It was almost dark then. A lurid glow of wavering crimson light hovered in the sky to the northward and the eastward. She knew that the shells were falling there, that there lay the terror of which men spoke in hushed voices. Everywhere the people were seeking the shelter of house or café; soldiers alone moved in the deserted streets. Many of them black with powder, many fresh from the ramparts, a few drunk and reeling, they gave her coarse greeting or even laid rough hands upon her. But she continued unflinchingly, thinking always that Brandon was waiting for her, or, it might be, accusing that ingratitude which detained her. When, some little way from the cathedral, a shell struck a house above her with a great crash, and masonry fell heavily upon the pavement at her very feet she shrank back terrified into the porch of the house, but abated nothing of her resolution. She could hear the screams of the people in the rooms upstairs; she beheld a wrecked apartment, the walls shattered, the roof pierced, the fire raging in the débris—but no thought of sorrow for the people or of their necessity detained her. Rather she fled from the gaping crowd that gathered quickly in the street, for she feared that someone would follow her—some word of hers betray her errand. When she entered the Rue de l’Arc-en-Ciel she was trembling still with the excitement of her own escape; but a new courage came to her, and it was born of the sure knowledge that Brandon North was there, and that she was about to hear his voice again.
There was a great throng of people in the narrow street, all gathered about the shop of a chemist into which a little child had been carried some few minutes before she came there. A gossip elbowing a road for himself through the press, told her that a shell had fallen in that place, and that the child had been struck on the arm by a fragment of it.
“We shall have to go to the cellars to-morrow,” the man said grimly; “they shoot the little ones, these Prussians; they have no hearts, Mademoiselle. I have children of my own, and I can speak for the fathers. It is not war which covers a child’s frock with blood. It is the slaughter-house full of devils in blue coats. Be advised of me and return to your house, Mademoiselle.”
“She shrank back terrified into the porch.”
She thanked him and asked boldly for the house of Madame Clairon. He looked at her, astonished. Her fine clothes, her grand air, the sweet girlish face she lifted when she asked the question were not to be reconciled with such a request.
“The house of Madame Clairon; but she is an aubergiste—she keeps the wine shop yonder. You cannot have business there, Mademoiselle.”
His curiosity was now thoroughly aroused. Everyone suspected his neighbour in Strasburg at that day. What had this delicate girl to do with Madame Clairon and her house? Beatrix, on her part, found an excuse quickly.
“We have news of one of her relations in a letter from Metz, Monsieur. I did not know that it was such a house. Of course, I cannot go there.”
She turned abruptly and disappeared in the throng. The questioning eyes of the man followed her as she went. She seemed to be conscious of his searching gaze as though it pursued her to read her secret and to betray it. But she saw him no more, and, as she passed the chemist’s house, they carried out the child, a wan little thing with eyes very wide open and bandaged arm, and blood upon the frock. She turned from the place sick at heart. An infinite pity for the children drove the thought of her own troubles from her mind. That those little ones should suffer! The lights of the wine shop were dancing before her eyes. She saw the child’s face still when she passed on into the darkness of the street.