“Then you say you did not see Honoré?”
The question repeated thus abruptly made him start, as if it had suddenly cast a flood of light in upon an obscure corner of his memory. He hesitated for a little, but finally came to a decision and spoke.
“See here, I did not wish to grieve you just now, but I don’t believe Honoré will ever come back.”
“Never come back—what do you mean?”
“Yes, I believe that the Prussians did his business for him. I saw him lying across his gun, his head erect, with a great wound just beneath the heart.”
There was silence in the room. Silvine’s pallor was frightful to behold, while Father Fouchard displayed his interest in the narrative by replacing upon the table his glass, into which he had just poured what wine remained in the bottle.
“Are you quite certain?” she asked in a choking voice.
“Dame! as certain as one can be of a thing he has seen with his own two eyes. It was on a little hillock, with three trees in a group right beside it; it seems to me I could go to the spot blindfolded.”
If it was true she had nothing left to live for. That lad who had been so good to her, who had forgiven her her fault, had plighted his troth and was to marry her when he came home at the end of the campaign! and they had robbed her of him, they had murdered him, and he was lying out there on the battlefield with a wound under the heart! She had never known how strong her love for him had been, and now the thought that she was to see him no more, that he who was hers was hers no longer, aroused her almost to a pitch of madness and made her forget her usual tranquil resignation. She set Charlot roughly down upon the floor, exclaiming:
“Good! I shall not believe that story until I see the evidence of it, until I see it with my own eyes. Since you know the spot you shall conduct me to it. And if it is true, if we find him, we will bring him home with us.”