The little girl lay in a stupor in his arms; as the blood came to her mouth he wiped it away. His face was utterly pale, but serene; he was thinking of Clémence and the beggar on the Paris quay.
Carola looked at him, and controlled herself with an effort.
“You sacrifice so much,” she said, in a very low voice; “I nothing. You were wrong not to let me undertake this.”
“Could you have carried her?” he asked, with a little smile.
And to both of them came the thought of the child she had borne over the Bohemian mountains.
“That was younger,” she murmured.
And in the strangeness of their being alone again with the dying, isolated alone again from the world, they looked at each other in silence.
“What shall I do?” whispered Carola.
“We will go to your convent. I think the moon will hold. There is no other way, and perhaps we may prevent the plague spreading to Aix. All this”—he looked round the tent—“must be burnt.” He rose from his knees, lifting the child, who cried bitterly when her aching body was moved.
“We will go at once,” he said, with his simple air of decision. “Some one might find us here.”