Desiree had read the explanation too late.
CHAPTER XIII. IN THE DAY OF REJOICING.
Truth, though it crush me.
The door of the room stood open, and the sound of a step in the passage made Desiree glance up, as she hastily put together the papers found on the battlefield of Borodino.
Louis d'Arragon was coming into the room, and for an instant, before his expression changed, she saw all the fatigue that he must have endured during the night; all that he must have risked. His face was usually still and quiet; a combination of that contemplative calm which characterises seafaring faces, and the clean-cut immobility of a racial type developed by hereditary duties of self-restraint and command.
He knew that there had been a battle, and, seeing the papers on the table, his eyes asked her the inevitable question which his lips were slow to put into words.
In reply Desiree shook her head. She looked at the papers in quick thought. Then she withdrew from them the letter written to her by Charles—and put the others together.
“You told me to send for you,” she said in a quiet, tired voice, “if I wanted you. You have saved me the trouble.”
His eyes were hard with anxiety as he looked at her. She held the letters towards him.