He must have heard her words and sobs! He must have understood them, he was so well practised in reading her heart. It had been an open book to him once, though now it must be forever locked and sealed.
Her hands had fallen from the curtains, and she had moved backward. There had seemed to come into her strength and support from the mere sound of that voice. There was nothing new in this. Often, often had she felt it before. And once it had been in her power to summon this support at will, in any hour of grief or trial. That power was gone now, never to come again; but for this once this supreme and availing help had been afforded her. She felt within her the power to be strong, to collect herself, and to form and execute plans of getting away from this place of temptation and danger.
She fell on her knees. Her soul uttered a prayer of mingled thanksgiving and entreaty. As she raised her eyes she could see through the slightly parted folds of the curtains the pointed arch that topped the Madeleine. Carved in enduring stone, that generations to come might see and gather comfort from it, was the gracious figure of Jesus, spreading out his arms of welcome to the poor Magdalen, who knelt in supplication at his feet. At his side was a glorious, great angel, who, with drawn sword, stood over the woman, and thrust back with his other hand the evil creatures who in vain besieged her. On the right hand of Christ another angel, with wings at rest, held a great horn of triumph, and behind him were women crowned and garlanded, with little children clinging to them. Farther still was a woman on a bed of illness, over whom another angel of mercy had spread its wings as she came to Christ to have her body healed.
The center of it all was the beneficent figure of the human Saviour; and Sonia, looking down from this immutable image carved in stone to the flowing, changing, passing stream of young human creatures beneath, felt calmed and comforted. So they could keep their childish faith, there was a refuge for them, and she saw them now without any prompting to tears.
She got up from her knees, bathed her face, smoothed her hair before the mirror, and then, after darkening the room a little, rang for the maid, and asked for her coffee.
By the time it came she was almost dressed, and she instructed the servants very carefully not to disturb her young mistress, but to call a cab for her at once,—as she found it necessary to go home early,—and to tell Martha, when the latter awoke, that she was very well, but was obliged to be at home at a certain hour.
Her plan worked perfectly, and on her way to the cab she saw no one except the American maid, who went down with her. In passing through the antechamber she noticed a man’s covert-coat, stick, and hat, together with some crushed newspapers, thrown on a sofa. But she had not needed this to convince her of the fact that Harold had returned, and had been in his room, watching, as she had watched, the stream of little girls beginning their celebration of the month of Mary by taking their first communion.
The first of May being also what is known as “Labor Day,” it was a strange contrast to the unworldliness and other-worldliness of these little religieuses to see the alert military forces now beginning to fill the streets, in anticipation of possible insurrection and danger, of which there was strong menace that year.
Gendarmes in groups of six and eight, and sometimes even more, dotted the streets in all directions, and the mounted guard was out in full force. Sonia, looking from her cab window, heard repeated orders given to small groups of citizens to disperse. Even two men were not permitted to stand and talk together, and she was conscious of a certain amusement at seeing two groups of gendarmes combine forces to separate these little knots of two and three. Occasionally there was some resistance, and she saw several arrests made, which frightened her. She felt lonely and unprotected, driving through the streets of Paris with an unknown cabman at that early hour, when there was even a possibility of such a horror as an insurrection of the French lower orders.
It came over her with piercing power how Harold would once have felt about her being in such a position, and how strange, how inexplicable, how unnatural, it was that it could be nothing to him now—that, even if he knew it, he would feel bound to accept it passively; for nothing, she was certain, could induce him to exercise the semblance of a right over her.