She rose to her feet, her face covered by her hands.
“No other way”—the words were lifeless on her lips, save that they were broken with a sob. And then, suddenly, she drew herself erect, and there was a pride and a glory in the poise of her head, and her voice rang clear and there was no tremor in it, and in it was only the pride and only the glory that was in the head held high, and in the fair, white, uplifted face. “Listen, Monsignor! I thought he was a priest, and I promised God that he should never know—but to-night all that is changed. Monsignor, does it matter that he has no thought of me! He is going to his death, Monsignor, and he shall not face this alone because I was ashamed and dared not speak. I love him, Monsignor—I love him, and I believe him, and—-”
“Valérie!” Raymond's hands reached out to her. Weak he was. It seemed as though in his knees there was no strength. “Valérie!” he cried, and stumbled toward her.
And she put out her hand and held him back for an instant as her eyes searched his face—and then into hers there came a wondrous light.
“I did not know,” she whispered. “I did not know you cared.”
His arms were still outstretched, and now she came into them, and for a moment she lifted her face to his, and, for a moment that was glad beyond all gladness, he drank with his lips from her lips and from the trembling eyelids. And then the tears came, and she was sobbing on his breast, and with her arms tight about his neck she clung to him—and closer still his own arms enwrapped her—and he forgot—and he forgot—that it was only for a moment.
And so he held her there, his face buried in the dark, soft masses of her hair—and he forgot. And then out of this forgetfulness, this transport of blinding joy, there came a voice, low and shaken with emotion—the Bishop's voice.
“There is some one calling from the house.”
Raymond lifted up his head. A woman's figure was framed in the now open and lighted doorway of the cottage. It was Madame Bouchard; and now he heard Madame Bouchard as she called again.
“Valerie! Father Aubert! Come! Come quickly! Madame Blondin is conscious again, but she is very weak.”