She came in so quickly that he had not time to rise and, going to him, behind his chair, she put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him down, saying: “I’m so sorry to have left you all alone.”
It was astonishingly comforting to have her put these fraternal hands upon him like this. She had never done it before. Yet there was a salty smart in her words to him. What else did she intend to do but leave him all alone for always?
“I’m dreadfully lonely, I confess,” he said, “and I see that you’re dreadfully tired.”
She went round to the other side of the table and sat down, not looking at him and said, in a low voice: “Oh—the seas—the seas of misery.”
“You are completely worn out,” he said. He was not thinking so much of the seas of misery as of his few remaining hours. Were they to be spoiled by her fatigue?
“No; not worn out. Not at all worn out,” said Adrienne, stretching her arms along the table in front of her as she sat, and though she had wept he could see something of ardour, of a strength renewed, in the lines of her pallid lips. “I’ve sat quite still all afternoon. I’ve been with him. She died soon after I got there. At the end she was talking about the little girl’s grave at Evian. I was able to comfort her about that. She was so afraid it would not be tended. That it would have no flowers. Joséphine will go to Evian afterwards and see about it. There are always dear nuns to do those things. There was a nun with her to-day. That was the greatest comfort of all; and the priest who came. But I was with the father and the five poor little children; so frightened and miserable. I could not leave them, you see. He talked and talked and talked. It helped him to talk and tell me about their home and how they had had everything so nice and bright. Linen, a garden, a goat and fowls. Oh, if only she could have seen her home again! That was what he kept saying and saying. They were full of hope when they got to Evian. He told me how the children sang at dawn when the train panted up the mountain among the golden trees. Like birds, he said, and Vive la France! They all believed they were to be safe and happy. Et, Madame, c’était notre calvaire qui commencait alors seulement.”
She spoke, not really thinking of him, he saw, absorbed still in the suffering she had just left, measuring her power against such problems and the worse ones to which she was travelling to-morrow.
“Joséphine will be with them, I hope,” she went on presently, “in three or four days. She will help them to get home and then she will come back and go to see about the grave at Evian. Joséphine is a tower of strength for me.”
Her eyes were raised to him now, and, as they rested, he saw the compunction, the solicitude, with which they had met him on her entrance, return to them. “I’m not so very late, am I?” she said, rising. “I’ll take off my hat and be ready in a moment.”
“Don’t hurry,” said Oldmeadow.