She was sitting in her chair again now, and he stood by her in the firelight. Pride and anguish strove together in her as she looked up at him.
“Gaston, I heard what you said in the hall. Tell me the worst, my darling! We have heard that Cadoudal is treating with the Republicans, but we cannot believe it. But if it should be true, if he should submit, would there be no one left in arms at all—no one in the Côtes-du-Nord even——no one but you . . . no one?”
She could only see his profile. He was fingering a little Chinese figure that stood on her mantelpiece.
“Where does this mandarin come from, I wonder? It reminds me of one we had at Mirabel. We had several, I think . . .” Then he looked down at her. “Yes, Valentine, it is the last act. Cadoudal has submitted. He signed near Vannes yesterday . . . I am alone in arms; there is no one else left. Unless help comes from England in the next few days——”
He broke off, turned back to the mandarin, and then, abruptly, his sword clanking against the floor as he did so, knelt down and buried his face on her knees. And, fighting back the sob that rose in her own throat, she folded her arms round his neck and kissed the wet, iron-grey hair.
“My darling, my darling, how tired you are!” She smoothed the bowed head as she would have smoothed a child’s, terribly conscious all the time of the restraint he was putting on himself not to break down altogether. For his hands were gripping the arms of her chair on either side of her, and every now and again a shudder went through him.
“I will never consent to the disarmament of Finistère, never—never—never!” he said in a smothered voice. “I will die first!”
Her hand stopped. “Is that what you fear, Gaston? Is that it? O my knight without reproach, you shall do what you think best. If it is necessary—if you must in honour—you shall . . . die.”
“I will not hold you back.” But she had no need to add that, and she did not. Her husband lifted his head, almost frightened at the sublimity of her self-forgetfulness.
“Valentine,” he exclaimed, “is it possible that you—a woman—understand?”