“Yes.”
“That, whatever happens, you will not hate or curse me, or call me traitor, but forgive and love me still; that you will plead with my mother to forgive me”—
“Forgive you! love you still! What can you mean, Henri? It is not possible we should ever change to each other. Not—possible,” she sobbed, clinging to him, and straining him to her heart in an embrace that seemed as if no power on earth could sunder it.
Somehow or other Henri freed himself at last. He said in a kind of choked whisper, “Remember my words. Good-bye, and God—your God—bless you.” One last lingering look, and he turned away, ran quickly down the sloping corn-field, and was soon lost to sight.
But he did not take the path that Clémence supposed. He returned to the village by a circuitous route, and about midnight tapped gently at the curé’s door. The priest was evidently on the watch, for he opened the door and admitted him at once, then shut and bolted it, and extinguished the light he had kept burning in his window as a guide to his expected guest.
CHAPTER XI.
ONE OF HALF A MILLION.
“It is not youth that turns
From the field of spears again,
For the boy’s high heart too proudly burns
Till it rests among the slain.”
