The fear of living

by Henry Bordeaux

PART II

CHAPTER I
THIRTEEN AT TABLE

“We might perhaps go in to dinner,” M. Dulaurens timidly ventured to suggest.

Upon the look which his wife threw at him he left the immediate neighborhood of the fireplace, where some enormous oak-logs were burning, and modestly seated himself at the side. Turning to her guests, Madame Dulaurens smiled and showed them a calendar with the date February 25th inscribed thereon in huge letters. Mademoiselle de Songeon, old and dried-up, drew nearer and seemed to take a special interest in the flight of time. In reality her only thought was to get possession of the corner near the fire. She had just come back from Rome. In winter she paid attention only to the southern shrines; and to accomplish this last pilgrimage she had had to seize hastily the cattle of a farmer whose rent was in arrears. While warming her large feet she considered the calendar.

“But it says the twenty-fifth of February, 1898!” she exclaimed after reading it, “and we are now at the twenty-fifth of February, 1901. You are exactly three years behind the time!”

All the ladies except Alice got up to confirm this. The calendar was passed from hand to hand. Madame Orlandi, who was holding Pistache to her heart—an old, fat, bald Pistache, whose heavy eyelids fell over bleary eyes—cried out astonished and proud of her own penetration.

“Oh, I know! You have kept it at the date of your daughter’s wedding. To-day is the third anniversary. How clever and delicate your motherly love is! You are so sympathetic, dear Madame Dulaurens. I too love to keep souvenirs.”

“I’ll wager you don’t remember the date of my wedding, Mamma,” said Isabelle, now Madame Landeau.

“Oh, you dreadful Isabelle! You’re always ready with a jest,” said her mother.

And, with diplomacy which lacked subtlety, the Italian countess bent over her pug and covered him with caresses.

Seeing all her guests busy, Madame Dulaurens threw a hasty glance at the clock and saw that it was a quarter to eight. Dinner was ordered for seven, and in the provinces punctuality is strictly observed.

“My dear little countess, did you see anything of Clément this afternoon?” she asked her daughter, who sat silent and absent-minded.

“No, Mamma,” answered Alice, in a low voice.

Four or five months after Marcel Guibert’s departure, the despairing Alice, crushed and submissive, had married, at her clever mother’s bidding, Count Armand de Marthenay, then Lieutenant of the 4th Dragoons at Chambéry. For the third time they were celebrating her “happiness.” Her maidenly languor and supple slenderness had changed to depression and leanness. Her limpid eyes and the drooping corners of her mouth told of profound and habitual sorrow. Without losing their refinement her features had altered. Through a greater prominence of the cheek-bones, a more pronounced thinness of the nose, a fading of color in the cheeks, the old expression of youth and innocence had given place to a sad little air of fragile resignation. She bore the marks of a sorrow which filled her life and of which her husband was certainly quite aware. To be convinced of this, it was sufficient to look at the heavy, pimply visage behind her—the vacant face of a man prematurely worn out.

The house at Chambéry where the Dulaurenses lived in the winter reminded one in its massive structure and the pillars of its staircase of the showy palaces in Genoa the Magnificent. The drawing-room looked on to the Place Saint-Léger in the centre of the town. Ten lamps lighted up the vast room that evening, but were not sufficient to show off the fine old high-timbered ceiling.

Madame Dulaurens anxiously left her daughter, and drawing back the window-curtain looked out into the square, which she saw by the gas-jets flickering in the keen frosty air, was quite empty. She drew down the blind and looked at the party. They seem so interested in their talk that she decided to wait a few minutes longer.

“Madame Orlandi, who is always late, came too soon to-day,” she thought rather spitefully.

Round the fireplace the women were listening to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who was describing the catacombs at Rome with the devotion of a catechumen. Madame Orlandi, artlessly devoid of morality and unskilled at suitable comparisons, said she preferred the ruins at Pompeii, because the pictures there were so diverting. Mesdames de Lavernay and d’Amberlard, mature and solemn women, had no opinion at all. Their aristocracy was very pleasing to Madame Dulaurens, who gladly advertised their origin. They were well-bred, and valued existence according to the number and the importance of the invitations that they managed to procure for themselves. Their husbands, a pair of practised parasites, had retained a distinguished air from the old royalist days. They had the right prejudices, were sincerely ignorant of modern life, and sought pleasure unceasingly. Baron d’Amberlard had high color and liked good living; the Marquis de Lavernay, still young in spite of his white hair, reserved his polite speeches concerning feminine beauty.

The latter had just come from the Court of Sessions and was giving a group of men his impressions of the jury.

“You condemn a thief and let a child-murderer go scot-free,” said M. Dulaurens. But the nervous little man hastened to add: “Please note that I am not criticising you.”

M. de Lavernay laughed unreservedly.

“Ah, my dear fellow, if we sentenced child-murderers we should never have any servants.”

“What a mania there is for having children!” cried M. d’Amberlard. “One’s family should be governed by the state of one’s finances. What do you think about it, M. Landeau?”

M. Landeau admitted that he had thought nothing about it. As a millionaire, he was always fighting terrible battles with labor so as to be able to pour a golden rain upon his wife and at last with a triumphant cheque to touch her proud heart. She played with him much in the same way a tamer does with the beast that roars, threatens, and arches its back. Under the pretext of filial duty towards Madame Orlandi (who did not care at all what she did) she had refused to follow him to Lyons; so twice a week he came to see her in the splendid villa he had built for her on the Cognin road. It was an overworked man with bent shoulders and pale face that she dragged with her into society. There, tamely growling, he admired Isabelle’s beauty and listened joylessly to her bell-like laughter, as she showed her white and shining teeth.

M. d’Amberlard, stifling a yawn, began to fidget.

“I’m afraid the dinner will be spoilt. It has been kept waiting too long,” he whispered to the Marquis de Lavernay, who made no answer but hastened to an empty seat beside Madame Landeau, where he was seen shaking his long horse-like head in his efforts to please.

Armand de Marthenay, motionless and silent up to now, overheard this and woke from the torpor into which he had sunk.

“It is all Clément’s fault. He must have had a smash up.”

He spoke so loudly that everybody heard and turned towards him. The long wait had become unbearable to all. The hands of the clock pointed to eight.

Again Madame Dulaurens tried to hide her anxiety. “Clément,” she said, “is very careful. But these cars are dangerous at night. One can so easily run into something in the dark.”

“Where did he go?” asked the women.

“That is just what is worrying me. He left for La Chênaie at five o’clock. It would hardly take him ten minutes, it is only two miles. And he hasn’t come back.”

Anxious as ever for peace, M. Dulaurens assured them that nothing had ever happened to Clément.

“Not to Clément,” Marthenay sarcastically put in. “He is a young devil! He is always running over something,—hens and dogs, and the other day it was an old woman.”

“We paid her,” said Madame Dulaurens indignantly. “And paid her very well indeed.”

“She is limping about on your money.”

M. de Lavernay gallantly, and without any suspicion of irony, explained to his hostess that there were unfortunate creatures who were in the habit of throwing themselves in front of motor cars, so as to make money out of the owners. All except Mademoiselle de Songeon, who hated progress, were in favor of this fashionable sport and were busy defending it when Clément entered, looking very jolly and with a red face, his fur coat covered with frost which shone in the light.

Madame Dulaurens rushed up to him and scolded him well instead of satisfying her desire to kiss him. Since her daughter’s marriage she had insisted on playing a much larger part in her son’s life. He made no attempt to excuse himself, but laughed, melting like an icicle all the time.

“Oh, well, we got stuck at Cognin. Such a bad business!”

M. d’Amberlard tossed his head furiously.

“A nice business indeed,” he said. “Dinner kept waiting! He is talking very coolly about it, the young scoundrel.” He was still raging inwardly when Madame Dulaurens took his arm to go in to dinner. Clément made as though to offer his to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who stared at him scornfully and ordered him to go and dry himself.

“You are quite right, Mademoiselle de Songeon,” he replied philosophically. “But you aren’t very kind! I shall go and dry myself and change too.”

He disappeared, returning in his dinner-jacket as they were serving the filet of beef with mushrooms. With all the coolness of the rising generation, he asked loudly for soup and fish and made no attempt to make up for his delay.

As the courses succeeded one another harmoniously, the guests’ pleasure grew and the conversation became general. Clément, having satisfied his appetite, was burning to take part in it and attract the attention of the table. He watched his opportunity and called across the room: “I have some great news for you.”

“What is it?” they cried on all sides.

“I heard it at Cognin. I had it from my chauffeur, who heard it from the schoolmaster.”

“Cognin news,” said Isabelle ironically. “It will interest the whole of France!”

“At the news I bring you

Your lovely eyes will weep,”

Clément hummed to the air of “Malbrough.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed everybody.

“You may laugh, Madame, but my news will interest the whole of France.”

“Then tell us what it is,” cried several voices at once.

Every eye was on the young man. He enjoyed the momentary superiority which his possession of news gave him. Holding the whole table at his mercy he had succeeded in gaining his ends. They were now serving truffled galantine “des gourmets” as it was called, the glory of a Toulouse specialist. In front of each guest costly orchids of various hues blossomed in a tall Murano vase. It was Alice’s idea to have this decoration, which she had read of in a society paper.

“Well?” said Madame Dulaurens, speaking in the name of all.

Clément could contain himself no longer. He had had time enough to appreciate his own tactlessness, but with the utmost coolness he said: “Well, Commander Guibert is dead!”

This news, dropped like a bombshell in the middle of a gay dinner-party, all but perfect in its arrangements, amid the warmth, the lights, the charming flowers, the dazzling jewels, the lovely dresses, and the general cheerfulness, seemed almost an impropriety. It would be only the unmannerly Clément, coarsened by sport, who could be guilty of such a blunder. Why, the very introduction of the subject of death seemed to imply that the pleasures of the evening were not everlasting; and does not the whole art of enjoying the present consist in supposing it will last forever? And then if it had only been the death of some unknown person, they could have passed it over! But Commander Guibert could not be so quickly disposed of; the common knowledge of his origin, his personality, and his brilliant career prevented his name from dropping out of the conversation. Stupefaction reigned at the table.

Isabelle was the first to speak, and it was to cast doubts on the truth of the story.

“But it is not possible! Last year we might have believed you. He was taking part in the Moureau Expedition to Africa. He was travelling in unknown and dangerous countries. But he came back safe and sound, and famous as well. Now he is commander and an officer of the Legion of Honour at thirty-two. He is our great man. You are all jealous of him, so you think you will just get rid of him.”

She spoke with animation, turning from right to left in her chair, as if inviting all the guests to witness her anger. On Clément’s unhappy remark she had looked at Alice and saw the blood leave her cheeks as though she were dying. This mortal pallor extended even to her hands, which shook nervously, hardly distinguishable from the white cloth. Isabelle had immediately turned the attention on herself with her hasty words.

Clément made a slight gesture.

“No, he is dead. I admire him as much as you do, but he is dead.” And he repeated this word, which should never be spoken in a dining-room.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake do be quiet,” murmured Madame Orlandi, who had just noticed that they were thirteen at table, counting twice over in the hope that she was mistaken. Solemnly Mademoiselle de Songeon exclaimed: “May God rest his soul in peace.”

“Did he die in France?” asked M. Dulaurens. “The Expedition came back a month or two ago.”

M. d’Amberlard, quite unmoved, was enjoying a truffle that he kept on his plate so as to reserve its taste to the last, and M. de Lavernay kept his eyes fixed on Isabelle’s corsage as she bent forward.

M. de Marthenay put down his glass, which he kept emptying constantly.

“I met the Commander,” he said, “scarcely three weeks ago. He was getting out at the station. I went up to him but he seemed not to know me.”

“Probably because he didn’t want to,” Isabelle could not refrain from remarking. She hated Alice’s husband, who made persistent love to her when he had lost at cards and had nothing else to do. And to prevent any more allusions she added: “No doubt he has a contempt for officers who have resigned.”

M. de Marthenay had left the army the year before.

“He had a contempt, you mean,” said Clément cruelly. He would not allow them to rob him of his dead, and when he had reconquered the general attention he gave a few details.

“My brother-in-law is quite right,” he said. “Commander Guibert did come back to Savoy last month. He stayed two days with his mother and sister at Le Maupas and then returned to his barracks at Timmimun, in Southern Algiers.”

“At the entrance to Touât,” explained the ex-dragoon, who since he left the army was exceeding keen about all military questions. “But General Lervières passed Timmimun to-day, so the Berbers and the Doui-Menia must have attacked him from the rear.”

Young Dulaurens stuck his monocle in his eye and stared impertinently at Marthenay.

“Armand,” said he, “I don’t recognise you. Have you gone in for strategy?”

With another look at her friend’s bloodless face, Isabelle made a fresh interruption.

“I do not understand. He had scarcely returned from crossing the Sahara, a trip which lasted eighteen months or two years, I don’t quite remember which. After these expeditions one generally has a long leave. Then he evidently took no rest? He went back at once to this expedition? Because, if he is dead, he must have been killed in battle.”

Raising his eyebrows, Clément let his eyeglass fall.

“When a man is a hero he is not one by halves. He asked for this post on account of the danger.”

M. de Lavernay, bending towards his neighbor, whispered in her ear:

“I like to see you get excited. Your cheeks color and your eyes flash.”

But it was not at either her cheeks or her eyes that he was looking. The impatient Isabelle cut him short with that sharpness which marriage had not cured.

“Do be quiet, you old sinner!” she cried.

Alice had taken up her bouquet of orchids and was smelling it, half hiding her paleness. At last Isabelle, giving full vent to the uneasiness which had tortured her for the last few minutes, said,

“And Captain Berlier? He was coming back from the Sahara too. He belonged to the same regiment as Commander Guibert. Had he gone with him to Timmimun?”

Did Clément Dulaurens guess her anxiety from the tone of her voice? Too often had he suffered from her sarcastic remarks not to take a cruel pleasure in tormenting her a little now.

“Yes, that is true,” he said. “Jean Berlier must have been there as well.”

“Now what do you know exactly?” demanded Isabelle imperiously.

“Tell us what you heard,” put in Madame Dulaurens. Annoyed at the course of the conversation, she had given up all hope of diverting it and was resigned to hearing the whole story.

“Well, here you are! While they were mending my car at Cognin I went into the Café National. There were only the mayor, the schoolmaster, and three or four municipal councillors there. When they saw me they looked at me mysteriously. ‘Hallo,’ I said to them, ‘are you holding a meeting?’ ‘No, we are just chatting,’ the mayor said. And that was as far as we got.”

“And then?”

“That was all that concerned me. I went out, and sent my chauffeur to have a drink in his turn. He is very thick with the schoolmaster. They are both anarchists.”

“Anarchists!” repeated Mademoiselle de Songeon wrathfully.

“Certainly. Everybody is nowadays. It is the fashion. My chauffeur came back. ‘I know what it is,’ he said. ‘They have had a wire from the Minister about Commander Guibert’s death in Africa.’ ‘Are you sure? I said. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘He was killed by savages defending a town called Timou—Timmimun?—that’s it. Then of course they had to tell his people the news. They were very puzzled how to do it. At last they sent a policeman.’”

“A policeman?” said M. Dulaurens, a stickler for legalities. “But the mayor should have taken the fatal telegram in person.”

“The Guiberts are conservatives,” said M. de Lavernay. “These republicans will not trouble themselves in such cases.”

“But the Guiberts are not interested in politics.”

“The grandfather was a councillor, of conservative views, and the father was mayor of Cognin. That is quite enough.”

Madame Dulaurens was trying to catch a glimpse of her daughter, who was separated from her by a candelabrum. Alice’s orchids were drooping under the warm rain of her tears. In the general confusion no one had seen her cry.

“How did he die?” questioned one of the ladies.

“At the head of his men—after the victory—with a bullet in his forehead. I quote the telegram that my man read.”

“Did he receive the last sacrament?” asked Mademoiselle de Songeon shaking her grey head.

The ever-correct M. Dulaurens summed up the affair. “He is a great loss to his country.”

“Yes,” added his wife, in a noble impulse of eloquence. “We will honor his glorious memory. We will get up a memorial service whose magnificence shall astonish all Chambéry. It is the duty of our class to show France how genuine merit must be recognised and rewarded, at a time when mediocrity has taken possession of the country, when envious equality drags it down to the lowest level.” She had read this last sentence that very morning in a leading article of the Gaulois.

Alice, surprised to hear all this, thought in her sorrow, “Why then, did she refuse to let me give myself to him?” And Isabelle was silent, thinking of Jean Berlier, whose fate was still unknown.

Madame Orlandi, forgetting Pistache for a minute, noticed how abstracted her daughter was. She looked at her with loving admiration and praised herself for the depth of her maternal affection. In an outburst in which the thought of self did not swallow up all pity she expressed her concern for Madame Guibert.

“Does his mother know?” she asked. And she stopped confusedly, as though she felt herself guilty of a scandal. All eyes turned to Clément Dulaurens. The young man answered in a free and easy way, the bad taste of which was due rather to his youth than to any lack of feeling.

“She must know all by now. As I was coming home I met her driving back to Le Maupas in her old cart. She was passing under a gas lamp; I recognised her quite well, I had to go slowly on account of my damaged car.”

These words brought a dreadful feeling of actuality into the company. It seemed as if the cold outside air had suddenly frozen this comfortable dining-room.

Instinctively M. d’Amberlard, who was completely bored, examined the windows to see if they were open. A shudder passed through the assembly, all of whom were haunted by the same vision: the picture of an old woman, already heavily tried by life’s sorrows, going home through the snow, contented and unsuspecting, to that home where news of death awaited her.

This inevitable catastrophe which was about to take place—which was perhaps taking place at this very moment—came home to them all even more than the glorious faraway death of Commander Guibert on African soil.

A sob from Alice broke the oppressive silence. In a frightened voice Isabelle murmured: “She knows by now.”

The mothers all broke down unreservedly, and Madame Dulaurens promptly resolved to comfort and console the poor woman in an early visit.

With all these solemn faces round him, Clément, who loved gaiety at table, at last recognised his thoughtlessness and admitted to himself, “Now I’ve done it!” His father, a slave to punctilio, without paying any attention to the rest of the conversation, returned to the discussion of an accessory point which he had not sufficiently developed.

“The mayor of Cognin should have gone to them and broken the news delicately, instead of just rudely sending a policeman,” he stated.

Profiting by the interposition of this enlightening remark, M. d’Amberlard thought it time to unburden himself of a protest which he had been keeping back with difficulty for some time.

“All our regrets can make no change,” he said, “and we might as well talk about something more cheerful. When I was in Paris I always used to ask if a play ended happily before I took seats for it. A party, like a comedy, should avoid all gloomy subjects.”

The Marquis de Lavernay quite agreed with this, and so death was forgotten. Champagne filled the gilded glasses. Flowers spread their perfume over the table which was laden with baskets of preserved fruits. The jewels of the women sparkled in the lights. It was a pleasure to recover the former luxurious and comfortable atmosphere which the unhappy news had disturbed. Alice and Isabelle were left alone in their distress.

The guests all drank the health of the young de Marthenay couple, whose wedding anniversary was being celebrated, and a move was made to the drawing-room. Alice, unable to bear it any longer, rushed to her mother’s room. In the darkness she gave way to her grief. She had been able to smile bravely during the toast they had drunk in her honor, with its allusion to her “enviable happiness.” Her happiness! She had looked in vain for it both in the present and in the past, and how could she expect it in the future? With the clear sight which the great shocks of destiny give us when we expect the bitterness of life to crush us, she lived again despairingly through the last years of her life. In a rapid succession of vivid pictures she saw her sad days pass before her eyes.

She had not wished to marry Armand de Marthenay: it was so constantly forced upon her that at last she had yielded. She came down the aisle of the church in her wedding dress on the arm of the husband she had not chosen. And since then? Could she look back upon one hour of joy, that deep, pure joy that her childish soul had imagined? The first days of her married life had been deadened by a kind of merciful stupor, like a fog which hides the desolation of a blasted plain. She forgot to feel she had a heart. Her husband still retained the good humor of a man with something to do. He rode, he fulfilled his military duties, he received his friends, he got up parties. She allowed herself to be occupied by her new household duties and by the many society calls. Instead of the husband of her dreams, she had a companion proud of her fortune and her pretty face, a man without much delicacy of feeling and with no great intelligence, not even clever, but possessed of a good digestion and an idiotic fatuity which enabled him to admire himself unceasingly all his life. When her little girl was born she thought she had at last found the oblivion for which at times she still sought.

From this tolerable time in her existence her thoughts travelled on to the present, which was always with her. After a series of unforeseen incidents, the regiment stationed at Chambéry had been designated for a distant Eastern garrison. M. de Marthenay tried to exchange, but it was impossible. He had either to go away and leave Savoy, or to spoil his career. At the prospect of this departure Madame Dulaurens had shown such violent grief that the young wife was foolish enough to remind her husband of the solemn promise he had made her when they became engaged. As a man of honor the dragoon sacrificed himself. In twenty-four hours he had resigned. He then gave way to his idle instincts, which a soldier’s life had kept in check. And from that time he went steadily from bad to worse.

He began by becoming a constant habitué of the cafés. In summer he was a member of the Club at Aix-le-Bains and of the Villa des Fleurs. He began to play baccarat and won. While his wife was slowly recovering after their child’s birth he was engaged in low adventures, and reports were spread about concerning him by the visitors to these watering-places. One day Alice learned of his base unfaithfulness. She had kept her innocence after her marriage and learnt the cruel fact of unfaithfulness before she well knew what unfaithfulness meant. She rebelled against it, but instead of finding the repentance which she expected and could have pardoned, she received only this humiliating answer:

“You wanted me to resign the service and I resigned. You have only yourself to blame if I try to make up for the loss of my career in my own way. A man must have something to do. I sacrificed the object of my life for your sake. What have you given up in return?”

Overwhelmed at his reproaches she retired into herself from that time and wrapped herself in a mournful silence. She was not resigned, but she followed the bent of her passive nature.

Losses at cards soured M. de Marthenay’s character. After the season, idle and unsettled, he began to drink. His wife saw him try to captivate her friend Isabelle before her very eyes, and was so discouraged that she noted his failure with indifference. Thus she was obliged to follow the only too rapid phases of his fall, of which she was perhaps indirectly the cause. She could not shut her eyes to it, yet felt the impossibility of saving him.

Thinking over all the details of her miserable past, Alice felt astonished that she suffered so much. She had grown accustomed to living amid such thoughts. Their dull monotony was now familiar to her. But to-day a new sorrow had come to reinforce their bitterness. Fresh melancholy pictures rose up in her memory as if to remind her of the part she had played in her own destiny. She remembered the day when Paule Guibert in the oakwood had stirred her heart with an unknown desire. She saw once more the vivid light of the setting sun through the trees and heaven descending upon her transfigured soul, saw Marcel’s tall figure bending down to her with his words of love. And then ... then she saw him lying dead in a distant, sun-scorched land, a bullet through his head, pale and terrible, his reproachful eyes fixed upon her. Oh, those eyes of agony! How well she knew their look! They had gazed on her like that when she had kept that obstinate silence—that wicked silence which had ruined their happiness. Now in this dark room she vainly hid her face so as not to see them. “Marcel, forgive me!” Distracted and trembling, her love made supplication to him. “Don’t look at me like that! I did not know. I was a child. That is my excuse. Yes, I was a coward, I was afraid to strive for you, to fight for my love. I was afraid to wait, to love, to suffer, to live. But God has punished me—oh, how cruelly! Close your eyes and forgive me....”

Frightened at the sound of her own voice, she laid her hand on her bosom. She was choking as on the day her child was born. At last in her broken heart rose up the knowledge of life in all its strength and dignity. Her soul had won its freedom, and she loved Marcel as he had loved her, nobly and proudly. For her sake, to seek forgetfulness, he had travelled over Africa and met glory and death. Perhaps, as he fell, he had recalled her face. That she might have been his last thought, though that thought might be but disdainful, was now her most ardent prayer. Comparing her existence with the one she had thrust from her she regretted not being a hero’s widow instead of sharing the dull life of a man incapable of inspiring or feeling love.

The door opened and Madame Dulaurens, anxious at her daughter’s long absence, called in the darkness.

“Alice, are you there? Answer me.”

“Yes, what do you want?”

Madame Dulaurens was surprised at the unexpected hardness of tone. She went back to the lighted corridor and returned with a lamp. She found her daughter lying motionless and white, and recognised traces of tears on her hastily dried cheeks. She sat down beside her at once and tried to take her in her arms. But Alice shrank from her embrace. All the mother in Madame Dulaurens was aroused, and she winced with pain.

“Dearest,” she said, “you are suffering. Tell me your trouble. I am your mother. What the matter to-night?”

Although her masterful nature was irritated by this rebellion, she understood that now she must not put pressure on her child. She covered her with kisses and overwhelmed her with kind words, but it was all in vain.

“What is the matter with you to-night?” she repeated.

“Nothing,” said Alice in a firm voice, which her mother did not recognise.

In the face of such profundity of sorrow Madame Dulaurens hesitated, not knowing which to ask of the two questions that burned her lips.

“Is it about your husband?” she asked at last.

She had guessed that Commander Guibert’s death had something to do with these tears. But she did not dare to allude to the secret which she had once treated so lightly.

“Yes,” whispered Alice, weakening again. And they both accepted this lie, by which they were spared the reproach which no passing of time could wipe away. Both were thinking of Marcel Guibert and they talked about Armand de Marthenay.

Alice began to complain of her joyless life.

“We were wrong to ask him to resign.”

“Oh, my dearest,” said her mother, “how you hurt me! So you would have agreed to desert me?”

“Was it better that my husband should desert me?”

“I should have died,” exclaimed Madame Dulaurens energetically, “if you had had to go. You will never know how I love you and how I want to make you happy!”

She spoke in entirely good faith. Deceived by her daughter’s words, she had regained the serenity which the memory of death had almost destroyed. Taught by her own experience, she was not in the least surprised at the disillusionment of Armand’s neglected wife. Was it not the lot of most women? And had she not, what so many women lacked, the consolation of a warm motherly heart to fly to?

But Alice saw another mother, who at this hour was draining her cup of sorrow, a poor old woman by whose side she longed to be, where she would have been if she had listened to the dictates of her heart. Like all weaklings who revolt, she went beyond the bounds and did not stop short of injustice to her own mother.

They looked at each other. Madame Dulaurens understood at last and felt a deep anguish. A gulf yawned between her and her daughter. There had suddenly and relentlessly been revealed to both of them the difference of their two natures, the one imperious and under the sway of worldly prejudices, the other shrinking, docile, and under no sway but that of the heart.

When they went back to the drawing-room a few minutes later, calm, and leaning on each other’s arms, nobody could have suspected the domestic drama which had just parted them asunder.

Isabelle was leading the conversation, talking loudly, making jokes, and showing her white teeth. And from time to time she looked at her surroundings, at her husband, at her admirers, M. de Marthenay, M. de Lavernay, and particularly at Clément Dulaurens, with eyes full of hatred and scorn. She detested them all, because they could not tell her that Jean Berlier was still alive.

She saw that Alice had been crying and envied her the reality of her sorrow. When the time for departure came, as her friend went to the hall to help her on with her furs, she took advantage of their being alone to throw her arms round her neck, and at last giving way to the grief which she had choked back all the evening she whispered a few wild words, which were understood at once.

“My poor Alice! What cowards we have been! Oh, why can we not be allowed to mourn for our dead this evening? Our lives belonged to them, and we denied it. Let us weep for them and for our dull existence which might have been so bright!”

“Yes,” said Alice, “sorrow itself is more to be desired than the fate that is ours.”

CHAPTER II
THE POLICEMAN’S MESSAGE

The discussion at the Café National at Cognin had been long and animated. When the telegram from the Minister of War had been brought to the town-hall, the municipal schoolmaster was on the doorstep dismissing his pupils. He took the envelope from the hands of the messenger, who was puffing out his cheeks to make his importance felt.

“Official and post free! For the Mayor.”

“Give it to me,” said the schoolmaster cautiously. And he immediately tore open the envelope, to show the messenger who was the real head of the community. He read the words twice aloud, with the Minister’s name at the bottom:

“The Mayor, Cognin, near Chambéry. Inform Guibert family immediately decease of Commander Guibert while defending Timmimun, Algiers. Shot through forehead after repulsing assault.”

He did not grasp it the first time he read it because, taking everything to himself as most people do, he expected to discover something of a personal nature in this government communication, perhaps the exemption of his son, who had just drawn his lot and was trying to escape military service. His disappointment prevailed over his pity.

After having told his wife and his deputy about the news, he put on his hat and ran over to the Café National, kept by Mayor Simon himself. The latter was the successor to the post to Dr. Guibert, who had been excluded from the Corporation a short time before his death, the very year that he had gratuitously attended almost all the population when attacked by typhoid fever. He was a country lawyer, an intemperate boaster, who drank with all his customers and treated his bar as a political committee-room. Ignorant and incapable, but genial-hearted, he left all his duties to the schoolmaster, who was filled with false teachings and who dazzled him by his socialistic and anti-militarist theories which he culled from pernicious propagandist pamphlets. In public he treated him condescendingly, but he obeyed him humbly at the town-hall.

“Well, Master,” he cried as he saw him come in, “you have forgotten your ferule!”

Proud of knowing this rare word, he used it on every occasion to poke fun at his assistant.

“There is some news,” said Maillard mysteriously gliding up to the counter. And the Mayor and his assistant gravely shook their heads in concert. It was important that they should impress two honest customers who sat at the end of the room, with their whips slung over their shoulders, sipping absinthe before going out again into the bitter cold of the clear winter evening.

After informing himself of the contents of the telegram, the Mayor shook his red head.

“It must be done. These Guiberts are people of importance. I’ll put on my frock-coat and go up to Le Maupas.”

He had been in the militia during the campaign of 1870 but his regiment never reached the front. From that terrible year he had learned the fear of war and a respect for courage. Flattered at having received an official telegram, he also felt pride in the heroism of his fellow-townsman abroad. He called his daughters to tell them the secret that the schoolmaster’s wife had already told everybody.

While he was strutting about, the ferret-faced Maillard looked at him and cackled.

“Let’s drink a glass of something,” said the Mayor. “Nothing can be done well without a drink. I shall have time. One always arrives early enough when carrying a message of death. But what do you find to laugh at, you imp of ill omen?”

“I was wondering, Mr. Mayor, if we were republicans or not. The Minister treats you like a dog, you the head of the community. ‘Inform the Guibert family!’ Hurry up and do it. For whom is all this fuss? For a lot of reactionaries, who defied you at the town-hall. They are not so particular when there’s only a man of the people concerned.”

“He was a commander,” observed the hotelkeeper, who could not forget his respect for rank.

“Isn’t a soldier’s blood worth as much as an officer’s?” retorted the schoolmaster in a professorial tone. “I suppose that the equality which is proclaimed on all our public buildings is a lie then? Everything is for the gold lace? The others are just food for powder! It was well worth while having the revolution only to re-establish caste a hundred years later!”

It is imperfect education that is responsible for these bitter, envious, aspiring beings, who find it hard to tolerate superiority of any kind. Before his weak boasting Mayor, the little ill-natured man gave free scope to his hatred of the authorities, a hatred which was increased by the coming entry of his son into military service.

Simon’s face grew red. It was a sign that his brain was working.

“No,” he said, “I can’t get out of it. It is an order.”

“Only the Minister of the Interior can give you orders. You aren’t amenable to military law.”

“But, good God! Madame Guibert will have to be told.”

“I don’t deny it. Only it isn’t necessary that you should put yourself out about it. A Mayor is not at everybody’s beck and call. When a Mayor bestirs himself it is the State which acts. You send a deputy, or even a councillor, where enemies of the Republic are concerned. Devil take it! One is either a republican or one isn’t, Mr. Mayor!”

“Mélanie, fetch us a pint!” cried the Mayor, torn between his natural duty and his duty as a republican which was being instilled into him. “And send the boy to look for Randon, Pitet, and Détraz.”

These three were the most influential councillors in the place. Pitet, with his red, freckled face, which gained him the nickname of Pitet le Rouge, was the first to arrive.

“I heard the news at the Fountain,” he declared as he came in. “I can’t do anything. What do you want of me?”

He always spoke in a coarse, aggressive tone. He had been a tenant at Le Maupas, and suddenly had to leave his farm. Nobody ever understood why he was sent away from an estate where the tenants and servants “took root,” as was currently said. In reality it was on account of a theft, about which Dr. Guibert had never told anyone. Till the doctor’s death Pitet had kept quiet. When he was quite certain he could do so with impunity, he raised his head and played a vigorous part in all the elections. He began by making money out of politics and ended by getting dignity—which people were the less ready to refuse him because he needed it so much. The whole community was afraid of him, and everyone knows the power of fear over the peasants. He turned the scale at once in favor of the schoolmaster Maillard. The Mayor could not put himself out for the “aristocrats.”

“The Mayor must put himself at the service of everybody,” said Simon, whose face shone like a burning log. “And, besides, a man’s death isn’t a matter of politics.”

Pitet the Red would not hear of it.

“There you are! You must bow and scrape to the nobility and the church! Then you will say it isn’t a matter of politics. Your daughters go to Mass, Mr. Mayor. Take care, it won’t be forgotten.”

“But I don’t go to their church! Our deputy knows that,” cried Simon.

“You don’t go to Cognin, but you go to Bissy.”

Bissy was the neighboring parish. While the Mayor was defending himself, Randon and Détraz entered the room.

“Now, Mélanie, two pints of wine, one red and one white. And see that it’s good stuff!”

The newcomers asked together: “He’s dead then?”

“The whole place knows about it!” cried Simon, raising his arms to heaven. “We must hurry up or Madame Guibert will hear of it.”

Randon, old and broken down, had to thank the size of his estate for the electors’ regard. He was an honest man, but as shy and nervous as a hare. He gave a timid vote for the Mayor’s visit in person. As to Détraz, the boorish and vulgar, he admitted at once that he took no interest whatever in the question.

“Two against two; it’s a tie,” shouted Pitet the Red, exultantly, throwing all his long-cherished rancor into the argument.

In a weak voice Randon muttered that the schoolmaster had no say in the matter and that the Mayor’s voice was the important one. But nobody listened to his prudent words. The Mayor was derided for the lukewarmness of his democratic opinions and was at last reduced to silence.

“Now then, you’re the oldest, you must go,” said Pitet to Randon.

“Oh, no, not I!” cried the latter, terrified. And he kept on repeating “Not I!” as if the message of death threatened his own life. He was thinking of his own peace of mind above all things.

“Well then, you, Détraz.”

“It isn’t my business.”

“Then I shall go,” said the Mayor, taking on an offensive manner.

Randon expressed a mild approval.

They both remembered how Dr. Guibert had attended and saved their children. They strove hard to reconcile their opinions and their prospects of re-election.

Furious at this reverse which followed his victory, and also excited by the wine he had drunk, Pitet shouted: “Haven’t you been told that it is too much honor? Can’t you hear? I tell you, don’t argue!”

“What?” exclaimed the Mayor, purple in the face.

The schoolmaster interrupted in honeyed tones:

“The logical thing is to give the message to the police. They carry the Mayor’s orders in the town. A policeman can take the telegram and explain that the Mayor has sent him in person.”

“That, of course, is the only right way,” said Pitet approvingly.

No sooner said than done. Faroux, the policeman, was sent for, and the schoolmaster gave him the Mayor’s instructions with the telegram. A few more glasses were drunk and the party broke up.

Old Randon, who was waiting for his cart, was left alone in Simon’s bar. For a few minutes the two men found nothing more to say. They were thinking of the effect of the message, which they had forgotten in their discussion.

“We are cowards,” the Mayor admitted at last, and the councillor heartily agreed.

As a matter of fact, they were no more cowardly than the average man. They simply represented the attitude of honest men confronted by bullies.

After a long silence—for a countryman moves in the world of ideas at the pace of a plough-ox among the furrows—old Randon suggested: “Do you think we ought to go up to Le Maupas together?”

“I was thinking about it,” rejoined the Mayor. And they encouraged each other with all kinds of good reasons.

“Nobody will see us.”

“It is dark.”

“We will go up privately, as fellow citizens.”

“Just in ordinary clothes, unofficially.”

“The doctor saved my little one.”

“And my two daughters. Mélanie, my hat!”

They got up very firmly. They felt proud of their resolution. They wrapped themselves up in their capes and went out, the old man going in front like a youngster. They got as far as the end of the village, when in the road they met the schoolmaster, who was walking along smoking a cigar. Maillard grinned as he recognised them.

“What, going for a walk?” he asked.

“No,” said the stammering Mayor, “I am seeing Randon home.”

“But he lives on the Chaloux road!”

The councillor explained matters.

“I am going as far as the Favres grocery near here with an order. It is for my wife.”

“I will go with you. I am just taking the air before supper.”

Neither the Mayor nor Randon dared to confess their plan. They returned to Cognin very humbly on either side of the schoolmaster, who held forth at length and announced the coming golden age of brotherhood.

* * * * *

“I shall be back in the evening,” Madame Guibert had said to her daughter, as she got into Trélaz’s carriage. She was going to Chambéry on family business. With the help of Étienne and François, who had been lucky in their enterprises at Tonkin, and with Marcel’s aid during the Sahara Expedition they had been able to keep Le Maupas.

At sunset Paule came out for the first time to lean on the balustrade. She listened for the sound of the approaching carriage coming up the slope, but she listened in the quiet evening air in vain. As the frost was very sharp she ran to get a shawl, wrapped herself in it, and waited.

The snow-covered land grew rosy in the evening light. A kind of virginal purity was over it. The vine-branches and the hedges were covered with a fine lacework of hoarfrost, which shone in the dying fires of day. The bare woods had no more secrets, and the branches with their thousand twigs stood out in the clear air like blades of grass.

Paule, who clung to this little place with every fibre of her being, loved the fairy-like winter effects. The cold made her shiver. As she crossed the threshold, a raven flew croaking across the horizon. Its wings made a black spot against the pale sky.

“Bird of misfortune!” murmured the girl carelessly, without reading any ill omen in it. Was it not the time for ravens? They hover over the bare fields, near the houses, trying to find a scanty sustenance.

She put two logs in the drawing-room grate, built up the fire carefully, and placed a kettle on the logs. Then she went to find a glass, a spoon, the sugar and the bottle of rum, which she arrayed on a little table near the fireplace. “Mother will be cold when she gets back,” she thought during these preparations. “It is freezing to-night and she will be dreadfully cold in that open cart of Trélaz’s. A good fire and a hot drink will do her good. Poor Mother!”

She sat down beside the lamp and tried to read a book she had begun. But this occupation could not hold her attention. She looked at the clock. It was past six.

Uneasily she took up the shawl which she had left on a chair, and went back to the veranda. Night had fallen. The stars were trembling in the sky, as if they were cold. Although the moon was still invisible, the horizon was not dark. It seemed as if a faint light was rising from below, as if the white earth illumined the sky. Down in the depths of the valley Paule saw the lamps of Chambéry shining. She looked searchingly at the wood with its bare oak-trees, through which the carriage must come, she watched for the light of the moving lamps, and listened for the slightest sounds that the breeze carried to her. For a moment the clatter of a mill deceived her. A shrill scream which broke the silence made her shudder,—it was so like a cry of despair. When she had recovered from her fright, she recognised the siren of a neighboring factory. For a long time she remained leaning on the balustrade, listening and receptive of every impression.

Marie, the old servant who had lived with the family through good and bad fortune, came to look for her and scolded her.

“Now isn’t it madness to stay outside in this cold? Will you come in, Miss Paule? You won’t bring Madame home any quicker by taking cold yourself!”

Paule obeyed, making no reply. But she went no further than the kitchen, so that she might be ready to run out at once. Hearing the gate open, she rushed out and found herself face to face with a peasant from Vimines, who on account of his poverty was ironically nicknamed Baron.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in her disappointment, as the poor creature walked unceremoniously into the kitchen.

“Good evening, everybody! I’ve just looked in as I passed, to get warm.”

From time to time he did a day’s work at Le Maupas. He was an idle good-for-nothing, whom Dr. Guibert had helped. He often came to the door and asked for work, though really only to get a drink.

“Good evening, Baron. You did not meet my mother on the road?”

“No, Miss, I saw nobody.”

Seated near the stove with his felt hat crushed in his hand, he looked at the girl and the servant with a cunning eye. Paule left them and began gazing out once more into the night. The moon was illuminating the scene with her silvery beams, but her light revealed only the emptiness of the road.

In the kitchen the rustic was saying to Marie: “So you haven’t heard anything?”

“About what?” asked the servant, putting her pan on the fire.

“About the news, bless you!”

“What news, you old chatterbox? What are you keeping to yourself?”

Distrustful, he had thought that they were hiding it from him. At last he understood that at Le Maupas they were still ignorant of what all Cognin already knew. As he passed in front of the hospitable house, he had yielded to his curiosity to see the effect of the bad news. But he would not tell anything, not he! Everybody has his own job to do. He quickly drained his glass of red wine, refused a second, and got up to leave.

“Well, Baron, what about your news? Are you going to take it on to Vimines?”

“That’s just it,” said he, winking his wicked eye.

“So you won’t tell us about it?”

“Oh, you will know it soon enough.”

“It’s all cry and no wool with you, you old humbug!”

On the threshold the rustic turned round and delivered himself of a platitude with a sarcastic smile: “Live and learn! Well, well, what will the old woman do?”

His feet falling lightly in the snow he passed behind Paule, who was still leaning on the veranda rail.

“Good evening, miss. Bear up! You never know who’s alive or who’s dead.”

The girl started again, more at this voice heard unexpectedly behind her back than at the words, whose meaning she did not understand. She came back to the kitchen with a vague fear mingled with her uneasiness.

“Make us some nice soup, Marie, and very hot. It is freezing hard.” And cheered by the cosy hearth she added, “That Baron almost frightened me.”

The servant snorted. “A good-for-nothing like that, with a long tongue! I don’t want to see him round here any more. Your father was a good Samaritan when he picked up that fish. And he has the evil eye. We must take care. If the soup is burned, it will be all his fault. I don’t know what story he had heard in the town, but he had a long face and was watching us as a cat watches a rat.”

The girl went back to the drawing-room to stir the fire. Now she was alone, she no longer felt her accustomed courage. Her heart was beating loudly in her breast. She tried to comfort herself and did not succeed.

“Trélaz’s horse goes so slowly. That business at the lawyer’s always lasts so much longer than one thinks it will....”

She could no longer keep down her anxiety, which increased every minute. Even prayer could not calm her. As she was on her knees, she heard the drawing-room door open.

“Is Mamma there?” she cried as she rose from her knees. It was old Marie who appeared at the door.

“No, Miss Paule. It is a man who wants to speak to the mistress.”

“Who is he?”

“He says he is a policeman and has been sent by the Mayor.”

“A policeman! What does he want with us?”

As her mind recalled all the bad omens of that evening, the girl trembled while she gave the order for the man to be shown in. But she controlled herself and received the Mayor’s messenger with the greatest outward calm.

Faroux, the policeman, was one of those silent, stolid countrymen who give themselves up entirely to their work without ever thinking about it. But in the presence of Paule Guibert it was impossible for him not to understand at last the importance of his mission. As he came along the road he had not given a thought to it. So many people approach thus absent-mindedly the most sacred and most serious tasks.

Standing before him the girl said:

“My mother is not at home. But could I not take her place?”

He stood there silent and stupid, and the pause increased Paule’s secret fear. He stammered at last:

“Mademoiselle Guibert, I have come to ... to ... tell you ...”

In his face, as the lamp shone on it, she read so much confusion and trouble that she gave way to her darkest presentiments. With a few quick words she aroused the poor, frightened man from his stupor.

“Speak, oh, do speak! Has there been an accident? My mother ... on the road....” She could not finish the sentence.

“No,” said the man, “I did not meet the lady.” And he relapsed into silence.

“Well, why did you come? If you have anything to say, say it. Do be quick!”

Straight and proud, she spoke in the commanding voice which she knew how to take upon occasion, like Marcel. The stiffness of her bearing quite confused the policeman, who drew the telegram from his pocket and with his big trembling hand held it out to the girl. He tried to take it back again, but the blue paper was already in Paule’s hand. Before she had even opened it, she thought of her brother. She glanced over it, said “Ah,” crushed up the telegram, and turned deadly pale. But with a supreme effort she remained standing and did not cry. She could not show her weakness to this man, whom she thought unfeeling, but she had to lean on the table. This movement and her pallor were her only admissions of weakness.

A fearful silence enveloped them. At last she was able to say without trembling: “It is all right. You may go. I thank you.”

As he was stepping out she remembered the laws of rural hospitality and added:

“Tell Marie to give you something to drink, please.”

But the policeman rushed through the kitchen and fled as if he had murdered someone.

“Oh, my God!” cried Paule when no one could hear her. She dragged herself towards the fireplace, held on to it for a minute with her two hands, tried to stand, but had to drop into an armchair. Her body shook from head to foot. She held her hand before her dry, staring eyes to keep away the horrible vision before them. She saw there before her on the carpet her brother lying dead, his shattered forehead with the lifeblood flowing from it. That grave face of his, so melancholy and so proud, which had been the more so ever since Alice’s refusal,—she saw it now, sightless, motionless and icy-cold, still in death and beautiful! “Marcel, Marcel,” she called softly, and hid her face in her hands. The tears refused to come to her relief. Her adored brother, the pride of her life, was dead. Dead, she repeated ten, twenty times before she could understand the horror of it. Dead, the hero of Andriba, the conqueror of Rabah and the desert! At thirty-two, this life of courage, of gallantry and self-sacrifice, had been cut off. Oh, how little he had cared for life. For a long time he had despised it. Had not the meeting with a shy little girl taken away his joy in it? And Paule distractedly racked her memory for the pictures in which she had read the signs of coming fate. There was that hesitating smile which she had surprised on his lips the first night that he confessed his secret to her. There was that movement of indifference as he listened to the mournful warnings of the owls after his last interview with Alice. And there was again that strange, quiet, almost disinterested discussion of his future, as they sat there on the tree-trunk at the edge of the Montcharvin wood, on the day of his departure from France. For years, since that evening at La Chênaie, he had carried death in his eyes. He had never again mentioned Alice’s name, never spoken of his love. But he had lived on without any faith in life.... And in that dear face that her ardent love called up in her memory, Paule saw a deep serenity, unchangeable, eternal. Then she gave a great cry and knelt down, weeping.

“Yes,” she thought, “you are at peace at last. Our love was not sufficient for you. We loved you too much, Marcel. You do not know how I loved you. I cannot speak: but my heart was full of you. Why was I not chosen in your place? Of what use am I?”

A new fear, which she would not admit to herself in this terrible hour, completed the distraction of her mind. Marcel was not alone at Timmimun....

All at once she started up.

“And Mother! Mother is coming home!” She had forgotten her. And, thanking God who had allowed her to break to her mother this supreme sorrow, she mourned no longer for him who was sleeping his last sleep, dead on the day of victory, in a conquered land; but instead for her who was quietly coming home along the dark roads, travelling all unsuspicious towards the precipice. Might not this last blow crush the frail old life, overwhelmed already with its many trials?

Paule vainly searched her mind for help. She felt the sadness of a cemetery round her. What deaths and separations there had been— Her sister Thérèse dead at twelve; her father struck down in his vigor; her sister Marguerite in a convent; Étienne and François in the Colonies. She was left alone—and how very much alone—to help her mother to bear this too heavy cross. But as she must do it, she would be brave and uphold the poor tottering woman with all her strength.

She dried her eyes and bathed her face.

“Not now, not all at once,” she repeated, thinking of her mother. “She must have time to warm herself, to rest. I will tell her to-night that he is ill. She did not sleep at all last night, she must sleep at least to-night. To-morrow her heart will be broken. Suffering is easier to bear in the day-time than in the horrors of night, so like the grave. I will not tell her to-night.” And she put her mother’s cup of bitterness away from her. From the far country where he lay she seemed to hear her big brother calling to her—his soul at peace—“Spare her this evening. She has suffered so much already.”

She heard a footstep and hastened to hide, the telegram which had brought with it death.

Marie entered the room.

“Madame is coming. I hear the wheels in the avenue.”

CHAPTER III
NIOBE

“Good evening, Mamma.” Paule called her Mamma when she wished to show her child’s love the most.

Madame Guibert came in, stooping a little, wrapped in an old and well-worn fur cloak. The lamp-shade prevented her noticing how pale her daughter was as she kissed her. She came nearer to the fire.

“Oh, how good it is to be at home again! And how one loves these old houses! Do you remember, Paule, how sad we were when we thought we should have to leave Le Maupas?” She warmed her wrinkled hands at the flames. Paule came up behind her and took off her bonnet.

“Keep your cloak on, Mother dear, for a few minutes. You were very cold, weren’t you?”

Madame Guibert turned to look at her daughter. She smiled at her, and the smile under her grey hair, on a face whose cheeks were still young, whose blue eyes were trusting and clear, was as sweet as the last roses of the year, which still bloom under the snow.

“Dear child, to look at you warms me more than do these logs that you have put on the fire for me.”

The girl knelt down to take the kettle off the fire.

“You are going to have some boiling hot grog.”

As she got up, her mother had time to notice in the light how pale she was.

“But you are the one who should be looked after, Paule. You are quite white. You are ill, and you never told me.”

The old lady got up at once.

“Oh, it isn’t serious, Mother dear. You must not worry. Perhaps I took a slight chill waiting for you on the balcony. I will go to bed directly after supper.” And to calm the motherly fears she had the courage to repeat laughingly: “It is nothing at all, Mother, I assure you.” She was thinking that the dining-room lamp would show her face too clearly and suggested: “Suppose we have our supper here before the fire! This room is more comfortable.”

“But the table is laid already.”

“It can soon be changed. You will see.”

“Very well, dear. You are icy cold. And in Trélaz’s open carriage one is exposed to the worst of the weather.”

As her daughter went out, after having poured out a few spoonfuls of rum into the glass, she added:

“Tell Marie to take down one or two bottles of wine to Trélaz. He deserves them.”

According to the old Savoy custom, the farmer’s family lived in the basement of the house.

Paule had just finished clearing the table in the dining-room when the servant came back with a terrified face.

“Miss Paule, poor Miss Paule! What is this I hear?”

The girl looked her full in the face.

“M. Marcel!” continued Marie.

“Oh!” cried Paule in a hoarse voice, “be quiet! We will tell my mother to-morrow. It is soon enough.”

Old Marie checked her tears.

“It was Baron who told them downstairs. They knew about it in the village. Madame must not be told. It would give her such a shock! She must be prepared.” And admiring her young mistress’s strength, she said: “You are brave, that you are! You are like him!”

With an unsteady hand she waited at the table, her red eyes hidden by her spectacles.

“Marie is following my example,” said Madame Guibert. “She is ageing.” And she tried in vain to brighten the conversation.

“You have eaten nothing, Paule. You are ill. Do go to bed. I will warm it for you and make you some tea. It is my turn to look after you.”

“No, thank you. I really don’t want anything. Marie will give me a hot bottle. And you must go to bed early too. Good night, Mamma, dear little Mamma!”

She kissed her mother passionately and went into her room. She was quite exhausted and her courage was gone. She tore off her clothes, unfastened her long hair with a single movement, blew out her candle, and winding herself in her blankets gave way madly to the grief which she had kept back so long. In the darkness her mood changed by turns from despair to revolt, from revolt to resignation and at last to submission and deep pity.

She mourned for her brother, for her mother, and for herself. Turned to the wall and lost in her misery, her face hidden in her handkerchief, she forgot that time was passing and did not hear her mother come to bed.

Madame Guibert slept in the next room. She opened the door gently so as not to awaken her daughter, and yet to be able to hear her in the night if she were not well. Then, as she did every night before undressing, she knelt on her prie-Dieu and said her prayers. As she did every night, she gathered together her dear dead ones and the lying scattered all over the world to beg for them God’s loving care. More particularly she prayed over Paule’s uncertain future and Marcel’s sorrow-stricken heart. A slight deafness and the absorption of her thoughts cut her off from all around her. When she was in bed, she seemed to hear a faint sigh. She listened in vain and reassured herself.

“Paule is asleep,” she thought. “She was pale this evening. Dear little girl. May God keep her and give her happiness! ... Old Marie must have taken cold as well. She had such red eyes and shaking hands. I told her to drink some tea to-night with a little rum in it. It is the rum she likes best!”

Suddenly she sat up. This time she was not mistaken. That stifled sob came from Paule’s bedroom. And listening attentively she made out at last the sound of weeping and despair. Her bosom wrung with a horrible fear, she got out of bed. She was no longer uneasy about her daughter’s health. She understood now this sadness that had made itself felt at Le Maupas all the evening. A calamity had come upon the home, a calamity that they all knew about except herself, something that was terrible, since they had kept it from her. She guessed at the dim and dread presence of her old acquaintance, Death. Whom had it claimed from her now, whom had it struck? ... While she was walking bare-footed, feeling her way in the darkness, she counted the absent ones—Marguerite, Étienne, François, Marcel. Marcel—it was Marcel!

She passed through the half-open door, touched Paule’s bed, and bending towards her she called:

“Paule, tell me, what is the matter?”

She dared ask no more.

The girl, suddenly roused in a paroxysm of sorrow, gave a cry of distress which told her secret: “Mamma!”

“It is Marcel, is it not?” said Madame Guibert breathlessly. “You have bad news about Marcel!”

“Mother, Mother,” murmured Paule.

“He is ill, very ill?”

“Yes, Mother dear, he is ill.” And Paule, half raising herself in bed, put her arms round her mother’s neck. Gently but firmly Madame Guibert pushed her away.

“He is dead?”

“Oh!” cried the girl. “Wait till to-morrow, Mother. We shall have news. Be strong, Mother. We don’t know.”

“You have had something, a letter, a telegram. Show them to me. I must see them.”

“Mother dearest, do not torture yourself so,” entreated Paule in broken tones which were in themselves an admission.

“He is dead! He is dead!” cried Madame Guibert. Her voice was like a funeral dirge. Seated on the edge of the bed, icy cold, she felt hope and life fly from her rent heart. Vainly she turned towards God, her supreme comfort in times of sorrow. Her tearlessness was more terrible than her weeping. She moaned aloud:

“Oh, this time it is too much. I cannot bear it! No, I am not resigned. O God! I have always bowed to Your will. With my soul crushed I blessed You. Now my strength is waning. I am only a poor weak old woman, and I have suffered already more than was needed to try me. I can bear no more—I cannot—Marcel, my Marcel!”

“Mother, Mother!” repeated Paule, as she strained her to her heart.

She felt her mother shiver as she stood there motionless in the darkness, like a tree uprooted in the night. Then she got up, struck a match, and with her arms around the unhappy broken woman she led her into her room. There she wanted to help her into bed. But her mother, who till then had allowed herself to be cared for unresisting, drew herself up.

“No, no, I want to stand,” she said.

Paule had to dress her quickly before dressing herself. Then she took her into the drawing-room, where she succeeded in reviving the fire, which was almost out. She made a big blaze and put the kettle again on the logs. Silent and desolate she walked up and down the room.

She had placed her mother near the fire in an armchair, a blanket over her knees. Stricken to the inmost depths of a mother’s heart, Madame Guibert sat without a movement, without a gesture, without a tear, in a state of prostration more alarming than loud despair. She complained no more—nor did she pray, she looked straight ahead, seeing nothing and making no sound. Crushed by fate, she seemed completely numbed. She could no longer feel her wounded heart beating in her breast. She let herself sink into the abyss of her misery like a drowning man in a fathomless sea.

Patiently Paule waited till the pent-up tears should at last break this dreadful silence, as a stream bursts the dam that is barring its way. But the silence and immobility continued. She came up to her Mother and vainly tried to make her drink some tea. She knelt in front of her, took her hands, and cried:

“Mamma, Mamma, speak to me of Marcel. Speak to me, I beg of you!”

She received no reply. She began to be afraid. She felt herself in a solitude of death.

“Mamma, am I not your daughter, your last child, your little Paule?” she sobbed in despair.

Madame Guibert seemed to wake from her lethargy. She saw the sorrowful face turned up towards her in anguish. A long shiver shook her body. She was conquered, she held out her arms to her daughter, and leaning against her she wept. It was she who in her weakness begged for help.

For a long time the two women remained thus, mingling their tears and their grief, knowing the sad sweetness of loving each other in suffering.

When the mother was able to speak, it was to thank the Almighty.

“Paule, my dear Paule, what did I say a few minutes ago? God is good. He might afflict me still more. He gave you to me in my distress to help me. And I refused to bow myself before Him. O God, Thy Will is cruel, and yet may Thy Name be praised!”

Finding her courage again she asked to see the fatal telegram. She read it through several times and discussed it with Paule.

“He is indeed dead.... But he is living again ... he is with God.”

“Yes,” said the girl. “He died a conqueror—He was shot in the forehead.”

They were silent. They both saw Marcel’s beautiful forehead covered with blood, that high forehead which was the temple of such proud thoughts.

As she lowered her eyes towards Paule Madame Guibert was filled with pity for her.

“Go and rest, dear. To-morrow you will need all your strength—to help me.”

“Oh, no,” said Paule, “I shall not leave you.”

“Then will you pray? Let us pray for him.” And the two women sank on their knees.

For a long time they called down divine blessings on their beloved dead. Paule was quite worn out and had to sit down while her mother, sustained by superhuman will, continued to pray. The tears ran down her cheeks; she no longer tried to keep them back.

“My God,” she begged, “accept the offering of our sorrow and misery. When You died on the Cross Your Mother was with You. I was not near my son. Give me strength to bear this trial. Not for me, my God, but for the duty which remains for me to fulfil, for my sons, for her, too, whom You have not spared. She is very young to have so much suffering. I am inured to sorrow; but protect her, be merciful....”

As she turned towards Paule she saw her pale face, which had fallen back in the low chair. The girl, for all her courage, had fallen asleep in the midst of her tears. Her swollen eyelids were still wet. Madame Guibert rose and went to sit beside her. Raising the dear head tenderly, she placed it on her knees. The beautiful black hair streamed round her peaceful face and accentuated its whiteness. Thus the tired girl rested, watched over by her mother.

The latter gazed fixedly at these motionless features, but saw them not. She saw her son down there outstretched upon the sand, his forehead pierced. He seemed even taller than he had been in the pride of life. Softly she called to him in a low voice:

“My son, my darling son! Now you are at rest. You have been a good son and a brave man. There was nothing in your heart that was not noble. You can see us, can you not? You see us trembling and broken. Protect us from on high, protect Paule. I am already on my way to the grave, to join you and your father. The earth is waiting for me—I feel it, and you are calling me. I shall soon be with you for ever.” And as she thought of her own death she uttered this cry in her heart: “Oh, my God, who will be left to close my eyes if thus Thou takest them all away from me?”

She touched Paule’s body as it pressed against her. She enfolded her in her arms, and holding her jealously, lifting up her wet eyes, but not stirring, she continued to pray like a marble Niobe entreating Fate to spare her last child.

The first lights of dawn appeared. Then morning came, one of those winter days whose cold light makes the snow shiver. The old woman was still praying. From God she drew unconquerable strength. Singled out by sorrow, she must drain the cup of bitterness to its very dregs.

When Paule awoke she saw her mother, pale and frozen, smiling faintly at her. She could not get her to rest nor even to take any food. More stooped than ever and ten years older, Madame Guibert sat down at her desk and began to write in a firm hand to her absent daughter and sons that they might take their own share in the recent sorrow.

CHAPTER IV
THE PAGEANTRY OF DEATH

The chief occupation of the Mayor of Cognin in the morning was to read his paper. With the exception of the workmen from the neighboring factories, who came in the early morning to the inn and stood at the bar to drink their small glass of white wine by the wavering light of a candle, he saw few customers till mid-day. Seated astride a chair, his back to the fire, he provided himself for the day with the political news in the Lyons Republican and Le Progrès. Thus after luncheon he was able to retail to the electors both wine and news.

When on the morning of February 26th he unfolded the papers, he was horrified to see this great headline across the page:

“Victory at Timmimun. Death of Commander Guibert.” It had never occurred to him that the death of a fellow-townsman of his could cause such a stir. With a red face, and vaguely uneasy about his own responsibility, he began to read slowly the grim official story that the journalist had adorned with several pompous phrases.

“The War Office has forwarded to us a telegram announcing a victory in the Touât region, at Timmimun. We would herald it with joy as a fresh triumph of our army, had it not cost us a precious life, that of the conqueror himself, Commander Guibert. Our political preoccupations must not be permitted to distract our attention from the spectacle of these far-off struggles, where French blood is being shed so heroically. It was in the spring of last year that, after the taking of In Salah and the occupation of the Gourara district by the column under Colonel Ménestrel, a little garrison was stationed in this southern village. Not far away from this place, the sanguinary battles of Sahela and El Metarfa were fought, where the second battalion of the Saharan Rifles repulsed the marauding Berabers and Doui-Menias and where Captain Jacques and Lieutenant Depardieu met their glorious death. When last winter General Lervières, chief-in-command in Algiers, was ordered to occupy the Gourara country by force and to proceed to establish himself in the Touât, he left at Timmimun camp a garrison of one hundred fifty men, amply provisioned, under Commander Guibert, assisted by Captain Berlier.

“Commander Guibert, who had just returned to France with the Moureau-Jamy expedition insisted on rejoining his battalion in the extreme south. In spite of the two years which were consumed in crossing Africa, he refused leave and hastened to his post. On the night of the 17-18th of February last, a party of Berabers, estimated to be about one thousand strong, succeeded in approaching Timmimun. The terror inspired by this tribe is such and their mobility so great that they can cross an immense stretch of country without the native regiments having the slightest knowledge of their movements. At daybreak or even before dawn, they opened their attack on the camp.

“A sentry, firing half a dozen shots as he fell back, gave the alarm. The Berabers jumping over the tumbledown walls penetrated to the inner court. In the meantime the garrison assembled in haste under the orders of their chief and soon the Berabers were put to flight, leaving three hundred dead on the ground. But our losses were cruel. Ten were dead, including the officer in command, a commissariat officer, and a sergeant, and more than thirty wounded. Commander Guibert was killed at the end of the skirmish by a bullet passing through his forehead just as the Berabers were fleeing in disorder. Commander Guibert was the youngest chief of battalion in our entire French Army. Captain at twenty-eight and decorated with the Legion of Honour for his brilliant services in the Madagascan campaign, especially at the battle of Andriba, he had taken part in the Moureau expedition, which had just crossed the Sahara. The victor of Rabah, he had been made commander and officer of the Legion of Honour on his return. He was only thirty-two. Born in the town of Cognin near Chambéry (Savoy), he belonged to one of the most respected families of our neighborhood. Called to the highest military destinies, he leaves a glorious memory behind. Savoy is proud of him and cannot fail to honor his memory worthily.”

“Great Heavens!” cried the Mayor as he finished reading this. He verified the name of the paper, fearing he might have lighted on some wretched opposition rag.

The Conservative Nouvelliste and the Radical-Socialist Progrès, which he just skimmed, gave exactly the same account; the first adding several criticisms on the carelessness of the intelligence department in Algiers, the second accompanying it with some humanitarian remarks on the uselessness of colonial expeditions. But all, whatever their political opinions might be, united in honoring the worth of Commander Guibert, praised his splendid career, and deplored his loss.

“That confounded schoolmaster!” cried the Mayor of Cognin.

He took up his hat and was going out. On the doorstep he stopped short. An officer on horseback in full uniform, wearing gold epaulettes, stopped in front of the Café National.

“Can you direct me to Madame Guibert’s house, please?”

A few countryfolk, drawn by curiosity, grouped themselves round the rider.

“Keep along the high road as far as the Vimines road. Then follow the path through the oakwood. After the wood turn to the left and that is Le Maupas.”

“Thank you,” said the officer, and he was already giving rein to his horse when the Mayor called out:

“You are going to visit the lady like that?”

The aide-de-camp glared scornfully at this red-faced individual, and spurring his horse replied between his teeth, “Naturally.”

“Good,” answered the innkeeper, to please the women who were listening to him. And he grew scarlet.

He had no appetite for his meal, and before putting into effect the plan that was maturing in his mind, he sent his daughters to look for assistance. As he was drinking a glass of brandy to encourage himself, he saw through the window a landau and pair driving up to the town hall. A few moments later he was called by a message from the prefect. Quickly putting on the frock-coat which served for all ceremonious occasions he rushed across to the municipal building. One of the doors of the carriage opened. He saw a black uniform with silver lace and he heard these haughty words uttered by a beardless youth (for the date of the elections was still some time away):

“Are you the Mayor of Cognin?”

Hat in hand, Simon answered “Yes, sir.”

“I represent the prefect. I am on my way to Madame Guibert, to whom I carry the condolences of the government on the occasion of the heroic death of the Commander. You have carefully broken the news to her, I think, as the official telegram ordered you. You managed the whole affair tactfully, I suppose?”

“Yes, Monsieur Deputy-Prefect,” stammered the Mayor, ashamed and trembling.

“I am a councillor of the Prefecture. I wish you to do your duty by being present at the memorial service with all your councillors. The government of the Republic knows how to honor its loyal servants.”

Simon stammered his assent.

“That is all, Monsieur Mayor. I shall not require you any more.” And the young messenger from the prefecture, proud of his own important rôle and the dignity with which he filled it, departed behind his two horses, with the haughty, weary air of an old general who has just reviewed his brigade.

Randon and Détraz, at the summons of the Mayor, sped over to the inn together. The whole village already knew what was happening at Le Maupas.

“We are in for it!” cried Détraz furiously on his arrival. The day before, during all the discussion, he had not opened his lips.

“I told you so,” remarked old Randon, who insisted on reminding them of his sagacity.

“And so did I,” said the Mayor, not to be outdone. “It is the fault of the schoolmaster and of Pitet.”

Détraz, who had no idea of politeness, said rude things about the Mayor.

“So you,” he said, “are not the master here then. What do you do at the town hall? Why, you are as limp as a rag. The schoolmaster leads you by the nose, like the smallest boy in his class.”

“I!” roared Simon. “I let myself be led by the nose! Just come and see if the schoolmaster is master or not!”

Followed by his two councillors, the Mayor still gesticulating, burst into the municipal school. Before Maillard, the sly and wheedling, however, he felt all his zeal grow cold. But Détraz had already pushed himself to the front.

“Aha!” he cried, “you have made a nice mess of it, you dirty, shameless wretch! Here are the prefect and the general sending deputations. And the corporation in the dead man’s town sends a policeman, just as if it was serving a writ. With your devil of a brain you’ll have a fine score to pay!” And he spat on the ground as a sign of contempt.

“I am not answerable to you for anything,” murmured the schoolmaster with a dignified air.

“Yes, you are. And what about you, Mayor? Have you nothing to say?”

In his rage he had no respect for anyone. Simon was obliged to intervene.

“You gave us bad advice, Mr. Professor,” he said.

“That’s certain,” added Randon.

“You need not have asked my advice.”

“Who asked your advice?” retorted Détraz, in a fresh access of fury. “You mixed yourself up in our affairs only to bring them to ruin, you poisonous ruffian. That’s what you are, a poisonous ruffian!” So pleased was he with the expression that he repeated it.

Randon took him by the arm and tried to calm him and lead him away. But it is the way of the ignorant—as it is of women—to introduce irrelevant arguments into a quarrel. Détraz wheeled round again on the schoolmaster to shout:

“Besides, you steal the public money!”

“I steal?” protested Maillard.

“Yes, you exact private fees for the right of cutting firewood, for receiving affidavits, for everything, in fact. We’ll see the last of you, or I’ll have your skin.” In his rage, he showed the instinctive hatred of the primitive nature for knowledge and of the taxpayer for the official.

The two enemies fell upon each other. The Mayor held Maillard back and Randon restrained his colleague.

“Listen to me,” begged the old man, “listen to me.”

There was a pause while he made a suggestion, which met with the approval of both the Mayor and Détraz and brought the discussion to an end.

“To make up for what you have done, Maillard, you must take your pupils to the memorial service.”

And the Mayor, anxious to take the credit of the victory to himself, added:

“And you must hoist the flag on the town hall at once, at half mast.”

He departed with an important air, still escorted by his two councillors.

“Now,” said Randon, “let us go up to Le Maupas.”

Simon applauded heartily.

“Yes, yes,” he cried. “The General sent an officer and the prefect a young gentleman with silver lace on his trousers. The Mayor will be represented in person with two members of the council, as it should be. That will impress them.”

As they passed through the village they noticed Pitet, the Red, in a field. He was looking very humble, and avoided their eyes. Détraz called out to him, without managing to attract his attention.

“He is a coward,” said the Mayor, full of courage himself.

“We know what we know,” said Randon mysteriously.

“Yes, we know,” Détraz put in, with greater frankness. “If it hadn’t been for the Doctor, he would have been in prison, and now he foams with rage against him. We must certainly get rid of him at the town hall.”

The snow reflected the cold sunshine. The white mountain glittered in the raw daylight. Under the pale sky the outlines of all things were mingled in one uniform and immaculate whiteness.

The prefectoral landau was returning to Chambéry when it met the improvised delegation from Cognin. With an important air the Mayor made a sign to the coachman to stop. Hat in hand, he approached the door, which was opened immediately.

“Mr. Councillor, we have a favor to ask of you.”

“What is it?” replied the young man brusquely. Not having been received at Le Maupas he came back in a bad temper. The general’s aide-de-camp had been introduced to Madame Guibert.

“All the fathers of families here complain of the schoolmaster—without exception—”

“Why?”

“He teaches badly, he thrashes the pupils, he hatches plots against the country.”

The young man assumed a thoughtful air and with the gesture of a minister dismissing an audience he replied briefly, “I will see to it.”

Continuing his walk the Mayor rubbed his hands together and said to his supporters: “I’ve cooked Maillard’s goose for him.”

In the course of the next few days the leading newspapers gave the story of Timmimun in full detail and, without regard to their political views, paid homage to Commander Guibert, whose short career had touched all hearts. The press of Savoy went further still, and, not content with eulogies, vied with one another in the prominence which they gave to his portrait and his biography. In their solitude at Le Maupas the two crushed women received the innumerable testimonies of sympathy which came to them from all parts of France, from the State, from Marcel’s brother officers, known and unknown. They leaned on each other so as to be able to bear their sorrow, and found no consolation but in prayer and in their mutual affection. Only the visits of Madame Saudet, the mother of Madame Étienne Guibert were of any comfort. She understood what to say to those who have suffered separations.

In a swift revolution of sympathy, the world of society, which had not heeded the Guiberts in their honorable ruin, decided to fall in with public opinion. Madame Dulaurens could not stay quiet on this occasion. She induced Mademoiselle de Songeon, Honorary President of the White Cross of Savoy, to take the initiative in organising a funeral service, which was to be celebrated with great ceremony in Chambéry Cathedral. The idea was to monopolize the dead hero and to call attention to his origin in the most befitting manner. The authorities were to be invited to the ceremony. Their presence would enhance the prestige of it, whereas their absence could only embitter the campaign of the Opposition Press. So there was no doubt what would happen.

When everything was prepared, the collections made, the invitations sent out, Mademoiselle de Songeon and Madame Dulaurens were officially delegated to go to Le Maupas to ask the family’s permission. Madame de Marthenay accompanied her mother. She wished to present her condolences to Madame Guibert and to Paule, and had not dared to make the journey alone.

It was the beginning of March. The snow was melting in the desolate, muddy fields and in the sunken roads. Under the lowering sky, surrounded by black, bare trees swaying sadly to and fro, the old country house wore a melancholy and abandoned air.

“I should hate to be buried alive here all the year round,” said Madame Dulaurens to Mademoiselle de Songeon as the carriage drove up the deserted avenue.

“The Church is too far away,” answered the pious old maid.

She did not think that God is everywhere. In spite of her age, she persisted in travelling to meet Him in specially comfortable places.

Old Marie, seeing the carriage, did not refuse to allow the ladies to enter, despite her strict orders. She ran to announce the visitors as fast as her legs could carry her.

“I ordered you not to receive anyone,” said Madame Guibert sadly. And turning to Paule she said: “I have no longer the courage to face people. Why does Madame Dulaurens come to disturb our sorrow? We have nothing in common. What does she want?”

“Mother dear, I don’t know,” said Paule, and she rose to depart.

“You will help me to receive her?”

“No, Mother, I don’t want to meet her.”

Madame Guibert looked at her daughter, whose pale and quivering but decided face clearly showed her thoughts.

“Paule,” she entreated, “do not desert me. I am so shy and awkward, you know. The evil that people do is more quickly forgotten than the good. If she reminded me of the past I should not know what to answer. Stay with me, Paule.”

The girl hesitated no more and made a sign to the servant to show the ladies in.

“I will stay,” she said.

Mademoiselle de Songeon, little versed in diplomacy, allowed Madame Dulaurens to speak first.

“You have been cruelly afflicted,” began that lady, going towards Madame Guibert, who was obliged to lean against the fireplace in order to rise from her chair.

Then she shook hands with Paule, whose unfriendly eyes she felt firmly upon her. She would have preferred her not to be there.

“Yes,” said Marcel’s mother. “God is testing us.”

Thus at once she gave the interview a religious and serious tone. Mademoiselle de Songeon tossed her head and looked upward, as if she alone had the necessary authority to call upon the divine intervention.

“What a consolation you have in your sorrow,” went on Madame Dulaurens. “These unanimous testimonies to the Commander’s heroism, this consensus of sympathy and regret.... In these democratic days merit is no longer sufficiently honored. It is sometimes death alone which gives to it its true reward, and in face of this irreparable loss one reproaches oneself bitterly for having known it too late.”

The mention of her son touched Madame Guibert’s heart at once. “She is excusing herself now for having sent Marcel away,” she thought. “She knows now what a mistake she made and regrets it. But Madame de Marthenay ought not to have come. Her presence is painful to us.”

She looked at the speaker, and her candid glance lighted up her wasted face as a ray of sunlight illumines the leafless woods in winter. Paule was on her guard. She was quite aware, however, that Madame Dulaurens was entirely unconscious of offence.

The latter, after a short pause, explained the reason of her visit.

“It must seem quite natural to you, therefore, that we should want to pay homage to this beloved memory. The whole of Savoy shares your grief, but specially the élite of the country, to which the Commander belonged, both because of his family and his splendid personal worth.”

She took breath, and finding that she was speaking well, she glanced rapidly at her audience. Mademoiselle de Songeon showed her entire agreement by nodding her long head. Alice, absorbed in her thoughts and attentively listening, was looking at the grief-stricken faces of Madame Guibert and the friend of her girlhood. Her sorrow oppressed her so much that she laid her hands on her breast. Suppressed sobs were almost choking her. She would like to have opened her heart to these poor women but she did not dare. She tried to take Paule’s fingers gently in her own; she was sitting quite near her. But the girl drew her hand away firmly. She had forgotten nothing.

Again Madame Dulaurens’s high pitched voice made itself heard in the silence of the drawing-room.

“The patronesses of the White Cross of Savoy, in fact all the ladies of that society, have unanimously agreed to ask for the celebration of a funeral service at Chambéry. The Archbishop will officiate. He has promised us; we have the word of the vicar-general. More than fifty priests will be present. The prefect and the military authorities will be invited, and we have no doubt that they will be represented. It will be worthy, you may be sure, of the illustrious dead, in its ceremony and grandeur.”

Madame Guibert had listened without interrupting, and she answered simply:

“I thank you very much and I beg you to thank these ladies from me for their good intentions. We celebrated a service at Cognin according to our means. Our friends came in spite of the cold and the long distances. The general commanding here came in person. A great many officers would like to have accompanied him. We do not wish to have any other outward demonstrations. But I thank you.”

“Yes, Madame. I understand your feelings. Families do not willingly bear the intrusion of strangers in their mourning. But this is a special case. The death of Commander Guibert is a public misfortune. France is wounded by the death of your son. His life and his death do honor to Savoy. You cannot wonder that Savoy should publicly show him her great gratitude. The family resources are necessarily limited. Let us act. Do not deprive us of this pleasure.” ... And checking the inappropriate word as she uttered it, she corrected herself: “This melancholy pleasure, I would say, which is given us by intercession for the dead. Services and priests are prayers in themselves. Can so excellent Christians as you refuse those that we offer up for you? Have you the heart to prevent our sharing your sorrow with you?”

“The Church approves of ceremony and worship,” said Mademoiselle de Songeon, whose religion was luxurious and aristocratic.

Alice had noticed an enlarged photograph of Marcel, and at this moment saw only the man whom she had loved so unworthily.

Madame Guibert still hesitated, not about her answer, but about the words of the answer, which she wished to make as polite and delicate as she could. Madame Dulaurens had come to offer to supplement the simple funeral services at Cognin, devoid of all ostentation and parade, with a ceremony far less humble, one brilliant indeed and worldly. Wealth was visiting poverty and desiring to extend its patronage to it. Paule understood well, and indignantly glanced at her mother with those dark eyes of flashing light. But Madame Guibert had seen in this offer only respect for the memory of her son, and although she was resolved to negative any idea of a proceeding which she considered useless, she tried to avoid words which might cause the slightest offence.

Fearing her mother’s shyness and misled by her hesitation, the girl forestalled her boldly:

“We are much touched, Madame Dulaurens, by your offer. We value it as it should be valued and we regret having to decline this honor. My brother’s memory has received suitable recognition. We do not wish any more public testimony than what we have already received. God does not measure His blessings by the magnitude of the ceremonies.”

As if she attached no importance whatever to Paule’s declaration, Madame Dulaurens made as though to turn towards Madame Guibert. The latter quite comprehended and felt herself bound to say:

“Yes, Paule is right, Madame Dulaurens.”

Mademoiselle de Songeon indignantly lifted her eyes heavenwards, while the mistress of La Chênaie, little used to rebuffs, returned to the attack.

“I cannot understand your refusal. In our sympathy for your mourning, we only wished to explain ourselves in the most natural way. These ladies, Mademoiselle de Songeon, the Marquise de Lavernay, the Baroness d’Amberlard, shared my opinion. I represent them now—and the Archbishop promised to help us.”

She hoped to make a great impression on the poor lady by these aristocratic references. She did not, could not know, to what degree of indifference life had brought Madame Guibert with regard to the people and things of the world.

Paule saw how worried her mother was. She immediately took the offensive, in order to finish the interview.

“The service at Cognin was announced at Chambéry. All our friends were there. Some came from far away. Some came whom we did not even know and who shared our grief. But I was told, Madame Dulaurens, that your pew was empty, and I could not believe it.” After this attack she added: “If my elder brother, who is the head of the family, thinks other honors are indispensable he will let us know. We will conform to his wishes. My mother and he are the only ones who have anything to say in the matter.”

Seeing how useless her insistence was, Madame Dulaurens rose to go.

“I regret,” she said, “that there should have been this misunderstanding, which we have not been able to smooth over. I did not expect this welcome. But I see that your daughter has entire influence over you.”

“We are in complete agreement,” said the old woman, getting up with difficulty in her turn. She approved of her daughter’s decision, but she wished that the same things might have been said a little less imperiously. She was afraid that the visitors at Le Maupas were offended and she was unhappy about it. A slight color flushed her pale cheeks. As she was going to the door with Mademoiselle de Songeon and Madame Dulaurens, her color did not escape the eye of the latter. Madame Dulaurens was looking far revenge; she thought she had found it and with a cruel irony she uttered these words:

“Good-bye, Madame Guibert. How well you are looking! It is wonderful! We are surprised and happy to see it.”

Tears mounted to Madame Guibert’s eyes. She was still too sensitive to injustice. Aged, bent, broken down, she would have wrung pity from anyone but a baffled woman of the world. Gently she murmured, while the blood left her cheeks:

“May God preserve my health! My task is not finished.” She was thinking of Paule, whose uncertain fate caused her anxiety and attached her still to life. Instinctively she turned round to look at her. But the drawing-room door was shut. She felt compelled to conduct the ladies to their carriage. They got in and asked for Madame de Marthenay, who had stayed behind.

“I will tell her,” said Madame Guibert, climbing the stairs with difficulty.

Alice, left alone with Paule, had at last allowed her tears to flow.

“Paule, my dear Paule, won’t you let me kiss you? I have cried so much. If you only knew! I have felt such sorrow since ... since he is gone— Ah, you cannot know!”

Paule, standing speechless and bewildered, gazed wonderingly at this elegant young woman with the innocent, beautiful features, who was imploring her now. She thought of the past.

“What is the good of it?” she said. And, although she had noticed Alice’s hollow eyes and white face, she added between her teeth: “Are you not a little to blame for our unhappiness?”

To her the refusal of this weak, clinging, childish creature was responsible for that familiar anticipation of death which she had so often, after the interview at La Chênaie, caught in Marcel’s speech and in his casual talk. She who now stood before her weeping, had formerly not a single word to send to her brother to give him joy in life and the inspiration of confidence even in the midst of danger. Had she been indifferent, she would not have been guilty; it was her cowardice which had triumphed over her love.

But Alice sobbed: “Oh, I am unhappier than you.” Her despair was so evidently real that Paule was touched and took her old friend into her arms. As of old in joy, so now the two women mingled their tears in sorrow.

“I loved him,” Alice said in a low voice.

“Why did you not want him?”

“Ah, that is the sorrow of my life.” And breaking down completely, she added in choking accents: “You can cry freely. But I must look happy, and I have death in my soul.... Paule dearest, may God keep you from ever suffering as I do. And it is my fault, Paule. Oh, I would rather be his widow to-day.”

And Paule now understood the secret that was suffocating her friend. Judging by appearances, she had thought her happy. The gossip of the town never reached Le Maupas. Now she saw suddenly how immediate and how lasting was the punishment of the fear of living.

Alice was leaning on Paule’s shoulder as if begging for her help. In spite of the marten cape which covered her, she was shaking from head to foot. The girl kissed her and lifting her sweet, tear-stained face said:

“Poor Alice, how I pity you! Be brave. One has to be. You must forget about it. Think of your child. Make a stronger woman of her.”

“I loved him,” she answered faintly.

Madame Guibert came back and, seeing the two embracing each other, she understood the reason of their emotion.

“Your mother is waiting for you, Madame.” She tried to find something else to say, and murmured: “I thank you for your visit.”

Feeling that she was pardoned, Alice took her hand and touched it with her lips. She dried her eyes, looked once more at Marcel’s photograph ... and fled.

The carriage swept down the bare avenue and passed through the old gate. Madame Dulaurens, uneasy over her daughter’s stay, was gazing at her anxiously, affectionately, jealously. She avoided remarking on Madame Guibert’s refusal and Paule’s attitude, and when they came out of the oakwood she laid her hand on Alice’s arm as she sat facing her.

“You see how sensible your mother is,” she said to her in a low voice. Mademoiselle de Songeon was looking out on the melancholy landscape on the other side.

The young wife looked enquiringly at her.

“Why, of course,” said the mother. “If I had let you marry Commander Guibert you would have been a widow now.”

Alice said nothing. In terror she searched the secret places of her soul and asked herself if as a widow she could not have been less miserable. The sorrow which comes to us from fate is deeper but less depressing than that whose source is ourselves, our weakness, our fear of living. Having broken our hearts, the former sorrow purifies and strengthens them. The other wears us out uselessly and crushes us slowly with its petty wounds.

Had she chosen the better part? ... To mourn the death of the heroic husband she would have chosen seemed to her above all a sweeter lot than to weep for the degradation of the companion with whom she must share her whole life.

CHAPTER V
JEAN

What would not those who have been stricken by the grief of some faraway disaster give to hear about their loved one from some witness of the fatal scene, to learn the details of the tragedy, known to them only through the bare outlines of the official despatch—even though these details should open their wounds afresh and make their tears flow once more? They think themselves happy in their very misery, if they can but know the exact truth, if death’s mysterious horror can be banished, which tortures their hearts by day and haunts their pillows by night.

Several months have elapsed since the battle of Timmimun. Of the two mourners at Le Maupas, one has grown a little more bent and her smile, already, so rare and faint has vanished for ever. The other has remained upright and proud, but heedless of her youth has resigned herself bitterly and hopelessly to the flight of time. Wrapped in silence and solitude, they never go into the town and cross only the humblest thresholds, where their presence is always welcome.

And when the postman’s step crushes the gravel in the courtyard, they still tremble. That worthy man, so full of his own importance, will not keep them in suspense and according to the postmarks he cries “A letter from Paris,” “From Tonkin,” “From Algiers.”

“Thank you, Ravet. Go to Marie. She is waiting to give you a glass of wine.”

Their correspondence is now the only joy of the household. It is more frequent than it used to be. From afar Madame Guibert’s children try to shower their love upon her. Letters come from Jean Berlier in Africa. They are full of Marcel and his glorious death. In the last one Jean has told them of his return to Savoy at the end of May.

At Le Maupas anxious eyes look down the deserted avenue, where now the chestnuts are proudly bearing their white candles. The young man coming slowly up the wooded hill that leads to the old house is no longer Isabelle Orlandi’s gay cavalier, though he has still kept his slim, lithe figure and his distinguished, confident bearing. But his brown face wears a more manly expression; his eyes have a surer and more discriminating glance. Leaving behind his careless youth, he has grown into a man who thinks and who knows what he wants.

He arrived only the evening before. This morning he left Rose Villa and all along the road he has been breathing his native air, like one newly awakened. On the chilly earth, decked with mauve and lilac mists—like a maiden slowly opening her eyes and stirring aside the gauzy curtains of her bed—he catches the fresh beauty of spring and that joy of life which begins with the dawn.

His eyes dwell admiringly on the delicate green of the trees and fields, the individual glory of the month of May, and he feels a happiness in the tender, new-born leaves budding on the hedges. To the left his glance searches for those three steeples, on which the tent of the sky seems to hang over the countryside: Belle-Combette, almost hidden in greenery; Montagnol, proud and grey, scarcely distinguishable from the walls of Pas-de-la-Fosse; and sweet Saint-Cassin, resting, like an old man seeking the shade, in a forest of chestnut trees. The scarps of the neighboring mountains lose their rugged shape in the morning light, and Nature under the clear sky smiles all over and trustfully displays her grace and charm, wherein may be read the promise of fruit and harvest.

Jean turned round and saw from afar a sheet of pearl and gold, which was Lake Bourget, its sleeping waters bathed in sunshine. At the kiss of the beams the waters shivered voluptuously. The young man continued on his way. Standing out against the Chaloux hills, La Chênaie was welcoming the fresh air through its open windows. Pleasant memories came back to Jean of the time when he was twenty-five; of Isabelle’s red lips, expert alike in speech and kisses. He thought over his life and reached a conclusion which surprised him.

“I have seen neither her nor Savoy for four years—or nearly that. It seems very much longer to me. I was a boy then, playing at life.”

But the girl of long ago did not remain in his memory. As he passed into the oakwood he stopped and looked again. The arch of the trees bordering the road narrowed and framed the landscape. He recognised in the hues and outlines of the plains and mountains that mixture of precision and of softness which gives the Savoyard country its unique character. A shepherd girl’s voice rose to him. She was singing some old love couplets:

“Up there on the mountain

There is a meadow;

The partridge and the quail

Go there to sing.

I took my cross-bow,

Thither I went;

Thinking to kill four,

I missed them all.”

The few uncertain notes could not rob this strained voice of its clear tone, limpid as the waters of a stream.

At the bend of the road some sheep appeared, then the shepherdess, standing out like shadows against the light trelliswork of branches. She was a girl of fifteen or sixteen, to whom health and strength gave a rustic beauty.

“’Tis the heart of my love

That I have wounded.

Love, my sweet love,

Have I hurt you?”

She passed by Jean, who was listening smilingly to her song.

“Good morning, Monsieur Jean,” said she with a bow.

“Do you know me?” he asked in surprise.

“Why, of course! I am the daughter of Trélaz, the farmer at Le Maupas.”

“Jeannette?”

“At your service.”

“But you were about the size of a boot then! And now you are taller than ripe corn.”

Nothing makes us so conscious of the flight of time as the growth of children whom we see but now and then. The flattered girl began to laugh, and although her teeth were badly cared for yet her joy was contagious. As she passed on, she repeated the last verse.

“’Tis the heart of my love

That I have wounded.

Love, my sweet love,

Have I hurt you?”

And the wind carried the dying words to the young man, still standing motionless at the foot of the oak trees.

“Just a little, scarcely that,

But I shall die of it!

A kiss from your lips

Would heal me quite!”

Jean’s eyes swept over the scene before him—the trees with their new leaves, the meadows with their waving grasses, the girl full of the wine of youth. He breathed in the scent of the earth and the morning woods. And in his native air he tasted the love of life.

It was only since he had learnt how transitory it is that he had enjoyed the beauty of nature in its fulness. Young people do not understand the value of existence as they run heedlessly after pleasure, frivolity, distraction and all that hastens, while it hides, the flight of time. It is danger, passion, love’s melancholy, the sight of death; it is the deep sorrows which bring them to a sudden halt before life’s unmasked face, as when at the bottom of a garden path one suddenly comes upon a cold marble statue under the branches. How can he who would ignore the night feel with the same ecstasy as we the glory of the daylight that must go and of the shapes that the darkness must swallow?

Jean had reached the zenith of his youth, and was wiser. Another and a deeper sky, another country, sterile and bare, had developed and perfected his understanding. Above all, new and tragic emotions had struck at his heart with a terrible force, like that of the sculptor’s chisel which causes the useless chips to fly from the stone which is to grow into a statue. Inspired by gratitude for the lessons which he had learnt, he connected his full, passionate appreciation of this spring morning with that crimson dawn on which he had seen his friend die. In the death of the leader after victory, in the pierced forehead behind which the brain so lately lived, in the heart now cold which had been the home of love, in the face of all that strength and courage, shattered like a tree in its vigor; in all these things was manifest the frailty of human life, by contrast with which the light of day shines the brighter. With Marcel’s face on the ground before him—beautiful in its serene, grave stillness, in its calm, touching repose, never to be forgotten amid the surrounding scene—he had felt alike the wish to live fully and without fear and the desire to deny the everlasting presence of death.

The old gate at Le Maupas was open as of old. Jean went up the chestnut avenue, breathing in the scent of the blossoms. He knew that in a few minutes the tears would flow again, sad but salutary too. At the crunching of the gravel in the courtyard, an old woman who was seated on the steps, working with slow hands in the cool morning air, arose. Her eyes sought the visitor. She saw who it was.

“Is that you, Jean? How I have waited for you!”

At the first glance, he took in the marks of her sufferings. She was more bent, and her hair was whiter. But he recognized with surprise on her thin face an expression of peace which he had seen before.

“Madame Guibert!” he cried.

He sped up the steps and, bending forward with his natural grace, kissed her. Madame Guibert vainly tried to keep back her tears and murmured Marcel’s name.

“Come in,” she said at last. “We shall be able to speak of him better in the drawing-room.”

She led the way with lagging steps. Then she opened a door and called:

“Paule! Here is Jean Berlier!”

“I arrived late last night,” he explained. “And I have come to you this morning. I was so anxious to see you again.”

“You are good to us. I knew you would come at once. We have been looking for you for some days.”

Paule came in and clasped Jean’s hand. Her lovely black hair made her pale skin seem paler. Her dark eyes had lost their fire. Straighter and still prouder than she used to be, she cherished her broken heart in no humility. Full as he was of his sad story, Jean had time to read with surprise in the serious young face and in the stiff attitude of the body a lack of interest in life. Paule, also surprised, noticed the change in the young man. With the passage of time he had grown more sure, more resolute, more like Marcel.

In the little country drawing-room, through whose closed venetians a ray of sunlight filtered, the hero who died for his country rose up from the African soil where he had lain to come back to his own people, recalled to life by the words of the narrator. He came back young, tall, thin, and muscular, his head borne high, his tone imperious, gifted with that physical superiority, that aptitude for command, that self-imposed calmness which are the outward signs of a leader of men.

Jean looked at his photograph placed on the closed piano and crowned with a wreath of roses. He spoke of him as Marcel would have wished to be spoken of—simply and nobly. He had that rare gift of choosing the right word, which paints the truth with no undue softening, with no undue emphasis. His voice, though sweet and caressing in its sympathy with pain, still revealed the strength of the man beneath. It banished all weakness and despair. It encouraged and comforted and even found a solace in death. The two women, who wept on his arrival, kept their tears under control as they listened to him.

He had not actually seen his friend fall. The day was beginning to dawn when, suddenly awakened by hearing the shots fired, he got up to summon his men. In spite of information received as to the safe condition of affairs, the little troop at Timmimun always slept completely dressed. As Berlier hastened to the point of danger, the Commander was attacking the Berabers, who had already gained a footing in the camp.

“The sergeant who was at his side told me about his death. I was directing our defence on the left. He attacked them in front. Having routed them, he went in pursuit. He stood out a black silhouette against the first brightness of the dawn. The sergeant pointed out a little sandridge. There perhaps they were still hiding. As he stepped forward he put his hand to his head, stood still for an instant, and fell in a heap.”

Madame Guibert hid her face in her hands and the tears gushed to Paule’s eyes, hard as she tried to master herself.

“He did not stir,” continued the Captain. “He did not suffer. Death struck him full in the forehead. And he was thinking of his country, and of you.”

“And of God, too—was he not?” murmured the stricken mother.

“Yes, of God too. I had to take command in his place. But his victory was complete. When I was able to come back to him they had carried him a few paces away, under a palm-tree. I bent over him in vain. Our Surgeon-Major looked sadly at me. He had already examined him. Our life together had made us like brothers. I loved him as you did. There I mourned him as you did, on your behalf. And I saw what you had not the sorry joy of seeing—the serenity that was his in death. It gave his face a look of everlasting peace. When I see him again in my memory I have only good and noble thoughts. You must know this, so that his memory may be the sweeter to you.”

Jean was silent. Then he began again.

“The evening before he had gone with me to my tent, before making his last round. It was a clear, starry night. We often talked about Savoy. He spoke to me about you and Mademoiselle Paule. He had seen you lately. He had no presentiment to sadden him, but he never had any fear of death. In the pocket of his tunic I found this letter, which I have brought you. It lay against his heart during its last beats.”

Madame Guibert recognised her own handwriting. She raised her face, full of a mother’s anguish. When she could speak she asked:

“He now rests in the peace of God. Jean, tell me, where have they buried him?”

“In front of Timmimun, Madame. As he is the highest in rank, his tomb is placed between that of the commissariat officer’s on the right and the sergeant’s on the left. They were both killed in the same engagement. The men are buried at their feet.”

Paule interrupted:

“We have asked about the necessary steps for removing him to Chambéry. He will rest in our family vault near my father and my little sister Thérèse.”

Jean looked at the girl. He knew they were not well off. In gentle accents, persuasive and yet commanding, he tried to dissuade them from this costly and useless plan.

“Why do you insist on this return? The place of his death tells of the victory won. He is resting in his triumph. What tomb could be more fitting? How could he wish for a nobler monument?”

“He will soon be forgotten there.”

“You are wrong, Mademoiselle Paule. Every grave has its inscription. They are carefully looked after. As long as we keep a garrison at Timmimun, they will be honored. His bears his name, his rank, the two dates April 25th 1868 and February 19th 1901, and these three glorious words which sum up his career—‘Madagascar, Sahara, Timmimun.’ You must remember that they still honor in Algiers the tombs of those who were killed at the time of the conquest.”

Madame Guibert sighed, and Paule after a moment’s reflection, during which Jean was able to study her face more at leisure, spoke again, as faithful as Antigone.

“We should love to feel that my brother was near us, to be able to kneel on the stones which cover him.”

“Have you not always his memory with you? What remains of Marcel is but his earthly husk.”

“Ah, yes!” agreed Madame Guibert. She was thinking of his immortal soul.

Marcel’s sister yielded. But Jean saw the tears running down her cheeks.

“He was our pride—and my life,” she sighed; and in a lower voice she added: “He knew that long ago.”

“God willed it so,” said his mother. “We do not understand His plans. He seems so cruel sometimes that we are tempted to rebel. But His goodness is infinite.”

Jean, much affected, took her wrinkled, trembling hand in his own and, with the same respect which Marcel used to show, he kissed it reverently. He stood up and, facing the two women as they gazed at him, paid a last tribute to the dead, not without hope that he might help Paule, less resigned and more discouraged than her mother.

“His short life was complete. By his will power and his courage he has set us an example. Far from pitying him, should we not envy him? We must honor the dead, but we must have faith in life!”

Paule turned on Jean those dark eyes of hers, into which the light was coming back. A new strength seemed to flow to her from him. Could this be the frivolous young officer who used to flirt with girls of the lighter kind? In her memory of him she had cherished a contemptuous kindness for him, which perhaps concealed an unavowed vexation at his conduct. In her pride she had thought herself strong. She was now discovering that, if she wished to be worthy of her own esteem and Jean’s, she must pluck relentlessly from her heart all that bitterness and rebellion wherewith it abounded as the woods in winter with dead leaves.

“You are not leaving us already?” asked Madame Guibert timidly.

Jean, to console her, spoke to her of all the ties which still united her to life. They talked about her other children; about her daughter Marguerite, the nun in Paris, the nurse of the sick; of her sons making a new France in far-off lands.

“How many children has Étienne?” he asked.

“He expects the third. I don’t know them, and yet I love them. Oh, I cherish them as the last joys that God has given me. They are called Maurice and Françoise. Did you know that?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jean with a smile.

“Those are my husband’s name and mine. They are the blessing of our race. They are going to call the new one Marcel.”

“And if it is a girl?”

“Still Marcelle. Here is the photograph of the two elder ones.” Already she regarded as living the child that was to come.

“Aren’t they lovely?” said Paule, coming nearer to look at her nephew and niece.

“Yes, the little girl is very like you. She has your dark eyes.”

“She will be much prettier.”

“I don’t think so,” answered the young man, giving back the portrait to Madame Guibert. And he added with that beautiful smile which gave his face such a youthful look: “Are you not pretty enough? You are hard to please!”

Paule blushed, against her will, and her new color changed her as a sunbeam changes a raindrop. In her despair she had lost even the pleasure of her beauty, and now it came back to her again with joy.

Jean, seeing that they were both diverted for a moment from their sorrows, continued to question them:

“It is in Along Bay, near Hanoi, that they have settled, isn’t it?”

“They are not there now,” answered Madame Guibert. “They are living on a fine island. But Paule will explain better than I can. I get so confused with all those foreign names.”

“Oh, no, Mother, you don’t really,” cried the girl. She went on, quickly:

“Étienne has bought up the island of Kébao, opposite the Bay of Along. It belonged to a company that was badly managed and went bankrupt. It contains important mines and its soil is fertile. The mines, the material and the ground were all sold at auction, at a very low price. My brothers manage the mines and the rice-fields, and are making a splendid thing out of some plantations of a tree called Japanese lilac, which is used for building. Their labor is not sufficient for all the work there is to be done. They are looking in vain for help from France. Nobody here wants to go abroad. But still the country is healthy and picturesque, and they feel sure of success.”

She had spoken clearly and simply. Jean was delighted.

“There is no future in France—I am going out to join them.”

“And what about your career?” said Madame Guibert, as he rose to say good-bye.

“I am not so passionately fond of it as Marcel was. There is too much wasted time, and forgotten effort.”

They went out on the veranda in front of the house, buried under honeysuckle, roses, and clematis, and they leant over the balcony. This morning at the end of May was a feast for the eyes that rested on it. The air was clear and limpid. A bluish haze, sure presage of the continuance of fine weather, softly outlined the dim mountains. Over yonder the little steeple of Saint-Cassin tapered in the shadow of the chestnuts. Nearer, the fields wore that glory of fresh green which is seen only in springtime. The corn rising from the ground quivered in the passing breeze. The trees in the orchards had already shaken off the white and pink snow of their short-lived blossoms, and every branch was smiling with leaf-buds. Two lime-trees in the corner of the courtyard spread their scent abroad and the chestnuts of the avenue illumined the dark mass of their foliage with white candles.

From the balcony they could hear the eternal song of new life, and could appreciate the never-failing promise which the fruitful earth makes to toiling man.

Before them and around was the youth of the year, the symbol of the duration of life. They gazed and were silent. They were all thinking of Marcel and this too lovely day filled them with sadness.

Bent and weary, her heart obsessed by memories, Madame Guibert left it to Paule to accompany the Captain to the gate. She watched them disappear, thinking tenderly of what might be. She commended Paule’s future to God and went back to ponder in solitude over the sorrowful story she had heard.

Paule and Jean had said good-bye at the end of the avenue. The young man paused to follow the tall, graceful figure gliding through the trees. At the same moment the girl, too, turned round. She blushed at the coincidence and bravely came back that no awkwardness might remain.

“Jean,” she murmured with emotion, “I have never thanked you enough for my brother, who was a little yours too, nor for my mother, to whom your letters and your visit have done so much good. You have been good to us. I could not tell you before, so I came back.”

The emotion which stirred her made her more tender, more human.

“Oh, no,” said the young man. “Do not thank me. Was I not Marcel’s friend?—and our fathers loved each other.”

They stood face to face, not finding words. They felt a certain shyness, which they wished by turns to banish and to prolong. Jean could see against Paule’s cheek the long lashes shading the downcast eyes.

“Listen,” he said at last. “In Marcel’s tunic there was something beside your mother’s last letter—This photograph was found too. I thought I would give it back to you—yourself.”

He gave her a faded photograph, in which she recognised a path in the garden of Le Maupas and on it two little girls of ten or twelve—one fair, the other dark; one sitting quiet, gazing with eyes astonished at the world, the other caught in a lively pose. They were Alice and herself.

“Oh!” she said. And in a dull voice she asked: “Did he never speak of her to you?”

“No, never.”

She let the picture fall dully on the gravel of the path. Unable to contain herself any longer, she wept helplessly.

Jean took her hand.

“I often thought,” said he, “out there in Africa, how stupid fate was. Why did I not die in his place? Nobody would have wept for me.”

What could she answer? Her dark eyes shone with a sudden light. She picked up the photograph before he had time to bend down.

“Thank you, Jean. Come and see us again soon. It would be a charity.”

He looked at her a moment and then departed. She went back slowly through the garden. Her eyes wandered over the flowers. She picked a rose and for the first time in the year felt a little joy at its scent. She thought of her brother’s death in an unexpected way and repeated Jean’s words, of whose lesson she felt the full force: “We must honor the dead but we must also have faith in life.”

Do those words not sum up the incitement to live well which the example of all heroes gives us? They were great in that they did not bargain over their deeds, that in their careers, whether short or long, were manifest the marks of souls free from all fear and weakness. So Paule found consolation and comfort in that very thing which was the source of her heart’s disorder. She swore to herself, as she smelt the flower, that henceforward she would bear the burden of her days bravely, without bitterness, without revolt. Her despised youth would not be useless if she spent herself in willing sacrifice. And when she rejoined her mother she greeted her with an embrace of protection for the old age confided to her care. It was as though she sealed with a kiss the promise of her new-born courage.

CHAPTER VI
ISABELLE

In the middle of the front tier of boxes at the Club Theatre at Aix-les-Bains Madame de Marthenay and Madame Landeau displayed their beauty, one shyly, the other with the utmost composure, to the eyes and opera-glasses of the audience. They were a good foil for each other. Isabelle wore a soft silk dress, of buttercup yellow, whose V-shaped opening revealed the curve of her breast; and round her slender neck, to set off its whiteness, was a black velvet ribbon in which flashed a diamond of extraordinary coloring. The gentle Alice was dressed in black lace, without a jewel. She had chosen this sombre color the better to efface herself, but it suited her fair complexion admirably.

Behind the women were seated Count de Marthenay, M. Landeau, and Captain Jean Berlier. That evening Gluck’s “Iphigenia in Tauris” was being sung. As the first swelling notes of the orchestra called for silence and attention throughout the house, the ex-lieutenant of dragoons silently opened the door and glided out of the box. He made at once for the gaming room. His wife turned round a moment later and noticed his flight. Alone in her sorrow, she was mourning as she saw Marcel’s friend once more; mourning for what might have been and was not. Isabelle was radiant. She was experiencing the joyous sensations of the cat who has made sure of her prey and gloatingly prolongs her anticipations, imagining she felt the breath of the young man behind her on her neck, just below her dark hair. M. Landeau was divided between desire for this beautiful, cruel creature and anxiety to run off to the reading-room to see the latest reports from the Stock Exchange, the scene of his unending battles.

Jean alone was listening to the divine simplicity of the music, as gracious as the lines of a Greek temple. Iphigenia was addressing to the chaste goddess her touching prayer for the boon of death in her exile on the savage coasts of Tauris. The singer, in the youthful glory of her body draped in harmonious folds of white, in the majesty of her attitude, in the purity of her face, recalled, though with the added grace of living flesh, those ancient marbles whose motionless charm appeals so strongly to all souls that love beauty and whose empire grows the greater by their defiance of the flight of ages. Only half aware of the inspiration of the art to which they were listening, the audience applauded enthusiastically.

Isabelle, leaning back, saw with surprise the joy in Jean’s eyes. His glance passed over her and was centred on the stage. She addressed a question to him in a low voice to compel him to draw nearer to her and to inhale the perfume of her body.

After the first act Madame de Marthenay wished to ask Jean to take her to the gambling-room and to call her husband. She burned to put a question to him. Yet she dared not and was obliged to take M. Landeau’s arm. Favoured by this double departure Isabelle signed to Jean to sit down beside her.

“Do you know,” said she, “that I have mourned your death?”

“My death? That was rather premature.”

“They announced Commander Guibert’s. You were with him at Timmimun. Could I guess whether you had shared his fate or not?”

“These lovely eyes have really wept for me?”

“For a whole evening.”

“They shine so bright that they ought to dry up all tears!”

“They are so happy to see you again, Jean.”

She certainly was doing her best to devour him with them. At once she re-established that atmosphere of guilty pleasure that had existed between them before. Seeing that his hand was bare she took off her gloves and laid her own, heavily be-ringed, on her old friend’s.

“You love jewels,” said he, looking at this slender white hand with its pink nails.

“Yes,” she answered. “I think I am wearing all the treasures of the world in miniature.”

He smiled sceptically.

“The world is too huge for you to hold in your hand.”

“Look at the green of this emerald, Jean.”

“I prefer the green of the meadows.”

“And the bright blue of this sapphire.”

“It will not compare with the blue of the sky.”

“Look at these rubies.”

“I prefer blood.”

“And these pearls.”

“I would rather see tears.”

“Well, be content—for I shed them for you.”

Amused with their sentimental sword-play they exchanged smiles as two fencers exchange salutes. Isabelle inhaled life greedily as if it were a bouquet of tuberoses. Her bosom rose and fell under her bodice of soft silk, which gave a hint of the firm contours. Jean could follow the fine blue veins which ran over the white skin and lost themselves under the silk. He pictured through the cunning draperies that faultless body, fit pendant to her head with the queenly profile, crowned by jet black hair. He had only to stoop to pluck this human flower, this rare orchid in the flesh. In the stem which bent towards him, in the unfolding of the petals, in the quivering from head to foot as before the warm evening breeze, he saw her offer of herself. Why should he not pluck? Did he not know the value of beauty, the value of youth, which enhances joy so much? But had he not known this he would not have worn that expression of fervent melancholy in the presence of joy.

“How long I have been waiting for you!” she cried in a different voice, in which the accent of desire was plain to his ears.

“You were really waiting for me?”

He could scarcely misunderstand her when she replied:

“I am still waiting for you.”

The orchestra was playing the prelude to the second act. Madame de Marthenay came back into the box with M. de Lavernay, to whom M. Landeau had given up his place. The latter, to get away from this serious music, which differed so much from light opera, and to direct in peace from the reading-room his dealings on the Stock Exchange, dispatched to his wife a second admirer, whom he destined in his mind to be a check on the other. By her coldness to him, which he refused like so many husbands to attribute to his own shortcomings, Isabelle infatuated him and made sure of her dominion. She had the art of mastering this coarse, full-blooded adorer, who growled to show himself off, like a wild animal before his tamer. He satisfied all her fancies, all her whims, inspired as much by his own vanity as by the passion to which he surrendered himself so whole-heartedly. And if he hated her flirtations, he paid no more attention to them than one would pay to the tiresome noise of bells on a show horse’s neck.

The old story of Iphigenia unfolded itself slowly. But Jean was beyond the musician’s power. Before him, between the black velvet ribbon and the dress, he saw Isabelle’s fair flesh and imagined the silky softness of it. Half turned towards him, she showed her face in profile. He followed the proud, slightly curved line of her nose, and stopped to dwell on those red lips, those lonely lips of an Eastern slave. Had she not said: “I am still waiting for you?” What was he waiting for? Had the countless seductions of life suddenly lost their charm for him, summed up for him as they were in this lovely woman, as a drop of scent in a Persian bottle contains the attar of a thousand roses? Had the African sun frozen his blood instead of infusing fire into it? Young and free, how could he use his youth and freedom in a better way? The head of whose every movement his thoughts were so filled turned, and now that the profile was lost to him, his glance had to content itself with the heavy mass of her hair, with the neck and the line of her shoulders, so sensuous in their appeal. Giddy, he closed his eyes for a moment and swore in a passionate fury that he would bring to fruition the mad desire which overwhelmed him.

At this moment of his abandonment he was swept by the chords of a deep and sustained harmony, which even in the stress of the sorrow which they were depicting never lost their grave serenity. His overstrung nerves were all a-quiver. His soul, its sensitiveness increased tenfold by the expectation of pleasure, drank in the divine music as a dried-up flower drinks in the dew.

On the stage Orestes and Pylades were disputing as to who should have the joy of dying for the other. They had reached the dark shores of Tauris. The idol of the barbarians had demanded the sacrifice of one of them. The high priestess, none other than the unhappy Iphigenia, had indicated Pylades, and Orestes claimed the pain for himself—a quarrel whose pathos can never grow old, where friendship, inspired by the intoxication of generosity, surpasses love itself in its transports.

Jean strove to shut out the troubling influence of those sounds which were so at war with the turmoil of his senses. But his deadened will-power could not defend him long. He loved life in all its manifestations of beauty too much not to understand and admire such perfect art, whose holy inspiration tore from the heart, as one tears up weeds from a garden, all evil desires, all hatreds and light thoughts.

He was no longer absorbed by the exclusive worship of a woman. A wild longing to live several lives at one and the same time seized upon him. Voluptuous and heroic thoughts came and went quickly, and gained the mastery over him in turn. Swiftly his mind reviewed his experiences of the past. He lived again through his friendship with Marcel, and that crossing of the desert, where perhaps, in solitude and danger, in intense hardship and struggle, he had learnt the supreme lesson as he realised the meaning of courage and unfaltering will. And the thought of the brother brought him to that of the sister. From the beginning of the evening he had put thoughts of Paule away from him. A few minutes ago he had succeeded in forgetting her entirely. Why had she come into his mind now, and why had this exalted music so untoward an effect? He tried to banish her image rudely, though not without regret.

“Oh,” he thought, “if only she were as lovely as Isabelle.”

And again his eyes followed the line of the neck and shoulders whose almost luminous surface magnetised him. He gave no thought to the injustice and impropriety of the comparison. And yet he admitted with a secret joy:

“She has finer hair. Those black waves of hers must reach to her knees.”

Isabelle turned to smile at him.

“She has finer eyes,” he said to himself again. But those eyes of which he thought looked reproachfully at him and he clearly interpreted their expression.

“Why do you treat me with so little respect?” the faraway Paule seemed to murmur. “Have I tried to lead you on by flirting with you as she does? Have I ever forgotten my dignity or modesty in your presence? If you do not love me, leave me in my lonely peace. Do not degrade my pure youth by making a mere pleasure of my memory. But if you do love me,—yes, if you love me,—why do you not find strength in your love to resist temptations which, for all you know, may ruin the whole course of your life. Come to me unfettered and proud. May I never read degradation in your eyes! I do not know if I am the more beautiful, but I love you, with a love that this woman can never know....”

Jean Berlier was no longer one of those men who go through life with blinders on their eyes, unable to see the broad fields of man’s daily labor which border the narrow path of their own passions. Once he had looked only to his own immediate desires. Now he saw his life fully and saw it whole, and from its source and its development he read the presage of its future. Thus considered, love took on a new aspect. In the place of mere gratification of the senses he put the charm of minds that think together and that inward strength which springs from peace at heart and the quiet life of home; in the place of the brief, violent transports of passion, he put the instinct of the continuity of the race.

Since his return to Savoy three weeks ago, Jean had often gone to Le Maupas. He did not go there solely to comfort two poor sorrowing women. Paule attracted him immensely—by her pride, by her serious depth of feeling, by the youth which he knew her to be holding in check. He noticed with surprise at each of his visits, that this reserved, sensible girl, had a bright, lively spirit, ready to taste joy without timidity as she had tasted sorrow without flinching. With that touching trait of lovers, who try to magnify their love by imagining its extension back into the past, he connected with his present fascination little memories of long ago, of the times when he played with a laughing child Pauline. Forgetful of his own forgetfulness, he imagined an ancient fondness which had survived from childhood. But, still more, with instinctive clearness of vision he felt that his future achievement and the rounding of his life, so that it would not be spent in vain, would depend on her, and on no one else. So he loved her as a man loves at thirty, confidently and tenderly. Her gracious influence filled his heart with a new peace.

Isabelle Orlandi’s passion had thrown itself meantime across his path. Since her marriage for money she had dedicated to her former admirer all the unsatisfied ardor of her senses, all the fury of her tortured heart. She had been much more faithful to her friend Jean than to M. Landeau. She had waited for his return. When she saw him again she was even more fascinated by his serious and thoughtful face than she had been before by his careless good temper, and she promised herself she would wait no longer. For his benefit she displayed the full fascination of her loveliness.

In the box at the theatre, she had indeed triumphed for a few wild moments, though she did not know it. During the whole of the act she had doubted her power to charm because of the hesitations of this Adonis whose spoken words were so ambiguous. When the curtain went down, her only wish was to take up the interrupted conversation again.

Devoured by anxiety she turned round immediately and leaning over with practised art, so as to display all the beauties of her throat and bosom, asked:

“What were you thinking of? I felt you were not listening to the music.”

Jean smiled and said frankly:

“I was thinking about two charming women.”

“That is one too many.”

With arrow-like glances she tried to pierce the impenetrable mask. M. de Lavernay was keeping his eyes on the pair, while mixing up all his classical knowledge in his conversation with Madame de Marthenay. Isabelle grew impatient and, eager to make sure of her happiness, rose from her seat.

“It is stifling here. Will you take me into the hall, Captain Berlier?”

With a stare she passed by her discomfited guardian and went out on Jean’s arm. In the promenade and on the steps of the big staircase she leant on his arm with all the weight of her languishing body. As he remained silent, waiting for her to speak, she asked him with a timidity which had come over her all unforeseen:

“Am I no longer beautiful, Jean? Tell me.”

“Look round you, Madame, and judge for yourself.”

Certainly the pair provoked the glances of the well-dressed crowd which was streaming out of the auditorium into the big hall. And the eyes of the demi-mondaines who passed Madame Landeau fastened on her dress as though to estimate its price and its cut and to guess how her beauty would look when stripped of it.

She gave her escort a light tap across his fingers.

“You, you, I mean. You are the only person here who has any interest for me.”

“What about the old gentleman in the box?”

“He does my shopping for me!”

Strengthened by the thought of Paule, he strove to elude his temptress, whose soft arm he felt—not without a flutter of the heart—hang so heavily on his. Her burning, eager face under its mantling blush wore a look of discouragement.

“Do you remember, Jean, the wood at La Chênaie?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, remembering that it was there that Marcel’s fate had been settled.

“I should love to go back there with you. Did you like me better when I was a young girl? Be candid.”

“You are more beautiful now and yet different. I always see your husband behind you.”

She turned round.

“Your jokes are in bad taste, Jean,” she murmured after having made sure of M. Landeau’s absence.

“You are afraid of him,” she added.

“Oh, no, I am not.”

“You don’t like him?”

“No.”

“So that, before you would consent to—flirt, it would be necessary for him to please you?”

He began to laugh. “Exactly,” he said.

“That is very strange.”

“You are his wife.”

She laughed in her turn, and half hiding her face behind her fan she replied:

“So little—and so badly.”

“But quite enough.”

She imitated the little plaintive voice of children caught in the act.

“I won’t do it again.”

He looked long at her. He noticed the quivering movement of her eyelids, the yearning of her whole body for him. Why should he resist any longer the appeal of pleasure when it came to him in such lovely guise?

“Isabelle,” he whispered softly.

She gazed at him in her turn and radiantly slipped her soft hand into his.

“Jean, dear Jean,” she cried. For an instant they both had a foretaste of happiness. Then the bell rang to announce the next act. Full of their joy, they slowly returned to the hall of the theatre, without speaking. At the head of the marble staircase they stopped to take breath. Upon the balcony they stood alone above the gay crowd of spectators hurrying back, but they did not see them.

“Do you know, Jean, you made me tremble. I thought it was true what they told me.”

Vaguely uneasy and already tortured at heart, he repeated:

“What they told you?”

“Yes, that you were in love with Paule Guibert.”

He let fall the arm that was leaning on his and asked in a changed voice:

“Who told you that?”

Pale and speechless she uttered an inarticulate sound, as if she saw the ruined fragments of her happiness lying at her feet.

She was beaten by the magic of a single name and that name, in a mad aberration, she must needs have uttered herself! It was enough to see Jean’s face to understand the extent of her defeat, and in a rage at the shattering of her dream she made her error worse.

“That haughty little creature knew how to fascinate you, with her airs of a foreign princess. I had my doubts about her. She has been arranging this affair for a long time, I wager. She is mad, like all old maids in search of a husband. Go to her. She will know how to manage you!”

Restored as he was to his right mind by his temptress herself, Jean looked at her sadly because of her grace, mercifully because of her passionate heart. And it was in a gentle voice that he answered her insults.

“Isabelle, forgive me. It lay with you in those old days to share my life. And you saw this evening how weak I was and how powerful you were. It is not worthy of you to speak as you did. In the name of our dead love, Isabelle, be generous.”

With all the thoughtfulness of lovers, he asked for a woman’s sympathy while telling her he loved her no longer.

But she protested no further. The heaving of her bosom revealed her inward distress, she accepted defeat and abandoned herself to it. Her failure had found her unprepared. Too long she had anticipated the joy of victory. Her girlish flirtation had changed into a deep, sensual passion, more prone to the extremes of hope and despair than skilled in the subtleties of sentimental diplomacy.

They were alone on the balcony. The crowd had passed into the theatre, where Iphigenia, the priestess, veiled in red draperies, was making ready to perform the blood-sacrifice.

Isabelle looked down on the foyer, whose size seemed immeasurably enlarged by its emptiness. She put her two hands to her throat as if she were choking and at last lifted her eyes towards Jean, who was looking sadly at the distress on her lovely face. She was suffering so intensely that no base or wicked thoughts stirred him any longer.

“Jean,” she sighed in a faint, hardly audible voice, “you are right. No woman is more worthy of your love. You will be happy, and I shall be most unhappy.”

She could say no more, but bending down took the young man’s hand and pressed it to her lips. He felt a tear upon it, and as she drew herself up he saw that her face was streaming. But she had already partially recovered herself and she smiled faintly.

“Are those pearls, Jean?”

“Your tears are a thousand times more precious.”

Taking her in his arms, he kissed her eyes. After this indiscreet farewell embrace they both felt faint. How many couples have been bound together for ever by as few moments of weakness! But a door opening suddenly saved them, and they went back to their box.

“I have wasted my whole life,” said Isabelle, while the attendant came up, key in hand.

All the rest of the evening, with a strange oblivion of her powers, she felt wretched. She hated her clothes and her jewels, and exalted the magnificent poverty of true love above them all. For the rest of the evening, Jean, for all his victory, felt weaker and more humiliated than if he had lost. Yet he was enchanted at the sight of this beauty that he would never possess. His desire still smouldered ere it died away for ever. Before resolutely treading the narrow path of his destiny, he turned again to look at pleasure, not without a touch of sadness.

At the exit, he helped Isabelle to put on the white silk cloak which covered the brilliant bareness of her neck and shoulders. Not till then was he able to rejoice that he had remained his own master and turn his thoughts freely to the pure, proud maiden who claimed the allegiance of his heart, at once so strong and so weak.

Madame de Marthenay had scarcely said a word to Jean Berlier. He thought she was taken up with her husband, who according to public report was losing heavily at the Club and at the Villa des Fleurs and besides was making himself conspicuous with one of those many startling demi-mondaines who infest Aix-les-Bains. She endured her sad life uncomplainingly, her submissive soul resigned beforehand to the worst. What did her fortune and the unfaithfulness of an unworthy husband matter to her? She had no hopes of any joy to come. Her over-refined and sensitive nature could not console itself with worldly pleasures for her deserted home and the emptiness of her heart. Her little girl alone kept her from despair. On her she lavished an excessive affection, heedless of the ills which she thereby laid up for her in the future.

But that evening the sight of Jean had brought back to her with a bitter pang the scene in the wood at La Chênaie, when she had not had the strength to grasp her happiness, though it would have cost her but a slight effort and a promise that she would wait patiently. She wanted to question the young man about Marcel Guibert’s last days. The questions never passed her lips. Would she not betray her duty if she asked them? By the scruples of her conscience she heaped a new burden on her widowed heart.

Thus she never knew that Marcel was carrying, when he died, the picture of a child with candid eyes, who was the cause of his proud scorn of death.

CHAPTER VII
PAULE’S SECRET

Jean was putting M. Loigny into a victoria which he had fetched for him in the town. The old gentleman was wearing a frock-coat, a silk stock wound several times round his neck in the old-fashioned way, pearl-grey gloves, and carrying a stick with a silver knob.

“I feel so strange in this get-up,” he complained, thinking regretfully of his gardening-clothes. And he gave several orders about his rose bushes as if he were setting out on a long journey.

Jean tried to reassure him.

“Above all things,” he said finally, “do not forget what you are going for.”

“As if I should!” the little man retorted energetically. “Even if my loveliest flowers should fade in my absence I will satisfy you.”

M. Loigny was going to Le Maupas to ask Madame Guibert for her daughter’s hand on behalf of his nephew. When the carriage had disappeared round the road, Jean, impatient and agitated, instead of going back to Rose Villa, had slowly followed the same road. Thus he would perhaps meet his ambassador returning and perhaps would have time in the evening to go up himself to the house and speak alone to her who was to be his bride. He gazed questioningly at the sun, which was slowly sinking towards Mount Lépine.

“These July days are the longest of all,” he said to himself, looking for encouragement in his project.

After the evening at Aix the young man had searched his heart. He loved Paule for her courage and pride; and also for that mysterious attraction exercised on us by the features of the face, the color of the eyes, the mass of the hair, the carriage of the body, the matchless grace of a woman in whom we foresee the promise of a secure and happy future for ourselves—or at least a delicious torment of our soul. He could feel within him the approval of all his ancestry in the past, whose noble traditions he meant to carry on successfully. This sensible young girl with the eyes of flame inspired a tender love in his heart; above all she incited him to seek the true end of human existence, which is not to set up one’s own welfare as one’s object, but, striving valiantly and unselfishly, to make oneself the link between the generations past and those to come. Where could he find a worthier companion, a stronger and a surer one who could give better counsel? Paule had grown like a plant whose roots drew their nourishment from fertile soil. Her family was the guarantee of her virtue. It had only needed a little sunshine for her to attain her full development. Would not love bring her warmth and light? And what joy to see her grow and blossom and to feel oneself a little the cause of it, to give back to her the lost days of a cruelly harassed youth, fled almost before she had time to note their flight.

Paule would love him, she loved him already perhaps. Had he not noticed more than one slight indication of her secret feelings, in spite of her reserve and dignity—a blush on her cheek, a hurried fluttering of her eyelids, and above all the unconscious softness of that pure, loyal, sincere glance as it rested on him. Then, as he dipped back into his memories, he seemed to recall a coolness which she had long ago shown toward Isabelle Orlandi. Isabelle Orlandi! He had not seen her again, he would never see her any more. He was still full of a superstitious dread of her, and he put away from him the too beautiful vision which humiliated him cruelly as it reminded him of his own weakness. Loved by Paule Guibert, on the contrary, he felt himself strong enough to conquer all obstacles. For this is the true test of real love, that it exalts all our faculties, and gives us confidence in ourselves.

The decision which his heart reached was sustained by other considerations. Married love does not cut the lover off from the outer social world, but, through the very difficulties which it encounters, brings with it an understanding of life in general. It is the safeguard of this life, in contradistinction to the love of mere passion, which threatens it with oblivion, and ruin. The Guiberts were not well off, and his own fortune was reduced to very little. No doubt it would be not without regret that he would leave the service. He loved this self-sacrificing and honorable profession, and the stern discipline which imposes itself on the will. The brilliant career he had carved out for himself so early gave him the right to count on the future. He did not, however, feel that irresistible vocation which forces young men to travel along one road, all others for them leading but to distaste and dissatisfaction. That had been the case with Marcel, for instance. But Jean was not tempted to reject the suggestion which the necessities of his existence, as it must be in the future, made to him. He was able to plan out his life without trouble. In the course of his visits to Le Maupas, the affairs of Étienne and François Guibert in Tonkin were often discussed. In all their letters the two young men told of the prosperity of their undertakings and complained of not being able to extend them for want of the necessary help. In vain, they said, they had appealed to old school friends. They all preferred routine work to independence, mediocrity to risk. But Jean, as he grew to know his heart more surely, thought the more deliberately: “If I hand in my resignation, I—we—shall go out to join them.” The call of the colonies attracted him by the very energy and activity which it necessitates. He had always had a love of mother earth. Distant peasant ancestors drew him to the soil. If, out there, he should feel homesick for France and the Army, could he not gain strength in the love of that new France, which he would be helping to build, in the manly joy that there is in the patient conquest, day by day, of a soil to which water and fertility must be slowly brought? Would he not gain it, above all, from the love of his wife? She, he was certain, would not fear to leave the country with him and to share his life of struggle and adventure. The blood of Dr. Guibert, so indifferent to danger, the blood of that mother who was sustained in trials by an unconquerable faith, ran in the veins of this girl whom he loved.

With the selfishness of lovers, Jean forgot one person in the calculation of his future, or rather he was thoughtlessly planning to deprive this person of her sole support, of the sole sweetness of her joyless days.

In Madame Guibert’s heroism he discovered new reasons for confidence in Paule, worthy of such a mother; and he did not see that he was going to ask the greatest sacrifice of all from this poor woman, to take from Niobe her last child, the only one left her by the gods, the one she might still clasp distractedly to her bosom.

Along the road to Le Maupas Jean walked towards his happiness, while the lovely summer evening was shedding its light over the glad world.

Old Marie ushered M. Loigny into the drawing-room and went to look for her mistress, muttering on her way,

“What does the old man want of us with his frock-coat and tall hat?”

But M. Loigny paid no attention to the servant whom his fashionable disguise stirred to such wrath.

He had just stopped short before a bowl of roses which bloomed in the middle of the table. Bending over them he examined them so closely that it seemed as if he were sniffing at them, and all at once he began to show signs of great stupefaction. Madame Guibert found him in this curious state. He scarcely bowed to her, and leading her up to the flowers he cried:

“Do you see that?”

“Yes,” said she, surprised.

“How did you get it?”

“I don’t know, Monsieur Loigny.”

“It is quite impossible that you shouldn’t know. Come, tell me!”

And then, less brutally, the eccentric little man added:

“I beg of you, Madame; it is very serious.”

Madame Guibert politely racked her memory.

“My son Étienne brought us home some rose-cuttings—they found a good soil at Le Maupas. These are their flowers. They are lovely, but they have no scent.”

“Certainly, they have no scent. But I don’t mind about that. And where had your son Étienne come from?”

“From Tonkin, Monsieur, from the Bay of Along, which produces flowers and fruit in abundance.”

“Ah! a Chinese rose! That is it. I thought it must be. And you don’t know its name, of course. Nobody knows the names of flowers in France.”

Madame Guibert excused herself smilingly, and the flower-maniac continued:

“They teach music to young girls, so that they may bore their fathers to death, and later their husbands, with sonatas. But they neglect to teach them botany. And in botany, Madame, should be recognised the crown of the earth, the grace of the home, the peace of the human spirit! I find a happy philosophy in it. To repair this gap in instruction I am making a catalogue of all the names of roses. We must know where to stop. Nature is too vast for us. But these names are, for the most part, deplorably vulgar!”

“Really, Monsieur,” said the poor lady at random, thinking of something else and yet humoring his fancy.

“Deplorable, I repeat. The prettiest are women’s names. They do not remind us of the complicated and delightful art of the garden, nor of the diversity of the vegetable kingdom with its thousand forms and colors, nor of our various shades of feeling—though to these it would have been in good taste to have made suitable allusion. They are inanimate names, like those of geography or chemistry.”

“I don’t understand anything about it,” admitted Madame Guibert, “but I love flowers.”

But the old enthusiast would not stop.

“We have not the inventive mind, Madame. And we have forgotten how to be astonished, how to be moved before the never-ending miracles of nature. We have settled down in the universe as though it were a dining-room. Familiarity and practical considerations have blunted our feelings. Yet the universe is really delicate, ever-changing, and delightful. Ah, Madame, believe me, we are far from equalling the Chinese gardeners.”

“The Chinese gardeners?” she repeated.

“Yes, the Chinese gardeners. Do you know what names they give their flowers.”

“How should I know, Monsieur?”

“Names which sum up the manifold beauty of the earth. Here are some of them:—‘Water sleeping in the moonlight.’ ‘The sun in the forest.’ ‘The maiden’s first desire,’ and this, which I trust you will appreciate, ‘The young girl showing her bosom.’”

Indulgent, but astonished, Madame Guibert smiled at this harmless folly and tried to check its outpourings.

“Won’t you give me some news of Jean? We have not seen him for several days. He is deserting us.” She foresaw the object of this unexpected visit. M. Loigny, disdaining all society, lived in his garden, which he cultivated exclusively himself, liking the world of plants better than that of men. Only a very important event could make him go out of his way, and this could only be an offer of marriage. And she thought of the absent Paule with emotion. She would find happiness awaiting her when she got back.

But this strange rose-lover was in no hurry to do this errand. He had at last succeeded in pulling the rose that had captivated him from its vase.

“Jean is quite well, Madame,” he replied carelessly, and then went on: “Yes, this kind is, so to speak, unknown in France. I will put it in my catalogue. Will you allow me, Madame, to carry away this specimen?”

“Please do, Monsieur,” acquiesced Madame Guibert, courteously. She was afraid she had been mistaken and was trembling for her hopes.

“A thousand thanks, Madame. I must fly to see about it before it fades.”

On the threshold the old man stopped and in a mysterious voice, which made the poor lady start, said:

“I have a secret to tell you. I have managed to grow a new rose by skilful grafting. You shall see it. It has no name yet. I am going to give it your daughter’s. My nephew will be delighted. It shall be called Madame Paule Berlier!”

And without having revealed his errand, otherwise than in this odd way, he vanished, still holding the flower in his hands and gazing at it.

Madame Guibert as she watched him disappear in the distance could not repress a smile.

“The poor man! He has forgotten all for his rose.”

Jean on his way to meet M. Loigny had arrived at the oakwood which lines the road to Vimines hill. He heard the noise of grinding wheels held back by the brake and soon he saw the carriage through the branches. Impatiently he hurried on in spite of the hill.

“Well, Uncle?” he cried.

M. Loigny lifted his flower in the air with a triumphant gesture which reassured the young man.

“Look here! A rose that I haven’t got in my collection!”

“What’s that to me?” said Jean brusquely. “Will she have me or not?”

The old man let fall the stalk that he held so carefully, put his hands to his head, and cried,

“Good heavens, I must be mad, I am dangerously mad. I forgot all about your offer!”

Jean looked at him pityingly. “So you forgot!” he said.

“But I am going back,” said M. Loigny, sitting up straight.

“No, I will go myself. Go back to your flowers, Uncle.”

And he went on his way to Le Maupas.

The old man followed him with his eye as far as the turn in the road. Then he wiped his face, made a sign to the coachman to continue, and for the first time went home to Rose Villa without any feeling of pleasure.

Jean discovered Madame Guibert in the garden at Le Maupas. She smiled when she saw him, sweetly and shyly. And he felt his heart lighten.

“Good afternoon, Jean. Your uncle has just been to see me. Did you know it?”

“Yes, Madame, he came with a message that he forgot to give you. For him that is nothing.”

“Oh, don’t be hard on him!”

And with a timid grace she took the young man’s hand in hers.

“Be easy in your mind. I am acquainted with the language of flowers!”

They sat down by the stone table under the trees. Jean kissed her hand. They understood each other already.

“So you know that I love her?” asked Jean with emotion. Then in a firmer voice he added:

“How could I help loving her, Madame?”

“She is worthy of it,” answered Paule’s mother, who was thinking of the new future.

“I think I have always loved her. Only I did not know my mind. When one is too young, one cannot clearly distinguish the plan of one’s life. And I shall love her for ever.”

“Yes,” she answered gravely. “Before binding oneself with eternal vows one must be sure of oneself. And I have confidence in you.”

“I see Marcel’s courage and his pride once more in Paule,” said Jean. “I shall bless my fate if it has reserved her affection for me.”

“It is God whom you must bless, Jean. Our strength comes from Him only. Yes, Paule is a darling child. Although I am her mother, I may say that with pride. I shall give her to you joyfully. Have I not always considered you as my son? And were you not like a brother to Marcel?”

“Oh, Madame Guibert, your words are so sweet to me. But she? ...”

“Don’t be afraid about her, Jean. She will accept you, I think. But you must ask her yourself. You have reflected well, have you not, about your future home? We are not rich, as you know. My son Étienne and I are willing to give to Paule, if she will be your wife, the rents of the Maupas estate. It does not bring in much since the vineyards were separated from it. We cannot do more.”

She was giving up everything and made excuses for doing no more.

“I do not wish it, Madame,” said Jean.

“Let me finish what I have to say. I am anxious to retire. I need very little to live on. Étienne, being able to do it, gives me an allowance which, in spite of all I can say, he will not make smaller. You must think of your future prospects, Jean.”

“Oh, Madame Guibert, what treasure can be compared to Paule’s heart? But do not think I should ever consent to accept your more than generous offer. I have already thought about our material future. Étienne needs help in Tonkin. In all his letters he keeps asking for a partner to develop the enterprises which are too great for him alone. Well, I have offered him my help. Out in Algiers I used to interest myself in everything concerning the soil. I will go to Tonkin. I wrote to him last month.”

“And you will take your wife out there?”

At this moment Jean’s attention was turned to the steps, where Paule had just appeared, so he did not see two tears gush from Madame Guibert’s eyes. When he looked at her she was already prepared for the new sacrifice which life asked of her, and it was in a firm voice that she said:

“May God bless your plans! Here is my girl, Jean. She has known loneliness and sorrow too long. She needs happiness. How happy she will be with your love! She will feel her youth, which she had forgotten. Jean, you may tell her that you love her.”

Then she added in lower tones—for Paule was coming nearer—and he did not hear her words:

“I give you my last, my dearest child.”

Tall and erect, Paule came across the courtyard and joined them under the shadow of the chestnuts. Her black dress made her look a little formal as she greeted the young man. He had risen and gone to meet her. A slight flush heightened her color, while her dark eyes lighted up. She kissed her mother:

“I have just come from the farm. We shall have the butter and eggs to-morrow.”

Madame Guibert gazed at them both with motherly eyes. She rose from the basket-chair where she had been sitting.

“I am going in to see about dinner. You will excuse me, Jean. How lovely it is this evening. You have not been out all day, Paule. You should have a walk together before the sun sets. Go as far as the Montcharvin wood and come back. Come back soon, my children!”

She could not resist calling them her children. She watched them go down the chestnut avenue side by side with rapid steps.

“How tall she is!” she said to herself. “He is only half a head taller than she. And he is very tall. A fine couple!”

They disappeared behind the trees. Slowly and with a heavy heart the old lady went in to her house, and as she prepared herself for this last sacrifice she repeated to herself:

“My darling little Paule, and I have lost her! May you be happy. You have deserved it for your dear care of me. Be happy—it is all I ask of God.”

Above the Vimines road, a path cut off by a screen of poplars from Forezan’s steep slopes skirts the fields and leads to Montcharvin farm. Paule and Jean followed it, the girl walking in front.

“Let us go as far as the ash-wood,” she said. “We shall be able to see the sunset reflected on the mountains through the trees.”

He stopped. “No, let us stay here, will you not?” And he pointed to the old felled tree-trunk which served as a bench. She had never sat there since her last walk with Marcel. Thinking of this, she hesitated. She had no idea what Jean had to say to her. Little accustomed to thinking of her own affairs and resigned to her destiny as a penniless girl, she never gave love or marriage a thought. She believed she had stifled forever the feelings which had once caused her so much suffering, and kept jealous watch over the heart for which no one asked. She consented to sit down. For a moment they were silent, side by side.

The sun had disappeared behind the nearby mountains. Round them they were conscious of the peace of evening falling over the land, like a holy presence. At their feet the ripe cornfields waved gently. Further away the trees in the wood gathered their leaves together and sought calm repose. On the horizon the cliffs of Mount Revard, still touched by the sunlight, shone with bright pinks and violets. The happy omen in this peace of nature increased Jean’s emotion. He looked at the girl beside him and was happy at the thought of what he was about to say to her.

She remembered with painful clearness the words which Marcel had spoken to her on this same tree-trunk on the evening before he left for Africa.

“Paule,” she could hear in the voice that was for ever hushed, “do not be anxious, you will be happy some day.” Since Jean’s return she accepted her life bravely and without bitterness. She felt a kind of stoical happiness which satisfied her after so many blows. Was that the happiness Marcel had meant? In this peaceful hour, the vague longing for joy of another kind rose up in her. Still, she did not know that the time had come.

Jean made up his mind to speak.

“I have been speaking to your mother, Paule, of my plans for the future,” he said.

She looked at him.

“Your leave is up already? You are going away again soon?”

“I am not going back to the regiment.”

In her surprise she waited for his explanation.

“I am going to resign.”

“You, Jean! Oh, that is a mistake. You are not thirty yet, you have the Legion of Honor and you are giving up your career! What would Marcel have thought?”

“Marcel would have agreed with me—because I shall serve France in another way, which will not be less useful. From being a soldier I shall become a colonist. I have written to your brother Étienne, who finds his work at Tonkin too much for him. I am going to join him.”

“Oh,” she said. “How glad they will be out there! They know what good friends you and Marcel were. You will tell them about him as you have told us. You will see my nephew and my niece. You will know them before I do.”

The shadows were falling over the plain and began to climb the mountain slopes. Over Lake Bourget far away, hung a violet haze, mingling itself by degrees in the pink and gold of the sky. Evening was enveloping still nature like a blessing.

Jean rose and stood before the girl.

“Your brothers would be much happier if they knew my other plan.” And lowering his eyes to the ground, he added more gently:

“It is a plan infinitely dear to me. Your mother knows what it is.”

He looked at her and saw with surprise that she suspected nothing. He admired this forgetfulness of self, and gravely, with deep tenderness, brought out the decisive words at last:

“Paule, I love you. Will you be my wife and go out there with me?”

She rose in her turn, unable to speak and deathly pale. Her heaving bosom showed the tumult of her heart.

He continued: “I love you, Paule. Did you not know it? Did you not guess it? When I came back from Algiers I found you so brave—and so beautiful. Oh, don’t say no! During the crossing of the Sahara, I remember, Marcel often told me, when we were talking about Savoy, that you were your mother’s comfort. Whenever I was looking for something to stir up my energy, some picture to cheer me and arouse my courage, I thought of you. I know I have always loved you, since the time we were children, when I laughed at your long black hair. My happiness lies in your hands, Paule. Will you not give it to me?”

She made no reply. She was so pale that it seemed as if the blood had left her veins. He took her hand, which she did not withdraw. He waited, confident and calm, his heart swelling with hope.

She gazed at the peaceful countryside unseeingly. The summits of Mount Revard ceased to reflect the sunset glow. All nature was wrapped in the shadow which precedes sleep.

Was not this the happiness that Marcel had predicted for her, on this very spot, during a similar sunset?

As she continued silent, Jean was racked with intolerable anguish. In an altered voice he repeated for the third time.

“Paule, I love you. Why do you not speak? Answer me, I beg you.”

Gently the girl released her hand.

“No, no, I cannot,” she said.

Sobs choked her voice, and she fled towards the house.

Then he felt the night fall even upon his heart. He hated the life he had once adored and envied Marcel dead on the African sands, Marcel wrapped in infinite peace.

CHAPTER VIII
MADAME GUIBERT

On the veranda Madame Guibert was waiting for the return of “her children.” Her arms were crossed on the iron balustrade; hidden in one of her hands she held a rosary, the beads of which she told while her lips murmured the Ave Maria. A peace as deep as that which had fallen over the land now reigned over her tear-stained face.

She saw Paule come back sobbing distractedly and tried in vain to stop her.

“Paule, what is the matter? Tell me,” she called. But the girl passed her without a word and fled to her room.

Madame Guibert turned to follow her. Then she changed her mind, threw a shawl round her shoulders, and descended the steps. With trembling feet, summoning all her strength, she went up the avenue and posted herself near the open gate which looked on to the road.

“He cannot have passed yet,” she thought. “Paule came back so quickly.”

By the light of the setting sun she scanned the deserted road. All round her she heard nothing but the never-ceasing, strident sound of the crickets and the occasional flutter of a heavy chestnut-leaf blown down by the wind. After a few minutes of suspense, she saw the young man’s shadow on the path which skirts the Montcharvin meadows. He walked along with his head bowed, and his body stooping listlessly. As he came nearer she read easily the expression of sadness in his face. So absorbed was he in his sorrow that he did not notice her standing to his right beside the stone column. As he passed her, she called to him:

“Jean!”

Surprised to hear his own name he turned round and saw the old lady smiling sweetly at him. He took off his hat and came up to her.

“I am so unhappy,” he said simply, as if he were telling his troubles to his own mother. Madame Guibert held out her hand to him.

“Jean, give me your arm. Let us go in, night is coming on and it is getting cold.”

He gave her his arm, answering in dull accents: “Madame Guibert, you know that I must not come in any more. But I will take you back as far as the door.”

The golden splashes of twilight sought to blend with the thick trunks of the chestnuts. Daylight was fighting obstinately with darkness. Slowly and silently the pair walked over the gravel of the avenue. At the foot of the steps, as he was going to bid her good-bye she said:

“Come in with me. I want to talk to you. Paule is not in the drawing-room.”

He tried to resist, then gave way indifferently and followed Madame Guibert. He was like a condemned man, who does not believe in the chaplain’s consolations and yet listens to him.

When he had shut the door she turned to him and taking his two hands looked at him steadily with her clear eyes.

“She has refused to be your wife?”

“She ran away in tears.”

“Jean, my dear Jean, you did not understand.”

Her affectionate words soothed his pain, but also had the effect of softening his resolution, and he was ready to burst into tears.

“I am sure she does not love me,” he said. “I love her so much.”

She let go his hands and leaned against the table, seeming to collect her thoughts. What she was making up her mind to say was so serious. Could she answer for her daughter’s heart? Was she indeed sure that she herself quite understood? She looked at the young man whom she wished to have for her son, and remembered how loyal and brave he had been in the past. Above all she thought of Paule’s loving nature and her life in the days to come. Reassured, she smiled at Jean and spoke at last.

“You are quite wrong, Jean. Paule loves you.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no, Madame, do not trouble yourself to find explanations. Let me go away.”

“Do you think mothers can no longer guess their daughter’s secrets?”

She paused and then spoke out her thoughts.

“Paule loves you. Did you not understand that she was sacrificing herself for me?”

“For you?” he repeated. “How so?”

He looked attentively at Madame Guibert. His youth rebelled at the thought of defeat and already he was full of a new hope. Still she was not surprised that he had not guessed her meaning. She answered almost apologetically:

“Did you not tell her that you were leaving for Tonkin?”

“Yes, I did.”

“She did not want to go away from me, Jean. And that is why she left you in tears. But she loves you. Did not her tears tell you that?”

At last his own selfishness was clear to him, and he stood stupidly before the woman whose existence he had forgotten. He had been preparing to leave her in loneliness and yet a few minutes ago she had said nothing when he had asked her for the gift of her last child.

Madame Guibert repeated, as he maintained his silence: “She did not wish to leave me all alone.” And with a faint smile she added, “Does that surprise you, Jean?”

He was still silent, trying to master the feeling that was overwhelming him. The old lady went on in her gentle, resolute voice:

“She was wrong, Jean. She loved me before she loved you. She loves you best to-day and does not yet know it. She has been my joy and my strength. You will see later what her devotion can be. She has devoted herself to me to the verge of sacrificing herself. But I do not wish it. God does not wish it.”

She saw that the young man was almost in tears and she took his hand again.

“She is looking back, and in life we must look forward. Fathers and mothers must live for their children, not the other way. It is the natural law. It is the divine will. Do not mourn, Jean. She will be your wife. I am going to send her to you. But you must promise me you will cherish and protect her always and make her happy. My little Paule deserves it so much.”

Jean could not keep back his tears any longer. And these were sacred tears, stirred at the sight of such a miracle of abnegation. His deep and respectful admiration embraced both mother and daughter, so worthy of one another in their forgetfulness of their own happiness. And he himself, blinded by his love, had not guessed that this love, cruel as the gods of old, demanded a great sacrifice, an offering of atonement in the sorrow of the noblest of hearts!

With an impulsive movement he bent over the hand which he held in his and placed his lips on it.

“I should like to kneel to you,” he murmured. “May you be blessed above all women!”

“Oh, what are you saying, Jean?”

He continued: “But I cannot accept your sacrifice. We will stay in France near you. Paule shall never leave you.”

Madame Guibert had already left him. She went to the end of the drawing-room, opened a door, and turning round on the threshold as she went out said, “Wait here for me.”

She crossed her own room and entered her daughter’s noiselessly. Through the open window the dying light of day came in, with the perfume of the garden, and was reflected with the trees in the mirror. In the afterglow, she saw Paule, sitting huddled up at the foot of her bed, crying her heart out for her lost happiness. She had lost it of her own free will, and not through weakness; but could she not see it now from afar, like the promised land which she should never enter? She plunged herself into the flood of that love which none had known or could ever know, that joyous love of old which she had thought suppressed for ever and which she now felt welling forth again to her sorrow—plunged herself so deep that she seemed almost to taste the savor of death upon her lips. She was awakened from her misery by her mother’s kiss upon her hair.

“Paule,” said Madame Guibert, “why are you crying? You must be brave in your happiness, as you have been in your trials.”

The girl had already risen and under cover of the growing darkness, which partly hid the signs of her sorrow, she began at once to defend herself.

“You don’t know what happened, Mother. I do not love him. Only ... his offer was so unexpected, so strange, that I was a little startled. It is the first time, Mother, you know.... But I don’t love him, I assure you.... I cannot do more than I have done.”

Her mother was looking at her with infinite love, as if she were measuring the extent of this devotion which would not confess itself and persisted in denial, even to despair.

“Come with me, Paule,” she said at last. “Jean has not told you everything—Or you left too soon. He did not have time to tell you, dear, that when you go I am going with you.”

As flowers after a heavy shower sparkle in the sunlight which changes their rain-drops to precious stones, so now this tearful face lighted up. Paule threw her arms round her mother’s neck. If Madame Guibert had any doubts about Paule’s secret, this quick change would have enlightened her.

“Mother, is that true? How happy we shall be out there! ... I love you.”

Madame Guibert smiled, fully aware that these three immortal words were not meant for her.

“I knew it well,” she murmured softly, fondling her daughter’s cheek as she used to do when she was but a tiny child. Moved to tears she was thinking of the blossoming of this happiness to which, by a providential chance, she had been allowed to contribute, and under her breath she thanked God, who had answered her prayer.

Shyly and without looking at her mother, Paule asked: “Has he gone?”

“He is here.”

The girl blushed, but the darkness hid her. The golden lights were already fading from the mirror.

“Let us go and find him,” said Madame Guibert.

She lead Paule by the hand into the drawing-room.

“Jean,” she said, “here is your wife!”

She joined their hands. But they did not look at each other yet. A similar emotion filled their hearts. Jean was the first to raise his eyes. The tears Paule had shed, if they lessened the beauty of her features, took away the pride of her expression and in its place brought a humbler, more touching look. He loved her all the more for her womanly weakness.

“I may be certain of my happiness?” were his first words.

With a sigh she answered, “Oh, yes....”

“Paule, I love you,” he said.

She repeated after him in a voice that was scarcely audible: “I love you, Jean.”

She looked at him in her turn and they smiled at each other. But immediately her eyes went to her mother, and, the joy of her heart confirmed, she said:

“Mother is going to Tonkin with us. We will all be together out there except my sister Marguerite, the nun.”

Now Jean understood the last argument Madame Guibert had used to test her daughter’s heart. And although he had doubts about this journey and instinctively suspected the generous falsehood, he pretended to rejoice with the two women.

“My children, my dear children,” Madame Guibert cried. “God has given us great happiness. May His blessing be upon you, upon your new home, upon your family! Jean, kiss your bride.”

The young man’s lips touched a cheek that was still wet. Thus their first kiss was mingled with sadness, as if to symbolize their union for life, in sorrow and in joy.

Madame Guibert had gone to the end of the drawing-room, and was looking at Marcel’s photograph; but at this late hour it was more in memory than in the portrait that she could see her son’s features. Jean and Paule came up to her.

“How happy Marcel would be,” said the young man. “I think now he knew my heart before I did myself.”

And the girl was thinking of her brother’s words: “Don’t be anxious, you will be happy some day.” Could he, who bore the fatal sign upon his brow and walked towards death with a sure step, have read the future then, with eyes that saw into another world? Was it his detachment from this life that enabled him to understand the affinity of souls and the secret of destinies? Paule’s sisterly devotion was glad to have Marcel associated with her own love.

The glowing struggle of the daylight with the dusk was over. Day was dead.

“I must go,” murmured Jean to his fiancée. And immediately she felt sad. Already all her thoughts were with her future husband and this first separation was a cause of grief.

“It is very late,” Madame Guibert broke in. “Stay with us, Jean. You must dine with us—you are not hard to please. Afterwards you can go back to Rose Villa.”

He hesitated a minute.

“I cannot,” he said. “My uncle would be anxious. I was rude to him just now on the road and I don’t wish to cause him fresh annoyance.”

He told Paule of M. Loigny’s unaccomplished official mission.

“Come back with him to-morrow for luncheon, then,” continued Madame Guibert. “Tell him that the garden will play its part in the fête. We shall have our loveliest flowers on the table. They will entertain him. Then we will all go and celebrate your engagement at the village church.”

As Jean left Le Maupas he found darkness in the oakwood. Joyfully and in no haste he descended the wooded hillside, as though it were the plain straight path of his well-ordered life in the days to come; the same hillside that Marcel had once mounted running, with the fire of love in his heart and the savor of danger upon his dry lips.

That night Paule was late in getting to sleep. She welcomed love with a steadfast heart, and with a serious feeling that made her resolution the firmer, not the weaker. She had climbed the hill of her youth, fighting difficulties, both physical and moral, as the hardy mountain-sheep struggle upward through the bushes which tear their fleeces on the way. Now it seemed to her that she was walking over a plain and that her bare feet were treading the soft grass. The sky before her was full of light. And what did it matter to her if she still had to climb? Would she not hereafter have a stronger arm to lean upon? And did she not feel in herself a new courage?

But Paule had been asleep a long time when her mother was still watching and praying.

“My God,” the poor woman murmured, “for the first time in my life I have told a lie. Forgive me. These two children had to be brought together. They were made for each other. Should not their happiness go before mine? I am too old to follow them. I cannot leave my dead. The earth is calling to me and Thou will soon summon me. Here I will await the hour that Thou hast fixed. But grant me strength, Oh my God, to bear this last separation calmly. I had grown accustomed to Paule’s care and Thou remindest me, in taking away my only earthly joy, that we cannot attach ourselves for ever to this world’s goods. In leaving me she will take away the heart which Thou hast filled, before breaking it. I offer Thee my sorrows beforehand, so that Thou mayst shower the most abundant blessings on my sons, including Jean, and on my daughters, on the living and the dead.”

She prayed a long time. At last she found peace in resignation, and her tardy slumbers were tranquil.

CHAPTER IX
THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSES

On the road to Rose Villa Jean breathed in the air of the loveliest of summer nights and tasted that joy which life gives when love comes to make it straight and whole, not to disturb and torture.

Jean reached his uncle’s house before he knew where he was.

“Already!” he cried. And he smiled as he noticed that all the windows of the little house were lighted up. “Is he having a party? That would be an unusual sight.”

He opened the gate and went up the little rose-bordered path which led in a straight line to the front door. Mechanically he stretched out his hand, as he often did, towards the slim bushes and in the darkness his fingers tried to gather a flower at haphazard; but they found only the leaves and the thorns.

“Some thief,” he thought, “has climbed the fence and stolen my uncle’s treasures! What a blow for the poor man!”

The door was still ajar. Jean pushed it open. It seemed as if he were walking in a field of roses. The invisible garden, under shadow of night, had apparently invaded the hall. Flowers lay in heaps, and the electric light of the ante-room revealed, on a green background of leaves, variegated patches of color—here in sharp contrast, there in insensible gradations of hue. Red roses, crimson red, poppy-red, carmine, nasturtium, flame-colored, copper, red of the dawn; white roses, dead-white, pure white, creamy white; roses of tender pink, peach-colored, bright pink; roses of pale yellow, straw-colored, canary-colored, nankin yellow, lemon yellow, sulphur, orange; all mingled their scents together.

Jean went forward stupefied. The doors of the dining-room and drawing-room, which communicated with each other and could be thrown into a single room, stood wide open and their thresholds strewn with flowering branches revealed the onward progress of the invading hordes. But after three or four steps, the young man stopped short. A voice penetrated distinctly to his ears. It was giving forth, with the monotonous regularity of a chamberlain, announcing the guests, the names of women, and at every name it sounded as if a branch were falling on the ground or as if silken stuffs were rustling.

“Madame Laurette de Messimy! Madame Jean Sisley! The Countess of Panisse! The Duchess of Edinburgh! The Duchess of Auerstädt! The Marquise de Vivens! Madame Hippolyte Jamain! Madame de Watteville! Mademoiselle Anne-Marie Cote! ...”

With a catch at his heart Jean thought, “Uncle has gone mad while I was away!”

The quiet voice seemed now to be chanting some profane litany.

“Beauty of Europe! Inconstant Beauty! Star of Lyons! Gloire de Dijon! Firefly! Grace Darling! Snowball! Golden Dream! Miniature! Surprise! Pearl of the Gardens! Streaky Pearl! Perfection of Pleasure! ...”

The young man’s face brightened with a smile; but he stood where he was.

“Fanchette, let us go into the drawing-room,” said the voice. “There are still some more.”

After a pause the names began again. But the women’s names no longer reached Jean’s ears so sharp and clear; they were accompanied by short descriptions of toilettes, rather like the accounts in fashion papers, and then by flattering appreciations addressed indiscriminately to princesses, great ladies, or beauties of the people.

“The Duchess of Morny, in pale pink, backed with silver! Viscountess Folkestone, in bright pink with salmon lights! Mademoiselle Thérèse Levet, in cherry pink! Mademoiselle Eugénie Verdier, in bright pink with white lights, and Mademoiselle Marie Perrin, in beautiful pale silvery pink!”

After this gracious group of bright robed young women, the speaker’s enthusiasm waxed warmer.

“Mademoiselle Adelina Viviand-Morel, your hue is indefinable. Your apricot, shading to canary, turns to straw yellow streaked with flesh colour! Anne-Marie de Montravel, you are certainly tiny, but your simple toilette is of the purest white. Mademoiselle Augustine Guinoiseau, your whiteness, satiny and faintly pink fascinates me. You are tall and well made, the flower of all France! Innocence Pirola, I love your slim grace and your rosy tint. Madame Ernest Calvat, there is a sweet fullness about you and your dress is a charming vivid China pink. Yet I prefer that tender rose hue, suffused with white, of the Baroness Rothschild, tall and very lovely, but without scent.”

Jean stifled a laugh when, with a brusque change of tone, the voice commanded:

“Now we must make haste, Fanchette. My nephew will be back soon.”

“And what about dinner?” asked the maid. “What time will you have it to-night? Or are you doing to dine on scents?”

M. Loigny’s voice, imperious and angry, was heard through the room.

“I tell you, girl, that I despise your dinner! Let us get on!”

The interrupted litany began again calmly.

“Madame Olga Marix, you are of medium height and the white of your robe is almost the color of living flesh. Countess of Murinais, I love you above all for your delicate pallor, for your foam-like, fragile beauty. Your grace is not of the lasting kind. You have not the charming precocity of Madame Sancy de Parabère, nor her amiable opulence, nor the lovely brightness of her vivid pink, but you are a type of discreet elegance and distinction.”

Now at last Jean could contain himself no longer, and at the risk of breaking the spell he bent forward to look at the favorite. He saw M. Loigny with pruning shears in one hand, while in the other hand he lifted the perfect flower, the white rose which he loved and praised the most. Kneeling on the floor, Fanchette was grouping the countless stalks which her master threw to her after gazing at them fondly, classing them by their families, and calling them by their names. The armchairs, the table, the carpet, all the country drawing-room was hidden under the roses. It seemed as though they had fallen from the ceiling in a scented rain, an odorous avalanche. And through the open bay window the young man saw in the dining-room huge bouquets standing in a row, with dashes of red-purple in them that looked like wounds. These strangely decorated rooms were the death-chamber of the revived garden.

“There are only three or four princesses left,” said the rose-lover, somewhat regretfully, to calm his angry servant. And quickly he went over them.

“Princess Beatrice, tall and nonchalant, in bright pink; Princess Marie, whose pink is like the cheek of a shy maiden; Princess Louise, who may be compared to some fresh face with its brilliant coloring toned down by a clumsy powderpuff.”

“Why has he ruined his garden?” Jean uneasily asked himself.

Through the windows he looked out into the night, and fancied he could hear in the wind which idly stirred the branches, the plaint of the mutilated rose-bushes.

At last M. Loigny noticed his nephew and his face assumed at once an expression of contrition and timidity.

“Here is every one of my roses,” was all that he said.

The young man was thinking: “He is not even interested in my engagement.” But happiness made him tolerant and he even wished to flatter his uncle’s innocent whim.

“Why did you gather them this evening?” he asked.

The agitated old man pursued the line of his own thoughts.

“Not one was spared, and my whole garden is there. The finest have women’s names, but the Chinese gardeners show the most poetical imaginations in naming the many colored beauties of the earth.”

“I heard you a few moments ago,” went on Jean pleasantly, “and I supposed you were talking to a crowd of charming shadows.”

“About a hundred and fifty,” said his uncle.

“It is a goodly number.”

“What is it compared with the incessantly increasing number of the various kinds of roses? There are several thousands of them. And one forgets all those that our grandfathers cultivated, of which one can find only in old books and among some rare specimens in old gardens. In our day too, Jean, new roses make their appearance every year from the hands of their clever growers. Look on the ground and you will see represented by choice specimens the roses of Bengal and China, the Miss Lawrence varieties, the many-flowered roses, whose trails are suited to borders and baskets, the roses of Provence, the moss-rose, the tea rose, the noisette, in whose delicate coloring the note of yellow is predominant. Cold-hating plants these Tea and Noisette roses! We have to protect them against the severities of winter, but they reward us for our trouble by flowering abundantly.”

Once started on his hobby, like a dog running round a cornfield, he rushed about, sniffing the air, gesticulating and heedlessly threatening all the knick-knacks of the drawing-room with sudden ruin. All at once he walked up to a little desk, opened a drawer and drew out a volume, which he brandished in the air as he came back toward his nephew.

“Lecoq’s ‘Cultivation of Vegetables,’” he murmured. “A weighty work, admirable, inimitable!”

He turned over the pages, and smiling happily began to read this passage in a loud voice:

“Whatever the size of a bed, however small may be the corner of ground at an amateur’s disposal, whatever useful knowledge he may gain, whatever curious experiments he may make, and whatever joy he may attain when by artificial cultivation he succeeds in enriching his garden, his friends, even his country, with some new creation which owes its existence to his care and intelligence.” He looked at his nephew over his book, and then finished the quotation: “Everyone may act in his own sphere, in his own corner, may be silent if he is not successful (which is rare), and may justly boast if something remarkable comes to crown his efforts.”

As if he had equalled Napoleon or Cæsar in the gratification of his ambition, M. Loigny murmured sadly as he closed the learned work:

“Yes, I have dreamed of emulating the rose-grower Gonod or Louis Scipio Cochet. I, too, have created a rose! She is lying there with all the rest. I wanted to call her the ‘Souvenir of Loigny the Rosarist’ so that by means of her sweet scent and delicate coloring my name might be transmitted through the ages to all garden-lovers. I, even I, have aspired to glory.”

“That is splendid. Show her to me,” said Jean. “Then let us have dinner, for I am dying of hunger.”

“Now that is what I call sense,” muttered Fanchette.

The hands of the clock stood at nine.

“Go to your stove, my girl,” the old man ordered with dignity. He was already on all fours on the floor, looking for his masterpiece in the heap of roses. Without getting up he handed a magnificent flower to his nephew.

“She will not bear my name—but yours. This very evening I have christened her Paule Berlier.”

“She is beautiful,” said Jean. But he was thinking of his fiancée. Then he added: “I thank you, Uncle, for your poetic homage.”

The old man was still on his knees. He stretched out his two hands with an expansive gesture and softly repeated, “Here are all my roses!”

“But why this massacre?” Jean asked for the second time. “I am sure you must have decapitated all your plants.”

“All, Jean, without exception.”

“Why this slaughter? Won’t you tell me?”

M. Loigny was contemplating the mass of cut flowers with the radiant smile of a Christian virgin led to martyrdom. He got up with difficulty and answered:

“Here are all my roses. They are for you.”

“For me?” asked Jean, surprised.

“For you, so that you may give them to your fiancée.”

“You have despoiled your garden for my fiancée? Oh, how kind you are!” said Jean. As he embraced his uncle, he noticed that the old man’s eyes were full of tears.

“But why? They are your flowers. You should not have sacrificed them for me.”

With an affection that Jean had never known in him, M. Loigny put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and said gently to him:

“Yes, Jean, it was necessary. I am not crying for my roses, but for myself. They are not, they should never have been anything but a diversion instead of occupying all my time. Can you forgive me, Jean?”

“Forgive you?”

“Yes, I had positively forgotten life. I was afraid of its sorrows and troubles, and I took refuge in my garden. Many people commit the same cowardice, in another way. They are wrong, like me. Just now on the road, at the sight of your astonished face, I suddenly understood the harm I had done. For the sake of a rose, for a wicked autumn-flowering China rose, dark red turning to purple, I had lost sight of your happiness, your love, and my own duty. But all my flowers are there. When I came in I fell upon my rose bushes with this weapon.” He still had the pruning shears in his left hand, instrument of his atoning sacrifice.

Jean tried to interpose.

“But you loved flowers....”

“No, no,” said the old man. “Don’t attempt to make excuses for me. Your father and mother are dead, Jean. It was my business to replace them as well as I could. Everyone has his obligations. If it is not towards his family, it is towards his neighbor. While I was watering my plants, you were growing up in my house, and I never even noticed it I am only too happy to give you these roses for her whom you have chosen. My life is changed from now on. I have thought more in a few hours than during the last twenty years. In the future, Jean, count on me. I want to help your young household. I have spent my little fortune vainly on my rose-bushes instead of thinking of your welfare.”

“We won’t think about that,” broke in the young man, now overwhelmed with emotion.

“On the contrary, we will think about it,” said his uncle. “Late in the day I am going to be of some use. The autumn roses are often the finest.”

Jean took him in his arms.

“I love you, my dear uncle.”

“To-morrow you will take those bouquets to Le Maupas.”

“We will divide them in two lots, if you agree,” said Jean. “We will put one on my parents’ grave and we will offer the other to Paule.”

“Yes,” agreed the old man, and repeated without knowing it the very words of the younger when he came back from Africa. “We must honor the dead but have faith in life.”

Thus the rose-lover found peace of mind in the ruin of his garden.

CHAPTER X
NIOBE’S LAST CHILD

On a dark morning in December a few women slipped like shadows through the snow which deadened their footsteps, to Saint-Real and Metropole Streets, which lead to the Cathedral at Chambéry. As one entered the church the half-open door showed the flickering rays of the lamp running along the dark arches. Toward this trembling lamp they hurried, in spite of the cold and the darkness, as though they had come to beg light and warmth from it. Humble housewives, shop-girls, workwomen, servants, they rose early before their work and hastened to the first Mass as though to some secret meeting-place. They came one by one, sometimes recognizing one another in the porch. Already filled with respect for the sanctity of the place, they spoke in low voices. They all joined together in a group constantly growing more and more compact in one of the side chapels, where two candles, which a choir boy was lighting, showed the place of the holy sacrifice. Walking slowly and carefully on account of the frost on the pavement, Madame Guibert allowed herself to be outdistanced by some of the more active women. Nevertheless she was one of the first to enter. She had never forgotten her old habit, always to be ahead of time. She knelt a little to the side and isolated herself in prayer. She had great need of divine help, and begged for it with her whole soul. That very day she was to know the bitterness of being alone. The moment had come for Niobe to give up her youngest child, the one whom she held in her arms and which till now the gods had spared to her. Paule and her husband would leave Chambéry at three o’clock on their journey to Tonkin to rejoin their brothers on the island of Kébao.

The marriage had been celebrated at Cognin in the first days of September. Then the young couple had gone to seek solitude among unknown faces in that other part of Savoy, whose matchless beauty is a miracle of softness, sweetness, and grace—the green plain of Chablais, fringed by the blue waters of Lake Leman and bounded by mountains with their lazy curves wooded to the summit, and further off outlined by rugged peaks which raise their barren whiteness to the blue of the sky and in the evening seem like flagstaffs that reflect on their banners the light of the setting sun. Autumn above all gives this enchanted country its fullest power to stir the emotions. With its blending, dying harmonies it tempers the excessive gaiety which summer lavishes on it; it changes the ringing laughter of water and meadow, plain, and mountain, to that smile of pleasure which knows itself short-lived and yet wishes to rejoice.

Paule and Jean witnessed this autumnal magic. They saw the trees in the woods adorn themselves with a thousand splendid fleeting tints, and the vines which slope down to the shore dress themselves in gold. Their hearts learned the better to appreciate the lesson, already familiar to them, of the insecurity of love when it makes itself its sole end, and, taking the time of a kiss for the time of day, fails to build upon the only sure foundation—a life lived in sympathetic accord and consecrated to the continuity of the race.

They came back to Le Maupas when the vines had been gathered and the meadows harvested, when the brilliance of the sun, the softness of the air, and the grace of the earth increased in proportion to the barrenness round about and strove to detach man from self-centred thoughts. Paule kept very near her mother, as if to forget the threat of the future. And the future cast its shadow upon the present hour which saw mother and daughter reunited. Madame Guibert had been obliged to tell Paule of her wish to stay in Savoy. Jean then generously offered to give up his plans. Monsieur Loigny, his nature decidedly changed, wanted to help his nephew, and at the price of numerous headaches (for he had lost the habit of office work) tried to take stock of the little fortune which he had looked after so badly between two grafts of a rose-bush. He perceived too late that the garden is a bad speculation. Jean’s character and capabilities, Paule’s energy, the financial position of both families, all made them look to the Colonies for the establishment of their new home. Furthermore Étienne multiplied his appeals to them. He told of the prosperity of his business and was already prepared to guarantee their ultimate success. He begged his sister to bring their mother with her, that in her happy old age she might receive the homage of their filial devotion. Gently but obstinately Madame Guibert had refused.

“I am too old,” she said to Jean and Paule when they insisted. “How should I, who have never gone further than from Cognin to Chambéry and from Chambéry to Cognin, bear such a long journey? I should only be in the way. You will all come home to me in your turn. You will tell me about my grandchildren whom I do not know and whom I love, as I loved my own children before they were born.”

She smiled, so that no one might think of noticing her tears. But she reflected in her heart: “I feel that God is calling me. Now, now at last, my task is finished. I am nearer the dead than the living. When I am alone I will visit my husband more often and my little Thérèse, who are waiting for me in the cemetery. The memory of Marcel, who rests in Africa, will fill my heart. I will make only one journey more, and that will be to find my own again. Those left on earth have no more need of me. From afar I shall pray for them here, and then from above. I can do no more....”

Paule set her wits to work to give her mother daily proof of her love. For so many years she had eaten the bread of sorrow with her. The young wife was inclined to blame herself for her married joy on the eve of this separation, and Madame Guibert had to encourage her to be happy.

“I know what you are thinking about,” said Jean when he saw his wife’s sadness.

“I love you,” she replied. “I love you more than anyone in the whole world, but she ...”

Jean kissed her as he went on: “I am not jealous, Paule, and I understand your trouble so well....”

He had himself arranged for Madame Guibert’s life after their departure. He had installed her for the winter, in spite of her protests, in a little home in the Rue Saint-Real at Chambéry. There she would be less alone than at Le Maupus and would be in welcome proximity to the church.

“I do not wish to be a source of expense,” murmured the poor old lady.

But Étienne in Tonkin had quite agreed with his brother-in-law. And the neighborhood of the Cathedral led to the success of their plan. As the days went on, however, Paule felt her courage weaken while that of Madame Guibert increased. The latter was quite transfigured, and on her forehead with its deep wrinkles, in her clear eyes, on her pale cheeks, the radiancy of her soul shone forth. In the evening she talked to her two children about their future and poured into their hearts her own confidence in God, that confidence which cheerfully leaves to Providence the outcome of one’s own firmness, courage, and virtue.

This teaching, illustrated by her own noble example, they never forgot. Clinging to one another like travelers threatened by a storm, all three tasted the brief happiness of being together and at length sadly reached the morning of their separation. But Jean and Paule were still sleeping when Madame Guibert drew near to God, to find the supreme strength she would presently need.

Suffering souls, who seek in prayer forgetfulness and calm, love to frequent chapels at the hour when day is dying. Under the arches, where the light falling from the windows loses itself, they have a vague consciousness of a mysterious and peaceful presence. One may guess at the state of these stricken beings from the slow murmur of their lips, still more from their weary, hopeless attitudes as they kneel on the softest spots they can find for their knees. But the poor women who go to early Mass have more need of courage than of calm. Before their labors they seek strength and patience in the presence of Him who suffered all human sorrows without a murmur. Hardened by daily work, they do not appreciate a merely comfortable religion, but throw themselves into the faith as into refreshing water, from which they emerge with new life and spirit.

The altar bell had announced the beginning of the holy sacrifice. At one end an aged priest with bent head slowly recited the prayers, to which a sleepy little clerk made the responses.

Madame Guibert had chosen a dark corner, a little to one side, and was absorbed in her meditations. Her black dress and the widow’s veil that she still wore made her hardly distinguishable from the shadows. She ran over in memory the last days of her life and without difficulty found in them reason to bless and to thank her God. Had He not granted her what she had so long prayed for, in her own misery—the happiness of her daughter? Paule, her little Paule, not only the best beloved of all her children, but the most loving, and the support of her sad old age—how often had she called down divine blessings upon her, whom the family sorrows had most intimately touched. Doubtless in bestowing them, God would tear her heart. But since this was the necessary price, how could she have the cowardice to murmur against His beneficent Will or to hate the loneliness which was coming upon her that night?

“No, no,” she said in her prayer. “I will not pity myself, as we are so often tempted to do to excuse our weakness. My God, Thou wilt aid me in my need. I will be firm to-night. They shall not see me cry. I could not go with them. Thou hast warned me of my failing strength, and my work is done. My children will carry it on better than I could. I thank Thee for having in Thy goodness allowed me to see my daughter’s happiness. I entrust her to Thy protection during this long journey with her husband who has become my son.” All shaken with emotion she added: “I entrust to Thee, my God, yet another life, dark and uncertain, that of a little babe still to come, whom my hands will never receive in this world. Grant him health, intelligence, a firm spirit, and submission to Thy holy law. Grant him a long life in order that he may be able to serve Thee better. May he be strong and brave in well-doing, may he fear neither laughter nor tears, may he love work, and may he be to his mother what she has been to me.”

Some time before the happy Paule had told her of her dearest hope, which was confirmed as time went on. Her marriage was already blest. A new source of love and devotion had welled up in her.

When Madame Guibert lifted her head which she had hidden in her hands, she noticed that the priest was leaving the altar and she reproached herself.

“I have not heard Mass.” But she immediately felt reassured, for in her prayer she had found the peace she sought.

From here, from there, from chair and bench, one by one the congregation rose and went to the door. They were going to their daily work with quiet hearts and bodies prepared. In her turn Madame Guibert left the church. Outside day was scarcely breaking over the snow on the roofs and streets—that sad winter’s day which would see her come back from the station alone.

She turned the key in the lock and on tip-toe crossed the passage full of trunks to go to the kitchen noiselessly. Old Marie was already preparing breakfast.

“Monsieur has just gone out to engage the omnibus,” she explained.

“Without any breakfast?” asked Madame Guibert, thoughtful as ever.

“He did not wish any. He just said he would not wait.”

“And Madame?”

“Madame who? Oh yes, Mademoiselle Paule! I cannot get used to calling her Madame. It’s funny, isn’t it? Mademoiselle is still asleep. There I go again, the same mistake. When one is old, one is good for nothing.”

“It can’t be helped, my poor Marie, we are both old.”

But both of them, paying little heed to what they were saying, were thinking of the parting to come. The servant, taking off her spectacles, passed her rough hand over her eyes. With her shaking fingers Madame Guibert tried to make Paule’s chocolate for the last time. She made it the way she knew her girl liked it. Then she listened at the door, knocked softly, went in, and found Paule in tears.

“Mother, mother! Tell me that I must go. I have not the strength myself to say it.”

Madame Guibert put the steaming cup on the bedside table, then she laid her wrinkled hand on her daughter’s forehead.

“Dear little one,” she said, “I wanted to wait on you myself this morning, and I ordered these rolls that you like so much.” She bent over her and in a low voice, as she kissed her, murmured: “Be brave, Paule. It is God’s wish. Your husband’s love assures me that you will be happy. And do not be alarmed about me.”

But their tears still flowed. Jean came back and saw the two women locked in each other’s arms. He thought that Paule was trying to comfort her mother.

“We will come back, Mother,” he said. “We will come back, I swear it. Next year you will have Étienne and his wife and in two years you will see us.”

But when Madame Guibert turned to him, he saw with surprise that she was not crying and that the consolations came from her, not Paule.

“In two years,” she thought, “where shall I be?” But she answered gravely: “Jean, love your wife dearly. When you are far from me, that thought will be my strength. God is so good and watches over us. We shall be more closely united than ever when we are separated. Our thoughts and our hearts will be one. Distance is nothing when one is sure of love.”

With a solemnity that came quite naturally to her and affected her voice quite unconsciously, she went on: “You must love each other. Don’t make of your love a source of weakness. Gather from it and your mutual confidence more resolution, more courage in life. Look ahead of you. When you look behind you, towards our dead and towards me, may it not be to find discouragement there, but to understand your own youth better, and all that God expects from it.”

Jean and his wife had taken her hands and were listening to her without interruption.

“Yes,” she continued, as if she were unfolding the future, “look before you, towards your work, towards the family that will come after you. Give your sons and daughters brave souls and make them look ahead in their turn, with eyes in which your past will have shaped their outlook.”

They were both weeping, while she remained peaceful and calm.

“My blessing is on you,” she concluded. “On you, my little Paule, for your loving daughterly goodness to me and your devotion to your brothers. On you, Jean, for the friendship you have shown to Marcel and for all the happiness that I see in your eyes, in spite of the tears.”

Her firmness did not break down till the moment of departure. She cheered her tearful daughter in the name of the little one whom the young wife carried under her heart. But Paule could not resign herself. She kept on kissing her, hastened to speak again, and sometimes turned towards her husband to say to him: “I love you, dear, all the same; you know that.”

Madame Guibert insisted on going to the station with them. There they found several friends, who had come to say good-bye. M. Loigny was ill and had not been able to come out on account of the cold and the damp roads, but his Fanchette brought for his niece some hothouse flowers. Some distance away Madame de Marthenay, looking quite thin in spite of her furs and very pale, was watching a favorable moment to kiss Paule. The latter noticed her and came up to her. After a second’s hesitation the two women threw themselves into each other’s arms.

“Still unhappy?” Paule asked gently, reading the sorrow in her old friend’s face.

“Still. But what of you, Paule?”

They both turned to Madame Guibert. Very quickly Madame Berlier murmured: “Do you want to do me a great kindness, Alice? Go to see Mother often, look after her a little, and write to me about her health.”

“I promise you I will,” said Alice with deep emotion as they parted. Soon after Madame Guibert was left alone with her daughter and her son-in-law. As before, her last words at the moment of separation were a prayer: “May God keep you!” But when the train had carried them out of sight she touched her forehead and felt that it was icy-cold.

“It was time, my God,” she thought. “I had no more strength left.” She was forced to sit down in the third class waiting-room. The passengers who came and went, occupied with their luggage and their tickets, did not even notice the poor old woman in mourning who sat sobbing there. She had become a humble weak creature again. But she had had the strength to hide her suffering from her children.

Alone in the railway carriage with his beloved, Jean pressed her to his breast. She had quite broken down and her head leaned against the heart which beat for her only. He said nothing to her, knowing the uselessness of words. He gently stroked her cheek and from time to time bent down to kiss the eyes whose tears he could not stop. When she raised her head a little he comforted her by saying: “We will come back, Paule.” She shook her head, doubtful of this return, or because she did not yet wish to be consoled.

“I love you, Jean,” she sighed, and began to weep afresh.

Then he spoke to her of her mother.

“Paule, she is setting us a splendid example of heroism and self-sacrifice. May we never forget it! And if later on, in many years to come, we have occasion to imitate her may her memory still be present with us. Oh, may the child who is coming to us be like her!”

Paule was listening to him more calmly, and he added: “May God protect both our child and her whom we have left behind with a broken heart!”

“Yes, I will pray,” she said. “It was God who gave my mother the resignation that she tried to implant in me.”

In her young life, she had known many hours of anguish and mourning; but she had never known a more painful one than this. She thought she tasted the bitterness of death, yet in reality her life was stirring to its inmost depths. Her love was purified, all unknown to her, in that divine flame of maternal sacrifice of which she was more and more to appreciate the value.

As the railway passed in front of the oak wood which is neighbor to Le Maupas, Jean and Paule looked at the familiar landscape through the window. The tree-branches bore snowflakes for leaves, their whiteness tinted by the setting sun. On the vine-row hung a lacework of frost.

Here it was, and here alone, that Paule had learned to know life, death, and love. She thought of the proud, passionate, young girl, whose boast was the care with which she watched over her mother.

“Kiss me,” she cried to her husband. “I have so much need of love to be able to go away from here!”

Jean took her in his arms. And the kiss they gave each other spread a sacred thrill through their veins; for to that union of their body and soul they added the filial devotion of the past and that mysterious hope for the future which made their lives so much fuller and gave an immortal meaning to their love.

CHAPTER XI
PEACE

Madame Guibert rose with difficulty from the bench on which she had seated herself to weep. She saw a few strangers passing hurriedly and wished to hide her sorrow.

“I cannot stay here any longer,” she thought When she stood up she had to hold on to the wall and she wondered if she would have the strength to reach the house.

She felt her age and her weakness hanging like heavy weights on her shoulders. She remembered the day when she dragged herself through the endless chestnut avenue at La Chênaie. On the threshold of the station she thought anxiously of the long road home. But accustomed as she was to spend nothing on herself she did not dream of hiring one of the cabs in the Square.

She set out slowly, leaning on the umbrella which served her as a stick and putting her feet down carefully so as not to slip on the snow. The hardships of her journey made her forget her sorrow, but when she stopped a moment she whispered gently the name of Paule—of Paule who would never, never be her help again. Her mind was following the two dear ones who were carrying away with them all her happiness.

“They have reached the waterfall at Coux now.... O God!”

As she was crossing the bridge over the muddy waters of the Leysse she stopped and leaned on the parapet to take breath. At that moment she heard someone call. “Madame Guibert,” said the voice, “will you allow me to come with you?” It was Madame de Marthenay, who had watched her from the station, hesitating between the wish to help her, according to the promise she had made to Paule, and the fear of breaking in upon her absorbing sorrow. Seeing her now in distress, she came forward.

Madame Guibert was so tired that she took the arm offered to her. In her sorrow she hardly spoke during the walk home. Alice, with tactful delicacy, tried to console her in talking of the joy her children would have when they saw her again. On the doorstep Paule’s mother thanked her gratefully.

“But I am going to help you upstairs,” Madame de Marthenay insisted.

“You are very kind. Thank you very much.” And when they were at the head of the stairs she added: “Come in for a minute. You must rest a little. I leaned very heavily on your arm along the road.” The poor weary eyes in their appeal laid bare the tragedy of the desolate home.

“I shall be very glad,” said Alice, moved to deep sympathy as she followed the old lady into a bedroom, changed by means of a screen into a little sitting-room by day. Marie the maid, still overwhelmed by “Mademoiselle’s” departure, brought in a telegram.

“Here is a message,” she said, with a hostile glance at the elegant Madame de Marthenay.

With difficulty, and shaking all over, Madame Guibert tore open the envelope. She could never open one of those little blue papers without trembling for they might have a message of death in them. But her face cleared immediately. As she read, Alice was looking round her mechanically at the simple and modest, almost conventional, furniture. Her eyes fell on the enlarged photograph of Marcel. She went up to it. The Commander wore his disdainful, impassive air in the picture, which dated from his return from the Sahara.

Madame Guibert turned round and saw her contemplating her son’s photograph. She regretted having brought her into the room. But as she went up to her, Alice looked at her and burst into tears.

“What is the matter?” asked Madame Guibert.

“Oh! Madame, Madame!” cried the young woman, and she sobbed out her secret to Marcel’s mother. “I loved him! If only you knew how I loved him!”

In profound pity, Madame Guibert gazed on the woman who had given her son his distaste for life. She knew from Paule that at the time of Marcel’s death the photograph of a little girl had been found in the breast-pocket of his tunic. Of a “little girl” indeed! How true it was that he had set his affections on a child.

“Poor little one,” she said, stroking Alice’s cheek as she sat drooping in a chair. In face of this sorrow waiting to be consoled, she forgot her own misery and immediately recovered her presence of mind and her courage.

“Alice, my dear, calm yourself,” she repeated. But Madame de Marthenay still sobbed. She finished with those words which she had uttered already, the words which summed up her distress: “Why am I not his widow? I should be less miserable.”

“But you did not wish to be his wife,” Madame Guibert murmured gently.

“Oh yes, I did, for I loved him. It was my people.” She did not accuse her mother only. But the old lady shook her head and in a lower voice she said, quite close to her ear, as she continued to stroke her cheek: “Poor little girl—you did not know how to love.”

Alice attempted to protest.

“No,” repeated Madame Guibert, “you did not know how to love. When you give your heart it is for ever. And love gives you strength and patience and endurance. Your mother was seeking your happiness, dear, but she was seeking it in her own way. She thought she was acting right when she turned you from my son. Don’t blame her, only blame yourself. There was no doubt that Madame Dulaurens would have yielded in the long run, to a real affection, because she loved you and would have seen the object of your love to be worthy of her approval.” She did not notice that she had drawn away her hand, and under the influence of the past she reiterated: “No, you did not want to be Marcel’s wife.”

Alice was quite crushed and could only whisper, “I love him still.” Distractedly she clung to her fruitless love.

In a firmer voice Madame Guibert went on: “You were afraid of life. Your parents were afraid for you. Life, Alice, does not mean just amusement and worldly excitement. To live means to feel one’s soul, all one’s soul. It means to love, to love with all one’s strength, always, to the end, and even to the point of sacrifice. You must not fear either suffering or great joy or great sorrow. They reveal our higher nature. We must take from the fleeting days the happiness that endures. The girl who marries comes to share in work and danger, not just to seek greater ease or more frivolous pleasures. In her very devotion she will find more delight. You do not know this.”

Alice, encouraged, thought as she listened attentively, “Nobody ever talked to me like this before.”

“Even now,” went on Madame Guibert, “even in this hour when my heart is broken, I can only thank God who has heaped His blessing on me. It surprises you, my dear, that I can talk of my happiness to you to-day. It is true nevertheless. I am happy. If God asked me to begin my life all over again, I would do so. And yet, I have seen the dearest faces cold and still, and I have known the cruellest form of death for a mother—that which strikes her child far away. But through my husband, through my sons and daughters, I realised all my heart and what may come upon us by the divine goodness. My life has been quite full, since it was mixed with theirs. Now I am no longer alone. My beloved dead keep me company and the living do not desert me. Look at this telegram I have had from Étienne. He knows that Paule has left me to-day and he is comforting me in the name of them all. I had need of it!”

“Madame!” whispered Alice, kissing her hand.

“Yes, my dear, I have loved my life, I have loved life itself. And I can die, even alone, even if strange hands close my eyes. God has made my lot a very beautiful one and death will find me obedient and resigned.” Her clear eyes shone with a holy ecstasy.

Alice, her heart at peace, looked at her respectfully and admiringly.

“Go on talking to me,” she begged as Madame Guibert was silent.

The latter looked at her long and tenderly, then again stroking her cheek, she said:

“My child, you must promise me something.”

“Oh, Madame, I will promise you anything you like.”

“Try not to think about Marcel. You have no more right to. Accept your new life, as it is, without any regrets. God expects you to be brave enough to give up all your old dreams. You were wrong to make your husband change his career. Work is the true nobility of life. Help him to find some work, and atone for your mistake.”

“He has deserted me, Madame Guibert.”

“Idleness was perhaps the reason for that. Try to forgive him. Put your heart into your advice. Let him look after his estate, or interest himself in the affairs of the town. You will see that all is for the best. You may still be happy. Your daughter will help you. Is a woman ever to be pitied who has a child? Prepare this young life to be virtuous and strong. Love her, not for yourself but for herself. And God’s peace will rest on you.”

“Oh, if you would only have me here sometimes and talk to me,” said Alice eagerly, “I think I should take heart once more.” She never seemed to think that her presence might recall a painful memory to Madame Guibert. But it was only for a moment that the latter hesitated.

“Come here whenever you want me,” she answered simply.

When Madame de Marthenay had gone, Madame Guibert took Marcel’s photograph and placed it beside her bed, behind the screen.

“He will be nearer to me,” she thought. “And Alice will not see him again. She must not see his face if she is to do her duty bravely.”

Then she knelt and prayed:

“My God, Thou who art my strength, help me. I have now given up to Thee all that I have loved. I have nothing left to offer Thee but my sorrow. Accept it, and protect all my dear ones—the dead who rest and the living who are at work....”

When she rose to help Marie lay her modest table, her face glowed with a serene peace—the peace of those who wait fearlessly for death after having met life bravely.