CHAPTER XXIX
THE LETTER
She slept heavily and without dreams. Exhausted nature drank at the well of sleep, and, thus refreshed, gave her new gifts of strength and thought when the dawn came. She had suffered from no malady but malady of the mind; and now that the crisis was past and all the long days of anxiety ended in this day of sure calamity, her mind came back to her and taught her to reason as she had not reasoned since the day of Wörth. Calmly, quietly she reckoned with her position. There were facts she would hide no longer from herself—the fact of her estrangement from France; of the pity she gave to the soldiers of France when pride of them should have been her impulse; of her affection for the country she had left and for the English friends she had made in Strasburg. That affection demanded no loosening of the bonds which bound her still in love to Edmond. She knew that her love was stronger than all else, just as it was independent of all else. She did not believe that the misfortunes of their lives were irreparable. Misfortune, indeed, should be to them the beginning of a new understanding and a truer comradeship. Edmond would have need of her when Strasburg fell. She would give of her pity a generous offering.
If thus she could reason calmly, none the less was her anxiety unceasing. The very doubt as to what was happening to those she thought of in that city of fire and terror aided her to a recovery of her bodily strength. She rose from her bed by the very desire to rise. The week that succeeded her recovery was a week of questions unceasing to those who visited her—the abbé, the American doctor, old Richard Watts. They evaded her questions or answered them to no purpose. Even old Watts could bring her no tidings to satisfy her.
“You are to get better, little passenger,” he said always. “The rest is my business. I shall see that two foolish fellows do not make fools of themselves any more. Tell yourself that, when you think about it, and do not worry. Say that old Richard Watts is more than a match for them. We cannot hold out much longer here, and when we open the gates common-sense will come in. We mustn’t expect any common-sense while the Germans are sending a thousand shells a day as a pleasant token of their good intentions. But it will come by-and-by, and then that rascal, Edmond, will be on his knees to you. If he doesn’t come of his own free will, I’ll bring him here by the scruff of his neck. We’ll laugh at his threats, and Brandon shall join in. Trust Brandon to keep his head if these French maniacs let him. He’s at the American consulate now, and I don’t suppose they’re going to give him up. So you make your mind easy, little Beatrix. I’m your friend if you’ll have me for that. God knows it’s something to have the friendship of a little girl like you.”
She thanked him from her heart.
“It is I who should be grateful,” she exclaimed, holding out her hand to him; “as if I could ever forget the friend who saved my friend’s life. And you see I’m well again already. I shall go out and hear about things for myself to-morrow.”
“Indeed, and you will do nothing of the sort, young lady. Go out—the little passenger go out, when the shells fall like hail and there are dead at every corner. The idea of it!”
“But you have come out to see me?”
“Oh, I don’t count. There’s no one would miss old Dick Watts. If I smoke a few pipes more or less, it doesn’t matter much to anyone, you be sure.”