CHAPTER XXVI
THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW
She returned to the Place Kleber at four o’clock; nor would she listen to the old housekeeper’s entreaty to defer her departure until Richard Watts came in with his news. The vague hope that some tidings of her husband might be brought into the city at any moment put chains upon her feet when she had to go abroad, and sent her always hurrying gladly to her home again. For the danger in that northern quarter she had no thought. Soldiers warned her as she crossed the streets which civilians had forsaken. She thanked them, but did not pause. The crashing echoes of terrible sounds could not affright her. She would have faced any peril to read a word from the man she loved. The remembrance that Edmond’s letter might be lying unopened in the lonely house could compel her often to return there excitedly, as though her troubles would be ended by a miracle. But there was no letter lying there when she returned on that memorable day; and such news as Guillaumette vouchsafed was news of the terror and of her own apprehensions.
“We cannot stay here, Madame; there is another house struck to-day. Maître Bolot and his children have gone to the cellars. I shall die of fright. All night long the boum, boum, boum. Ah, Madame, if one were a rabbit to live under the ground! There will be no Place Kleber soon—Henri says so. ‘Let your mistress go to the General’s house,’—he says. Mon Dieu, there are men in the General’s house—but here—”
She wrung her hands distractedly and stood in the gloomy hall, a very picture of woe. Through the shattered ceiling the cloudy sky was to be seen far above; and drops of rain even then pattered upon the once fine carpet. Beatrix stood an instant to look up at the broken walls of that which a month ago was her little sanctuary. She could see her pictures still hanging there, but the wind and the wet had soaked the curtains, and plaster had hardened upon the pretty case of her cottage piano. No one, the masons told her, must venture upon that staircase now. The house was not safe, they said. If another shell were to strike it, a crumbling heap of ruins would mark its site as they marked the site of many a princely house in Strasburg that day. Yet to her it was a home still. There, for the first time, Edmond had called her wife. There was no nook of it that did not seem to whisper some story of her love. Thither he would return for love of her. She was resolute in her determination to keep her trust while one stone stood upon another.
“It will not be for long, Guillaumette. Monsieur will come back, and then we shall go away. There are others in Strasburg who have not even a roof to shelter them. Remember that when Henri tells you his tales. Only children fear the darkness.”
“Not so, Madame. Henri does not fear the darkness at all. That is for me. You cannot see their arms in the dark. Ma foi! one prays God not to send Gaspard back from the wars. You have had déjeuner, Madame?”
“All that I want, Guillaumette. There is no letter for me?”
“A letter—who should write a letter, Madame?”