never repeat to me what you uttered just now. I wish always to regard you as a friend—a friend found under circumstances of deep interest to my brother and myself—but nothing more; never anything more! Let us join the others.”
And she turned her horse’s head, and met her brother and Tournier, her face slightly flushed; while Villemet rode after her much more disturbed than ever he had been when charging a whole battery of guns.
They too had been talking together as they followed the others along the familiar road that passed by the barracks. It was on the old subject that Tournier seemed never to weary of.
“There,” he said, pointing to the spot where he had first met Cosin, “that is where I first set eyes on your sunny English face. I remember it by that blighted tree in the hedge-row. I often thought, when I passed it afterwards, that it was exactly like me at that time—half-dead for want of God—fungus everywhere.”
Then, as they passed the barracks, he said, “Stop a moment, Cosin. Look at that gate yonder. How well I remember coming out of that gate in an awful state of mind—nearly mad—determined, as a last resource, to see if you, or anybody, really believed in God; and I found you did, for you lived as if you did. And then began those blessed years of teaching, not so much by words as by example, which have made me a happy man, though, God knows, and you know too well, a very faulty one.”
“Say no more, my good friend,” replied Cosin; “only let not our separation now be an end to our intercourse. You shall ever be to us a welcome visitor.”
“And I, for my part, shall ever be delighted to renew my acquaintance with the place which has been at once, the saddest and the happiest in my life.”
The others had now joined them.
“Tournier will soon be here again!” cried Cosin to his sister, unable to repress the pleasure
that he felt, but entirely, dull fellow that he was, on his own account.