In such a grandiose style should the last act of HIS interposition be culminated, and the races of the earth should learn from the cavernous receptacles of spirit, from the shrined multitudes of the DEAD, enwrapped in the boundless fields of sky and star and cloud, issuing perchance from the wide-swung gates of Paradise, or Heaven, or of Hell itself—of the overwhelming pressure of the OTHER WORLD, learn thus too of the maintenance of sympathy between the affairs this side, and the affairs that side, of the narrow gap of DEATH! So it was.
But wonderful things had happened in the summer of 1916 and in its early autumn. There had been awful carnage at Verdun where the Teuton attempted to drive through to Paris and where the Gallic defiance rang out, Ils ne passeron pas. To and fro had the lines wavered, each interval strewn with innumerable corpses; the curtains of fire had swept to and fro and in their murderous folds life had expired as the flames destroy the swarming moths at harvest. Super-human deeds of valor had amazed the world that watched the struggle with terror-stricken eyes, and at last the Germans were pushed backward and the valleys of the Meuse, its hills and fields, its villages lay scorched, blackened, upheaved, overthrown, scarred from end to end, with most damnable desolation.
And northward the English had, along the Somme, struck at the Teuton with savage fury. The skies had been eclipsed with thunderous avalanches of fire, and for days the satanic deluge of shot and shell had stricken the German into helpless panic. Beyond Albert, with headlong rushes animated by God only knows what courage, the Briton had reached Thiepval Ginchy, Guillemont Clery and then shot forward with staggering, awful vehemence towards Bapaume and Peronne, and the defenses of the enemy, assailed on all sides, were melting away, and the invasion promised the greatest results. Except on the east the German forces seemed exhausted and the debacle had begun. The Allies were ready for the supreme effort.
Yes—there had been talk of PEACE—and, for one short moment, the world reeled almost in its dazed wonder-stricken joy. But the war-clouds closed again, and the steel-toothed, fire-shrouded fight stormed out again.
And then there had been another change. Their long line of armament had again been pushed further west by the Germans, who had forced our lines back, and again threatened the safety of Paris, had indeed so far trespassed over France, that their trenches and up-flung fortifications, their mounded parapets and encircling redoubts, broke in the line from Maubeuge, Rocroi, Dinant, Mézières, and Montmedy, eastward to Laon, again to Soissons, Compiègne, to Rheims, and now indeed, from the high ruined tower of the Chateau at La Ferté the trench line of the Teutons could be distinctly seen. The matter is important for there Gabrielle summoned—summoned I say—the disembodied to the great intervention. Ne riez pas; c'est vrai, le dernier mot de verité intime. Attendez! Vous savez bien la grande chose qui finit la guerre!
All of this happened in the winter of 1917. And about the first of April of that spring—let me see—that was on a Sunday morning, Gabrielle came into my room—before our breakfast—and sat down at the window, that one looking west. She had been to early mass, her face was drawn and inspired, her eyes were large and frightened, and she was trembling with excitement.
I had been reading and scarcely noticed her entrance. The instant my eyes met hers I started with alarm.
"Gabrielle qu'avez vous? What is it? The GHOSTS?"
She rose softly and came towards me. Then she knelt at my side, and looking rather down at her moving fingers than at me, told me this wonderful thing: One word—the spirits had not visited us for months, and we had, partly at least, forgotten them, in the busy work of the relief, and the frequent visits hither and thither, on errands of the Red-Cross mission. Gabrielle spoke rapidly in parts of her narrative, and then she hesitated, and seemed absent-minded, worn, and bewildered, but as she went on her words flowed abundantly and fastly,—so you remember it was before—and as she ended she had risen, and her expression assumed a peculiar vividness of—of—Ah how shall I say?—of seraphic beauty!