The Captain Castaigne whom they remembered, the friend who had said farewell to them at the little house with the blue front door, which was a part of his own estate, had been young and gallant. He had borne himself with a fine soldierly erectness, had been full of gayety and good humor and charm, one’s ideal of a French soldier and lover, for he and Eugenia had been married only lately.
Now he was Jeanne’s friend, but the pathos of him was beyond expression. Not in death, but in life one measures the tragedies of war.
However, the eyes, the shape of the head, even the figure itself, left no chance for doubting in either Nona’s or Barbara’s consciousness, much as they would have preferred to doubt.
“You know Madame Castaigne, Lieutenant Kelley,” Nona said, as soon as she could speak. “Her husband, Captain Castaigne, has been reported as among the missing for a good many months. We believe Jeanne’s friend is Captain Castaigne; it may even be that Jeanne’s name made some slight impression upon his memory, for Gene is the name by which Captain Castaigne always called his wife. But we don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t feel we ought to tell Eugenia; at least, I know I never can,” Barbara interrupted.
“But we must, Barbara, we have no right to hide such a discovery,” Nona argued. “Still, I do not think I can be the one to go to Eugenia first. Oh, I did not dream I was such a coward!”
But at this moment another figure came walking toward them, with a great bowl in her arms and an expression of ever triumphant courage on her smooth, fine face. It was Madame Bonnèt on the way to feed her carrier pigeons.
“We must ask Madame Bonnèt what to do. She will be able to tell us,” Nona exclaimed and went forward with her story.
CHAPTER XIV
Greater Love
OF course there was but one decision possible and Nona volunteered to bring Eugenia to Madame Bonnèt’s.