‘Mademoiselle, I am about to face a long, perhaps a perilous voyage,’ he said, and the slight break in his voice and the wet lustre of his boyish blue eyes captivated her judgment, and melted her into all heart as she listened and looked down upon him.
‘I have come back to you, to ask you before I set out for the unknown, just one moment, to place your hand on my forehead and say, “God bless you, Anatole.” Do you pardon the presumption?’
She bent forward, brushed the tossed hair off his forehead, kissed it tenderly, and said, ‘God bless you, Anatole.’
Silently and sobered the four men went out into the wet night. They walked round the island first to make sure that every house slept. There was not a light anywhere, not a sound. They trod the ground as quietly as booted men can tread, and came round by the cemetery and the low broken wall to the tower. Here they entered, and the Doctor struck a match that through the blurred illumination they might see the advantages of the spot he had chosen to salute the new century. It was certainly better than the sensation they should create anywhere near Paris. I doubt not that each one privately regretted the rash engagement they had made over their punch at Lander’s a week ago. But none had the courage to give the first voice to regret. False shame and fear of ridicule held them tongue-tied, and resolved to make the best of their bargain.
When they had selected a spot near the hollow of the encroaching rocks, where, if they fell, they might be washed unnoted down into the river when the flood came high, Julien separated himself from the group, and walked over to the lower wall, whence the lights of Beaufort could be seen. These lights were rare and dim, but they cheered him inexpressibly. They were eloquent of life in the monotony of darkness.
He sat on the edge of the wall, and stared past the shadow of the bridge, out into the terrible loneliness of night, and shuddered at the roar of the eddying river below. Upon the breast of that river one might float into the beautiful South—a word made up of the sense of sweetness, and flowers, and sunshine, and blue waters, and clear skies. When he was a youngster he used to tell himself that he would save up his money, and go to Italy. And now he was no longer young, had not saved up his money, had not seen Italy, and was going to die—and leave it all behind.
At that moment a peal of bells was heard from over the water, and Gaston Favre announced in a cold, dull voice that the cathedral of Beaufort was pealing the midnight chimes. Had there been light, each man would have been seen to quiver from head to foot, and then grow rigid upon his feet.
‘My friends, is it agreed that we salute the dying century upon the last stroke of the cathedral bell?’ asked Dr. Vermont, in a hushed, muffled voice.
‘It is agreed,’ said Gaston, after an imperceptible pause. The four men gathered together, and took their pistols out of their breast-pocket. Dr. Vermont lifted his face up to the cold wet wind. His lips parted to the heavens’ moisture, and he felt refreshed. Since there could be pleasure in the fall of raindrops upon heated lips, why not even then admit that life may be worth living? Why not see the bright background to present pain as well as the dark contrast of evil behind joy? We have said the Doctor was a proud and wilful man, and he would accept no sensation as admonishment of error,—but this gave him some pause.
In one swift backward glance, he saw the long roll of travelled years—years misspent, possibly, but not without their baggage of unearned joys; saw the start of resplendent youth ringing him onward to a manhood of renown: remembered friends he had once regarded with other than mere cynical interest: moments that had throbbed with light, and all the loveliness of untainted freshness—perfumed, dewy like a May orchard in blossom, swathed in youth’s eternal purple. While the lads around him faced the inevitable, as they thought, and though shrinking, white-lipped, and frozen with horror, from his cold acquiescence, endeavoured to warm themselves to the last act in the spirit of bravado and contemplation of the deluged earth, he had taken a sudden rebound from his old attitude. It was no longer the dislike of life and the weariness of experience that held him in chill imprisonment The old desire for boyish blisses, and the cordial of laughter mantled and burst in his brain like a riot of song. It was a revelation, with all the meaning of prayer first understood. A pulsing regret for all he was leaving, for what he had known, and, above all, for that which was yet unknown, swept him instantly upon a fiery wave. It shot his arm down nervelessly. The pallid, spiritual face of Henriette seemed to hang in the sullen space of black sky and wet black earth. It glowed like a lamp, and shed a faint illumination upon the dusk. The faded monotone of her voice murmured prayerfully above the weighted splash upon the stones, and awoke the essential impulse of existence. While such women lived and prayed for men, could the deeps of life be said to have closed? ’Tis an old-fashioned notion, but, like most old-fashioned things, ’tis the simplest and the best. It softened the hard retrospection of Dr. Vermont’s glance, and lent a wavering tenderness to his peculiar smile.