The path of honor: A tale of the war in the Bocage

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

I sat erect with a quick intaking of the breath, for I saw in my path a new pitfall, and one of my own digging.

Must I confess to my betrothed that my heart was in another’s keeping, or did honor bid me to keep silent, to simulate affection, to lead her to the altar in the belief that it was she I loved? Oh, I should not shrink from confession; and she had the right to know—yet—yet would I not confess in the hope that she would set me free?

But if she should feel as I did about this marriage, that honor demanded its consummation, that duty compelled her to sacrifice herself, whatever my offenses, would not such confession merely embitter her cup to no purpose? Yet even if I did not confess, would I be strong enough, self-controlled enough to cheat her woman’s eyes?

Here was a question not easily answered; a dilemma the most awkward; a problem which I felt I could not solve alone. I could only hope that during our ride next day to Poitiers I might have opportunity to lay it before Mlle. de Chambray. She, I felt sure, would with her clear vision see instantly where my duty lay.

So I put the problem from me and lay back in the seat and closed my eyes and lived over again, minute by minute, that brief, delicious evening. I recalled every look, every word, every gesture from the instant I had first perceived her on the threshold of the drawing-room until that other instant when at parting she had tossed the flower down to me. I held it to my lips and murmured low to it the words I had not dared to utter in her hearing.

Ah, mesdames et messieurs, you smile, perhaps, and shrug your shoulders! But in your own lives has there not been some such moment? At least I trust so! Recall it!—and remember that I was young and ardent; remember that love had come to me not timidly by slow steps, but with one glorious burst of happiness, flinging wide the gates of my heart at a single touch, as, to my mind, love always should. But if you have had no such moment, if you have stopped your ears and hurried on when love called you to tarry—if life is for you so poor, and gray, and savorless—then, I pray you, put this tale aside, for of that which follows you will understand not a word. Nor indeed would I care to tell it to such an audience.

How long I sat there, wrapped in this garment of purest joy, I know not—an hour perhaps, or even two. I was aroused by the rattle of oar in rowlock coming from the river at my feet. I glanced out absently across the water just as a boat shot from the shadow of the farther shore, crossed the strip of moonlight in mid-stream, and disappeared again into the shadow cast by the trees which edged the garden.

I saw it clearly but an instant; yet that instant had sufficed to wake me from my abstraction, for it showed me that the boat was weighted deep in the water with a crowd of men who wore about their necks the tri-colored scarf of the Republic.

As I stared down at the river, trying to comprehend the meaning of this vision, a second boat similarly loaded followed the first.

I sat intent, listening to the rattle of the oars. Then I heard the boats grate upon the gravel of the bank and the sound of men leaving them, talking together in voices so subdued that only a faint murmur reached me.