As for the man against whose breast she leant, nothing but what he held had reality for him . . . and even she was not yet quite real. The few hours during which he had known the nightmare picture in his mind to be but a lying canvas were not sufficient to erase its effect. The singe of his seven years’ purgatory (worse than hers, because it had been purely mental) would not pass lightly from him, though it would pass. And this of it burnt hot in his mind now, even in these transcendent moments—the subtle change in her, the hair tarnished from its glory, the lines on the delicate skin, not to be accounted for merely by the passing of time, but his doing, his fault! If she had not fallen, there in the Allée, he would scarcely have ventured to touch her; had she not been (as he thought) unconscious he would never have kissed her as he had. She was too sacred, and too profoundly wronged. Yet here she was in his arms, willingly, generously—too great in mind to exact what a lesser woman would have exacted. And before the depth of the love which had survived all that hers had had to survive he was still, in spirit, on his knees.
The sunset had burnt out before they stirred, yet the wonderful hour had to end. Gaston de Trélan got up at last and helped his wife to her feet, and then remained gazing at her, almost tranced. And she looked at him, standing there above that strange battle-array of stones, tall and resolute, with the stains of march and fight still on him, with almost everything of the young prince of the Mirabel portrait gone. There was no rose in his swordhilt now. . . . She drew a long breath, and held out her hand to him, and at the touch he woke, and led her down the slope towards the black horse, who was to carry her to the Clos-aux-Grives. But as they went she remembered something.
“Gaston,” she said softly, “I have not come to you empty-handed. I, too, can give you something for the cause, mon Général!” Withdrawing her hand from his she brought out from its hiding-place and held out to him the ruby necklace. “Like the gold, it comes from Mirabel; it was given—I daresay you have heard by whom—to the concierge of Mirabel.”
Yet her husband, with the jewels in his hand, did not seem pleased. “But it is the Duchesse de Trélan who will wear it,” he answered, drawing himself up. “Permit me!” And, a little awkwardly by reason of his injured arm, he contrived to clasp the heirloom round her neck—then, catching her to him with a sudden gasp, said vehemently, “Never speak to me again of Mirabel—of your being there like that! I cannot bear it!”
“But, Gaston,” she said, looking up at him, “when I was there I thought of you nearly all the time. . . . O my dear, when you ride in triumph into Paris with the Royalists of Finistère behind you, we two must make a pilgrimage to Mirabel together. If it had not been for Mirabel—for the treasure . . .”
She did not finish, for she was strained too closely. And, stooping his head, her husband kissed her—but not as he had done on his knees in the heather, like a worshipper. He kissed her like a lover. He was hers at last.
BOOK IV
THE YELLOW POPPY
“But oh, the night! oh! bitter-sweet, oh, sweet!