coloured, unsavoury
+puddles and gaunt poultry, up to the thatched stone house where
+Grahame stood waiting. Over the door hung a withered branch of
+mistletoe, above this swung a sign:
+
+ESTAMINET.
+
+"Your Uhlan is in a bad way, I think," began Grahame; "he's got a
+broken arm and two broken ribs. This is a nasty little place to
+leave him in."
+
+"Grahame," said Jack, earnestly, "I've got to leave him. I am
+forced to go to Sedan as soon as we can swallow a bit of bread
+and wine. The Uhlan is my comrade and friend; he may be more than
+that some day. What on earth am I to do?"
+
+They followed Grahame into a room where a table stood covered by
+a moist, unpleasant cloth. The meal was simple--a half-bottle of
+sour red wine for each guest, a fragment of black bread, and a
+ragout made of something that had once been alive--possibly a
+chicken, possibly a sheep.
+
+Grahame finished his wine, bolted a morsel or two of bread and
+ragout, and leaned back in his chair with a whimsical glance at
+Lorraine.
+
+"Now, I'll tell you what I'll do, Marche," he said. "My horses
+need rest, so do I, so does our wounded Uhlan. I'll stay in this
+garden of Eden until noon, if you like, then I'll drive our
+wounded man to Diekirch, where the Hotel des Ardennes is as good
+an inn as you can find in Luxembourg, or in Belgium either. Then
+I'll follow you to Sedan."
+
+They all rose from the table; Lorraine came and held out her
+hand, thanking Grahame for his kindness to them and to Rickerl.
+
+"Good-by," said Grahame, going with them to the door. "There's
+your dog-cart; it's paid for, and here's a little bag of French
+money--no thanks, my dear fellow; we can settle all that later.
+But what the deuce you two children are going to Sedan for is
+more than my old brains can comprehend."
+
+He stood, with handsome head bared, and bent gravely over
+Lorraine's hands--impulsive little hands, now trembling, as the
+tears of gratitude trembled on her lashes.
+
+And so they drove away in their dog-cart, down the flat,
+poplar-bordered road, silent, deeply moved, wondering what the
+end might be.
+
+The repeated shocks, the dreadful experiences and encounters, the
+indelible impressions of desolation and grief and suffering had
+deadened in Lorraine all sense of personal suffering or grief.
+For her land and her people her heart had bled, drop by drop--her
+sensitive soul lay crushed within her. Nothing of selfish despair
+came over her, because France still stood. She had suffered too
+much to remember herself. Even her love for Jack had become
+merely a detail. She loved as she breathed--involuntarily. There
+was nothing new or strange or sweet in it--nothing was left of
+its freshness, its grace, its delicacy. The bloom was gone.
+
+In her tired breast her heart beat faintly; its burden was the weary
+repetition of a prayer--an old, old prayer--a supplication--for
+mercy, for France, and for the salvation of its people. Where she
+had learned it she did not know; how she remembered it, why she
+repeated it, minute by minute, hour by hour, she could not tell.
+But it was always beating in her heart, this prayer--old, so
+old!--and half forgotten--
+
+    "'To Thee, Mary, exalted--
+    To Thee, Mary, exalted--'"
+
+Her tired heart took up the rhythm where her mind refused to
+follow, and she leaned on Jack's shoulder, looking out over the
+gray land with innocent, sorrowful eyes.
+
+Vaguely she remembered her lonely childhood, but did not grieve;
+vaguely she thought of her youth, passing away from a tear-drenched
+land through the smoke of battles. She did not grieve--the last sad
+tear for self had fallen and quenched the last smouldering spark of
+selfishness. The wasted hills of her province seemed to rise from
+their ashes and sear her eyes; the flames of a devastated land
+dazzled and pained her; every drop of French blood that drenched
+the mother-land seemed drawn from her own veins--every cry of
+terror, every groan, every gasp, seemed wrenched from her own
+slender body. The quiet, wide-eyed dead accused her, the stark
+skeletons of ravaged houses reproached her.
+
+She turned to the man she loved, but it was the voice of a dying
+land that answered, "Come!" and she responded with all a passion
+of surrender. What had she accomplished as yet? In the bitterness
+of her loneliness she answered, "Nothing." She had worked by the
+wayside as she passed--in the field, in the hospital, in the
+midst of beleaguered soldiers. But what was that? There was
+something else further on that called her--what she did not know,
+and yet she knew it was waiting somewhere for her. "Perhaps it is
+death," she mused, leaning on Jack's shoulder. "Perhaps it is
+_his_ death." That did not frighten her; if it was to be, it
+would be; but, through it, through the hideous turmoil of fire
+and blood and pounding guns and shouting--through death
+itself--somewhere, on the other side of the dreadful valley of
+terror, lay salvation for the mother-land. Thither they were
+bound--she and the man she loved.
+
+All around them lay the flat, colourless plains of Luxembourg; to
+the east, the wagon-train of wounded crawled across the landscape
+under a pallid sky. The road now bore towards the frontier again;
+Jack shook the reins listlessly; the horse loped on. Slowly they
+approached the border, where, on the French side, the convoy
+crept forward enveloped in ragged clouds of dust. Now they could
+distinguish the drivers, blue-bloused and tattered, swinging
+their long whips; now they saw the infantry, plodding on behind
+the wagons, stringing along on either flank, their officers
+riding with bent heads, the red legs of the fantassins blurred
+through the red dust.
+
+At the junction of the two roads stood a boundary post. A
+slovenly Luxembourg gendarme sat on a stone under it, smoking and
+balancing his rifle over both knees.
+
+"You can't pass," he said, looking up as Jack drew rein. A moment
+later he pocketed a gold piece that Jack offered, yawned,
+laughed, and yawned again.
+
+"You can buy contraband cigars at two sous each in the village
+below," he observed.
+
+"What news is there to tell?" demanded Jack.
+
+"News? The same as usual. They are shelling Strassbourg with
+mortars; the city is on fire. Six hundred women and children left
+the city; the International Aid Society demanded it."
+
+Presently he added: "A big battle was fought this morning along
+the Meuse. You can hear the guns yet."
+
+"I have heard them for an hour," replied Jack.
+
+They listened. Far to the south the steady intonation of the
+cannon vibrated, a vague sustained rumour, no louder, no lower,
+always the same monotonous measure, flowing like the harmony of
+flowing water, passionless, changeless, interminable.
+
+"Along the Meuse?" asked Jack, at last.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sedan?"
+
+"Yes, Sedan."
+
+The slow convoy was passing now; the creak of wheel and the harsh
+scrape of axle and spring grated in their ears; the wind changed;
+the murmur of the cannonade was blotted out in the trample of
+hoofs, the thud of marching infantry.
+
+Jack swung his horse's head and drove out across the boundary
+into the French road. On every side crowded the teams, where the
+low mutter of the wounded rose from the foul straw; on every side
+pressed the red-legged infantry, rifles _en bandouliere_,
+shrunken, faded caps pushed back from thin, sick faces.
+
+"My soldiers!" murmured Lorraine, sitting up straight. "Oh, the
+pity of it!--the pity!"
+
+An officer passed, followed by a bugler. He glanced vacantly at
+Jack, then at Lorraine. Another officer came by, leading his
+patient, bleeding horse, over which was flung the dusty body of a
+brother soldier.
+
+The long convoy was moving more swiftly now; the air trembled
+with the cries of the mangled or the hoarse groans of the dying.
+A Sister of Mercy--her frail arm in a sling--crept on her knees
+among the wounded lying in a straw-filled cart. Over all, louder,
+deeper, dominating the confusion of the horses and the tramp of
+men, rolled the cannonade. The pulsating air, deep-laden with the
+monstrous waves of sound, seemed to beat in Lorraine's face--the
+throbbing of her heart ceased for a moment. Louder, louder,
+nearer, more terrible sounded the thunder, breaking in long,
+majestic reverberations among the nearer hills; the earth began
+to shake, the sky struck back the iron-throated echoes--sounding,
+resounding, from horizon to horizon.
+
+And now the troops around them were firing as they advanced;
+sheeted mist lashed with lightning enveloped the convoy, through
+which rang the tremendous clang of the cannon. Once there came a
+momentary break in the smoke--a gleam of hills, and a valley
+black with men--a glimpse of a distant town, a river--then the
+stinging smoke rushed outward, the little flames leaped and sank
+and played through the fog. Broad, level bands of mist, fringed
+with flame, cut the pasture to the right; the earth rocked with
+the stupendous cannon shock, the ripping rifle crashes chimed a
+dreadful treble.
+
+There was a bridge there in the mist; an iron gate, a heavy wall
+of masonry, a glimpse of a moat below. The crowded wagons,
+groaning under their load of death, the dusty infantry, the
+officers, the startled horses, jammed the bridge to the parapets.
+Wheels splintered and cracked, long-lashed whips snapped and
+rose, horses strained, recoiled, leaped up, and fell scrambling
+and kicking.
+
+"Open the gates, for God's sake!" they were shouting.
+
+A great shell, moaning in its flight above the smoke, shrieked
+and plunged headlong among the wagons. There came a glare of
+blinding light, a velvety white cloud, a roar, and through the
+gates, no longer choked, rolled the wagon-train, a frantic
+stampede of men and horses. It caught the dog-cart and its
+occupants with it; it crushed the horse, seized the vehicle, and
+flung it inside the gates as a flood flings driftwood on the
+rocks.
+
+Jack clung to the reins; the wretched horse staggered out into
+the stony street, fell, and rolled over stone-dead.
+
+Jack turned and caught Lorraine in both arms, and jumped to a
+sidewalk crowded with soldiers, and at the same time the crush of
+wagons ground the dog-cart to splinters on the cobble-stones. The
+crowd choked every inch of the pavement--women, children,
+soldiers, shouting out something that seemed to move the masses
+to delirium. Jack, his arm around Lorraine, beat his way forward
+through the throng, murmuring anxiously, "Are you hurt, Lorraine?
+Are you hurt?" And she replied, faintly, "No, Jack. Oh, what is
+it? What is it?"
+
+Soldiers blocked his way now, but he pushed between them towards
+a cleared space on a slope of grass. Up the slope he staggered
+and out on to a stone terrace above the crush of the street. An
+officer stood alone on the terrace, pulling at some ropes around
+a pole on the parapet.
+
+"What--what is that?" stammered Lorraine, as a white flag shot up
+along the flag-staff and fluttered drearily over the wall.
+
+"Lorraine!" cried Jack; but she sprang to the pole and tore the
+ropes free. The white flag fell to the ground.
+
+The officer turned to her, his face whiter than the flag. The
+crowd in the street below roared.
+
+"Monsieur," gasped Lorraine, "France is not conquered! That flag
+is the flag of dishonour!"
+
+They stared at each other in silence, then the officer stepped to
+the flag-pole and picked up the ropes.
+
+"Not that!--not that!" cried Lorraine, shuddering.
+
+"It is the Emperor's orders."
+
+The officer drew the rope tight--the white flag crawled slowly up
+the staff, fluttered, and stopped.
+
+Lorraine covered her eyes with her hands; the roar of the crowd
+below was in her ears.
+
+"O God!--O God!" she whispered.
+
+"Lorraine!" whispered Jack, both arms around her.
+
+Her head fell forward on her breast.
+
+Overhead the white flag caught the breeze again, and floated out
+over the ramparts of Sedan.
+
+"By the Emperor's orders," said the officer, coming close to
+Jack.
+
+Then for the first time Jack saw that it was Georges Carriere who
+stood there, ghastly pale, his eyes fixed on Lorraine.
+
+"She has fainted," muttered Jack, lifting her. "Georges, is it
+all over?"
+
+"Yes," said Georges, and he walked over to the flag-pole, and
+stood there looking up at the white badge of dishonour.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
+
+
+Daylight was fading in the room where Lorraine lay in a stupor so
+deep that at moments the Sister of Mercy and the young military
+surgeon could scarcely believe her alive there on the pillows.
+
+Jack, his head on his arms, stood by the window, staring out
+vacantly at the streak of light in the west, against which, on
+the straight, gray ramparts, the white flag flapped black against
+the dying sun.
+
+Under the window, in the muddy, black streets, the packed throngs
+swayed and staggered and trampled through the filth, amid a crush
+of camp-wagons, artillery, ambulances, and crowding squadrons of
+cavalry. Riotous line soldiers cried out "Treason!" and hissed
+their generals or cursed their Emperor; the tall cuirassiers
+surged by in silence, sombre faces turned towards the west, where
+the white flag flew on the ramparts. Heavier, denser, more
+suffocating grew the crush; an ambulance broke down, a caisson
+smashed into a lamp-post, a cuirassier's horse slipped in the
+greasy depths of the filth, pitching its steel-clad rider to the
+pavement. Through the Place d'Alsace-Lorraine, through the Avenue
+du College and the Place d'Armes, passed the turbulent torrent of
+men and horses and cannon. The Grande Rue was choked from the
+church to the bronze statue in the Place Turenne; the Porte de
+Paris was piled with dead, the Porte de Balan tottered a mass of
+ruins.
+
+The cannonade still shook the hills to the south in spite of the
+white flag on the citadel. There were white flags, too, on the
+ramparts, on the Port des Capucins, and at the Gate of Paris. An
+officer, followed by a lancer, who carried a white pennon on his
+lance-point, entered the street from the north. A dozen soldiers
+and officers hacked it off with their sabres, crying, "No
+surrender! no surrender!" Shells continued to fall into the
+packed streets, blowing horrible gaps in the masses of struggling
+men. The sun set in a crimson blaze, reflecting on window and
+roof and the bloody waters of the river. When at last it sank
+behind the smoky hills, the blackness in the city was lighted by
+lurid flames from burning houses and the swift crimson glare of
+Prussian shells, still plunging into the town. Through the crash
+of crumbling walls, the hiss and explosion of falling shells, the
+awful clamour and din in the streets, the town clock struck
+solemnly six times. As if at a signal the firing died away; a
+desolate silence fell over the city--a silence full of rumours,
+of strange movements--a stillness pulsating with the death gasps
+of a nation.
+
+Out on the heights of La Moncelle, of Daigny, and Givonne
+lanterns glimmered where the good Sisters of Mercy and the
+ambulance corps passed among the dead and dying--the thirty-five
+thousand dead and dying! The plateau of Illy, where the cavalry
+had charged again and again, was twinkling with thousands of
+lanterns; on the heights of Frenois Prussian torches swung,
+signalling victory.
+
+But the spectacle in the interior of the town--a town of nineteen
+thousand people, into which now were crushed seventy thousand
+frantic soldiers, was dreadful beyond description. Horror
+multiplied on horror. The two bridges and the streets were so
+jammed with horses and artillery trains that it seemed impossible
+for any human being to move another inch. In the glare of the
+flames from the houses on fire, in the middle of the smoke,
+horses, cannon, fourgons, charrettes, ambulances, piles of dead
+and dying, formed a sickening pell-mell. In this chaos starving
+soldiers, holding lighted lanterns, tore strips of flesh from
+dead horses lying in the mud, killed by the shells. Arms, broken
+and foul with blood and mud--rifles, pistols, sabres, lances,
+casques, mitrailleuses--covered the pavements.
+
+The gates of the town were closed; the water in the fortification
+moats reflected the red light from the flames. The glacis of the
+ramparts was covered by black masses of soldiers, watching the
+placing of a cordon of German sentinels around the walls.
+
+All public buildings, all the churches, were choked with wounded;
+their blood covered everything. On the steps of the churches poor
+wretches sat bandaging their torn limbs with strips of bloody
+muslin.
+
+Strange sounds came from the stone walls along the street, where
+zouaves, turcos, and line soldiers, cursing and weeping with
+rage, were smashing their rifles to pieces rather than surrender
+them. Artillerymen were spiking their guns, some ran them into
+the river, some hammered the mitrailleuses out of shape with
+pickaxes. The cavalry flung their sabres into the river, the
+cuirassiers threw away revolvers and helmets. Everywhere
+officers were breaking their swords and cursing the surrender.
+The officers of the 74th of the Line threw their sabres and even
+their decorations into the Meuse. Everywhere, too, regiments were
+burning their colours and destroying their eagles; the colonel of
+the 52d of the Line himself burned his colours in the presence of
+all the officers of the regiment, in the centre of the street.
+The 88th and 30th, the 68th, the 78th, and 74th regiments
+followed this example. "Mort aux Vaches!" howled a herd of
+half-crazed reservists, bursting into the crush. "Mort aux
+Prussiens! A la lanterne, Badinguet! Vive la Republique!"
+
+Jack turned away from the window. The tall Sister of Mercy stood
+beside the bed where Lorraine lay.
+
+Jack made a sign.
+
+"She is asleep," murmured the Sister; "you may come nearer now.
+Close the window."
+
+Before he could reach the bed the door was opened violently from
+without, and an officer entered swinging a lantern. He did not
+see Lorraine at first, but held the door open, saying to Jack:
+"Pardon, monsieur; this house is reserved. I am very sorry to
+trouble you."
+
+Another officer entered, an old man, covered to the eyes by his
+crimson gold-brocaded cap. Two more followed.
+
+"There is a sick person here," said Jack. "You cannot have the
+intention of turning her out! It is inhuman--"
+
+He stopped short, stupefied at the sight of the old officer, who
+now stood bareheaded in the lantern-light, looking at the bed
+where Lorraine lay. It was the Emperor!--her father.
+
+Slowly the Emperor advanced to the bed, his dreary eyes fixed on
+Lorraine's pale cheeks.
+
+In the silence the cries from the street outside rose clear and
+distinct:
+
+"Vive la Republique! A bas l'Empereur!"
+
+The Emperor spoke, looking straight at Lorraine: "Gentlemen, we
+cannot disturb a woman. Pray find another house."
+
+After a moment the officers began to back out, one by one,
+through the doorway. The Emperor still stood by the bed, his
+vague, inscrutable eyes fixed on Lorraine.
+
+Jack moved towards the bed, trembling. The Emperor raised his
+colourless face.
+
+"Monsieur--your sister? No--your wife?"
+
+"My promised wife, sire," muttered Jack, cold with fear.
+
+"A child," said the Emperor, softly.
+
+With a vague gesture he stepped nearer, smoothed the coverlet,
+bent closer, and touched the sleeping girl's forehead with his
+lips. Then he stood up, gray-faced, impassive.
+
+"I am an old man," he said, as though to himself. He looked at
+Jack, who now came close to him, holding out something in one
+hand. It was the steel box.
+
+"For me, monsieur?" asked the Emperor.
+
+Jack nodded. He could not speak.
+
+The Emperor took the box, still looking at Jack.
+
+There was a moment's silence, then Jack spoke: "It may be too
+late. It is a plan of a balloon--we brought it to you from
+Lorraine--"
+
+The uproar in the streets drowned his voice--"Mort a l'Empereur!
+A bas l'Empire!"
+
+A staff-officer opened the door and peered in; the Emperor
+stepped to the threshold.
+
+"I thank you--I thank you both, my children," he said. His eyes
+wandered again towards the bed; the cries in the street rang out
+furiously.
+
+"Mort a l'Empereur!"
+
+The Sister of Mercy was kneeling by the bed; Jack shivered, and
+dropped his head.
+
+When he looked up the Emperor had gone.
+
+All night long he watched at the bedside, leaning on his elbow,
+one hand shading his eyes from the candle-flame. The Sister of
+Mercy, white and worn with the duties of that terrible day, slept
+upright in an arm-chair.
+
+Dawn brought the sad notes of Prussian trumpets from the ramparts
+pealing through the devastated city; at sunrise the pavements
+rang and shook with the trample of the White Cuirassiers. A Saxon
+infantry band burst into the "Wacht am Rhine" at the Paris Gate;
+the Place Turenne vomited Uhlans. Jack sank down by the bed,
+burying his face in the sheets.
+
+The Sister of Mercy rubbed her eyes and started up. She touched
+Jack on the shoulder.
+
+"I am going to be very ill," he said, raising a face burning with
+fever. "Never mind me, but stay with her."
+
+"I understand," said the Sister, gently. "You must lie in the
+room beyond."
+
+The fever seized Jack with a swiftness incredible.
+
+"Then--swear it--by the--by the Saviour there--there on your
+crucifix!" he muttered.
+
+"I swear," she answered, softly.
+
+His mind wandered a little, but he set his teeth and rose,
+staggering to the table. He wrote something on a bit of paper
+with shaking fingers.
+
+"Send for them," he said. "You can telegraph now. They are in
+Brussels--my sister--my family--"
+
+Then, blinded by the raging fever, he made his way uncertainly to
+the bed, groped for Lorraine's hand, pressed it, and lay down at
+her feet.
+
+"Call the surgeon!" he gasped.
+
+And it was very many days before he said anything else with as
+much sense in it.
+
+"God help them!" cried the Sister of Mercy, tearfully, her thin
+hands clasped to her lips. Alone she guided Jack into the room
+beyond.
+
+Outside the Prussian bands were playing. The sun flung a long,
+golden beam through the window straight across Lorraine's breast.
+
+She stirred, and murmured in her sleep, "Jack! Jack! 'Tiens ta
+Foy!'"
+
+But Jack was past hearing now; and when, at sundown, the young
+surgeon came into his room he was nearly past all aid.
+
+"Typhoid?" asked the Sister.
+
+"The Pest!" said the surgeon, gravely.
+
+The Sister started a little.
+
+"I will stay," she murmured. "Send this despatch when you go out.
+Can he live?"
+
+They whispered together a moment, stepping softly to the door of
+the room where Lorraine lay.
+
+"It can't be helped now," said the surgeon, looking at Lorraine;
+"she'll be well enough by to-morrow; she must stay with you. The
+chances are that he will die."
+
+The trample of the White Cuirassiers in the street outside filled
+the room; the serried squadrons thundered past, steel ringing on
+steel, horses neighing, trumpets sounding the "Royal March."
+Lorraine's eyes unclosed.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+The surgeon whispered to the Sister of Mercy: "Don't forget to
+hang out the pest flag."
+
+"Jack! Jack!" wailed Lorraine, sitting up in bed. Through the
+tangled masses of her heavy hair, gilded by the morning sunshine,
+her eyes, bright with fever, roamed around the room, startled,
+despairing. Under the window the White Cuirassiers were singing
+as they rode:
+
+    "Flieg', Adler, flieg'! Wir stuermen nach,
+    Ein einig Volk in Waffen,
+    Wir stuermen nach ob tausendfach
+    Des Todes Pforten Klaffen!
+    Und fallen wir, flieg', Adler, flieg'!
+    Aus unserm Blute maechst der Sieg!
+        Vorwaerts!
+      Flieg', Adler, flieg'!
+        Victoria!
+        Victoria!
+      Mit uns ist Gott!"
+
+Terrified, turning her head from side to side, Lorraine stretched
+out her hands. She tried to speak, but her ears were filled with
+the deep voices shouting the splendid battle-hymn--
+
+    "Fly, Eagle! fly!
+    With us is God!"
+
+She crept out of bed, her bare feet white with cold, her bare
+arms flushed and burning. Blinded by the blaze of the rising sun,
+she felt her way around the room, calling, "Jack! Jack!" The
+window was open; she crept to it. The street was a surging,
+scintillating torrent of steel.
+
+    "God with us!"
+
+The White Cuirassiers shook their glittering sabres; the
+melancholy trumpet's blast swept skyward; the standards flapped.
+Suddenly the stony street trembled with the outcrash of drums;
+the cuirassiers halted, the steel-mailed squadrons parted right
+and left; a carriage drove at a gallop through the opened ranks.
+Lorraine leaned from the window; the officer in the carriage
+looked up.
+
+As the fallen Emperor's eyes met Lorraine's, she stretched out
+both little bare arms and cried: "Vive la France!"--and he was
+gone to his captivity, the White Cuirassiers galloping on every
+side.
+
+The Sister of Mercy opened the door behind, calling her.
+
+"He is dying," she said. "He is in here. Come quickly!"
+
+Lorraine turned her head. Her eyes were sweet and serene, her
+whole pale face transfigured.
+
+"He will live," she said. "I am here."
+
+"It is the pest!" muttered the Sister.
+
+Lorraine glided into the hall and unclosed the door of the silent
+room.
+
+He opened his eyes.
+
+"There is no death!" she whispered, her face against his. "There
+is neither death nor sorrow nor dying."
+
+The clamour in the street died out; the wind was still; the pest
+flag under the window hung motionless.
+
+He sighed; his eyes closed.
+
+She stretched out beside him, her body against his, her bare arms
+around his neck.
+
+His heart fluttered; stopped; fluttered; was silent; moved once
+again; ceased.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+Again his heart stirred--or was it her own?
+
+When the morning sun broke over the ramparts of Sedan she fell
+asleep in his arms, lulled by the pulsations of his heart.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE PROPHECY OF LORRAINE
+
+
+When the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn arrived in Sedan from
+Brussels the last of the French prisoners had been gone a week;
+the foul city was swept clean; the corpse-choked river no longer
+flung its dead across the shallows of the island of Glaires; the
+canal was untroubled by the ghastly freight of death that had
+collected like logs on a boom below the village of Iges.
+
+All day the tramp of Prussian patrols echoed along the stony
+streets; all day the sinister outburst of the hoarse Bavarian
+bugles woke the echoes behind the ramparts. Red Cross flags
+drooped in the sunshine from churches, from banks, from every
+barrack, every depot, every public building. The pest flags waved
+gaily over the Asylum and the little Museum. A few appeared along
+the Avenue Philippoteaux, others still fluttered on the Gothic
+church and the convent across the Viaduc de Torcy. Three miles
+away the ruins of the village of Bazeilles lay in the bright
+September sunshine. Bavarian soldiers in greasy corvee lumbered
+among the charred chaos searching for their dead.
+
+The plain of Illy, the heights of La Moncelle, Daigny, Givonne,
+and Frenois were vast cemeteries. Dredging was going on along the
+river, whither the curious small boys of Sedan betook themselves
+and stayed from morning till night watching the recovering of
+rusty sabres, bayonets, rifles, cannon, and often more grewsome
+flotsam. It was probably the latter that drew the small boys like
+flies; neither the one nor the other are easily glutted with
+horrors.
+
+The silver trumpets of the Saxon Riders were chorusing the noon
+call from the Porte de Paris when a long train crept into the
+Sedan station and pulled up in the sunshine, surrounded by a
+cordon of Hanover Riflemen. One by one the passengers passed into
+the station, where passports were shown and apathetic commissaires
+took charge of the baggage.
+
+There were no hacks, no conveyances of any kind, so the tall,
+white-bearded gentleman in black, who stood waiting anxiously for
+his passport, gave his arm to an old lady, heavily veiled, and
+bowed down with the sudden age that great grief brings. Beside
+her walked a young girl, also in deep mourning.
+
+A man on crutches directed them to the Place Turenne, hobbling
+after them to murmur his thanks for the piece of silver the girl
+slipped into his hands.
+
+"The number on the house is 31," he repeated; "the pest flag is
+no longer outside."
+
+"The pest?" murmured the old man under his breath.
+
+At that moment a young girl came out of the crowded station,
+looking around her anxiously.
+
+"Lorraine!" cried the white-haired man.
+
+She was in his arms before he could move. Madame de Morteyn clung
+to her, too, sobbing convulsively; Dorothy hid her face in her
+black-edged handkerchief.
+
+After a moment Lorraine stepped back, drying her sweet eyes.
+Dorothy kissed her again and again.
+
+"I--I don't see why we should cry," said Lorraine, while the
+tears ran down her flushed cheeks. "If he had died it would have
+been different."
+
+After a silence she said again:
+
+"You will see. We are not unhappy--Jack and I. Monsieur Grahame
+came yesterday with Rickerl, who is doing very well."
+
+"Rickerl here, too?" whispered Dorothy.
+
+Lorraine slipped an arm through hers, looking back at the old
+people.
+
+"Come," she said, serenely, "Jack is able to sit up." Then in
+Dorothy's ear she whispered, "I dare not tell them--you must."
+
+"Dare not tell them--"
+
+"That--that I married Jack--this morning."
+
+The girls' arms pressed each other.
+
+German officers passed and repassed, rigid, supercilious, staring
+at the young girls with that half-sneering, half-impudent,
+near-sighted gaze peculiar to the breed. Their insolent eyes,
+however, dropped before the clear, mild glance of the old
+vicomte.
+
+His face was furrowed by care and grief, but he held his white
+head high and stepped with an elasticity that he had not known in
+years. Defeat, disaster, sorrow, could not weaken him; he was of
+the old stock, the real beau-sabreur, a relic of the old regime,
+that grew young in the face of defeat, that died of a broken
+heart at the breath of dishonour. There had been no dishonour, as
+he understood it--there had been defeat, bitter defeat. That was
+part of his trade, to face defeat nobly, courteously, chivalrously;
+to bow with a smile on his lips to the more skilful adversary who
+had disarmed him.
+
+Bitterness he knew, when the stiff Prussian officers clanked past
+along the sidewalk of this French city; despair he never dreamed
+of. As for dishonour--that is the cry of the pack, the refuge of
+the snarling mob yelping at the bombastic vociferations of some
+mean-souled demagogue; and in Paris there were many, and the pack
+howled in the Republic at the crack of the lash.
+
+"Lady Hesketh is here, too," said Lorraine. "She appears to be a
+little reconciled to her loss. Dorothy, it breaks my heart to see
+Rickerl. He lies in his room all day, silent, ghastly white. He
+does not believe that Alixe--did what she did--and died there at
+Morteyn. Oh, I am glad you are here. Jack says you must tell
+Rickerl nothing about Sir Thorald; nobody is to know that--now
+all is ended."
+
+"Yes," said Dorothy.
+
+When they came to the house, Archibald Grahame and Lady Hesketh
+met them at the door. Molly Hesketh had wept a great deal at
+first. She wept still, but more moderately.
+
+"My angel child!" she said, taking Dorothy to her bosom. Grahame
+took off his hat.
+
+The old people hurried to Jack's room above; Dorothy, guided by
+Lorraine, hastened to Rickerl; Archibald Grahame looked genially
+at Molly and said:
+
+"Now don't, Lady Hesketh--I beg you won't. Try to be cheerful. We
+must find something to divert you."
+
+"I don't wish to," said Molly.
+
+"There is a band concert this afternoon in the Place Turenne,"
+suggested Grahame.
+
+"I'll never go," said Molly; "I haven't anything fit to wear."
+
+In the room above, Madame de Morteyn sat with Jack's hand in
+hers, smiling through her tears. The old vicomte stood beside
+her, one arm clasping Lorraine's slender waist.
+
+"Children! children! wicked ones!" he repeated, "how dare you
+marry each other like two little heathen?"
+
+"It comes, my dear, from your having married an American wife,"
+said Madame de Morteyn, brushing away the tears; "they do those
+things in America."
+
+"America!" grumbled the vicomte, perfectly delighted--"a nice
+country for young savages. Lorraine, you at least should have
+known better."
+
+"I did," said Lorraine; "I ought to have married Jack long ago."
+
+The vicomte was speechless; Jack laughed and pressed his aunt's
+hands.
+
+They spoke of Morteyn, of their hope that one day they might
+rebuild it. They spoke, too, of Paris, cuirassed with steel,
+flinging defiance to the German floods that rolled towards the
+walls from north, south, west, and east.
+
+"There is no death," said Lorraine; "the years renew their life.
+We shall all live. France will be reborn."
+
+"There is no death," repeated the old man, and kissed her on the
+brow.
+
+So they stood there in the sunlight, tearless, serene, moved by the
+prophecy of their child Lorraine. And Lorraine sat beside her husband,
+her fathomless blue eyes dreaming in the sunlight--dreaming of her
+Province of Lorraine, of the Honour of France, of the Justice of
+God--dreaming of love and the sweetness of her youth, unfolding like
+a fresh rose at dawn, there on her husband's breast.
+
+
+ THE END
+
+
+
+
+ BOOKS BY
+    ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+    LORRAINE. Post 8vo                             $1.25
+
+    THE CONSPIRATORS. Ill'd. Post 8vo               1.50
+
+    A YOUNG MAN IN A HURRY. Ill'd. Post 8vo         1.50
+
+    CARDIGAN. Illustrated. Post 8vo                 1.50
+
+    THE MAID-AT-ARMS. Illustrated. Post 8vo         1.50
+
+    THE KING IN YELLOW. Post 8vo                    1.50
+
+    THE MAIDS OF PARADISE. Ill'd. Post 8vo          1.50
+
+    IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN. Ill'd. Post 8vo       1.50
+
+    OUTDOORLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net      1.50
+
+    ORCHARDLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net      1.50
+
+    RIVERLAND. Ill'd in Colors. Sq. 8vo, net        1.50
+
+    THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE. 16mo                     1.25
+
+    HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lorraine, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORRAINE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 24181.txt or 24181.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/8/24181/
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/24181.zip b/24181.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83d6976
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24181.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca3234e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #24181 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24181)