CHAPTER XXIX
Potter lighted a fire quickly and carried Hildegarde before it. He chafed her hands, compelled her to remove her boots, and chafed her feet—and she suffered him to attend her in silence.... She was at peace. She had offered herself, had shared the risks, had almost felt the wind of bullets that passed.... The ways of the human mind are not wholly to be understood. The thing she had done might not have satisfied another, yet she was satisfied. She had paid her ransom, bought her redemption.... She was at peace, and to be at peace was good ... good.
She sat on a chair; Potter knelt beside her. She smiled down at his head; her fingers reached out to touch his hair.
“Potter....” she said, softly.
“Garde....”
He was looking up into her face now with eyes that glowed, glowed with the pride of success, with the happiness that comes only from the consciousness of a great service performed worthily.
“How proud you should be!” she said, gently. “How proud the country will be of you!... To love one’s country—and to be able to do a great thing for one’s country....”
The spirit of the high places was still upon them; they could not think small thoughts, speak puny words. For a time they sat in silence. Then Potter spoke:
“I knew—up there—that you should never leave me,” he said.
She acquiesced; it was a thing that had come to her as well.