“Sufficiently.” I could not look at him. It seemed a dream, to be letting him chatter on so nonchalantly, with the letter that lay in my pocket. “Only just located you. How’s every one?”
“Not so bad,” he said, looking around. “Pretty warm at times. D’Arvilliers, poor fellow, blown to pieces—a few flesh wounds. We counter-attacked the day before yesterday. Hot work. Took a number of prisoners. The Boches are fagged out. Nothing to eat for days.”
“Have we stopped them?”
“Absolutely. Enormous losses. This time they’re done for!”
Others grumble and look serious; with him, not an instant’s wavering. Victory is his faith. There I recognize the race of Bernoline.
* * * * *
Bernoline! For all these days I have rejected her from my mind, by some involuntary instinct of self-preservation. I think at times during that blank moment it must have been touch and go with me. Where was my mind all the while? Who knows? That I am still able to reason sanely may be due to this hideous obsession of panic and retreat which has mercifully crowded in on my struggling consciousness. Still I cannot realize it!
I have just taken out the two letters and examined the postmarks. They were mailed five weeks ago. She has been in France, then, for weeks!
IV
And, in this moment of all moments, a letter from Letty. Others I had taken and torn to shreds. When this came, I laughed out loud and opened it.