"It looks as if he intended to come back," said Chérie; and they trembled at the thought. Then they went downstairs across the yard and into the house again. They were careful to slam the heavy front door which thus locked itself; but when they tried to push the bolt they found it had been taken away. It was at this moment that the distant booming sound fell also on their ears.
"What was that?" asked Mireille.
Chérie put her arm round the child. "Nothing," she said. "Let us go up and pack our things." And as Louise still stood like a statue staring at the door with the lantern in her hand she cried, "Loulou, go up to your room and collect what you will take with you in the morning."
And Loulou slowly, walking like a somnambulist, obeyed.
How difficult to choose, from all the things we live among, just what we can take away in our two hands! How these inanimate things grow round the heart and become through the years an integral part of one's life!
What? Must one take only money and a few jewels, and not this picture? Not these letters? Not this precious gift from one who is dead? Not the massive silver that has been ours for generations? Not the veil one was married in? Not the little torn prayer-book of one's first communion? Not one's father's campaign-medals, or the packet of documents that prove who we are and what is ours?
What! And the bird-cage with the fluffy canaries asleep in it? Are they to be left to die? And the dog——
"Of course we must take Amour," said Chérie.
"Of course," said Loulou, going through the rooms like a wandering spirit, picking things up and putting them down in a bewildered manner.
A clock struck eleven. Mireille, still in her pink frock, had clambered upon her mother's bed and was nearly asleep.