“No.”
“What, then?”
“The man I love best on earth.”
“Ah!” She had felt a surprise she had not spoke that he should flee thus from any foe. “He thinks you dead, then?”
“Yes.”
“And must always think so?”
“Yes.” He held her hand still, and his own wrung it hard—the grasp of comrade to comrade, not of man to woman. “Child, you are bold, generous, pitiful; for God's sake, get me sent out of this camp to-night. I am powerless.”
There was that in the accent which struck his listener to the heart. He was powerless, fettered hand and foot as though he were a prisoner; a night's absence, and he would be shot as a deserter. He had grown accustomed to this rendering up of all his life to the rules of others; but now and then the galled spirit chafed, the netted stag strained at the bonds.
“I will try,” said Cigarette simply, without any of her audacity or of her vanity in the answer. “Go you to the fire; you are cold.”
“Are you sure he will not return?”