* * * * *
We had been on our knees—I don’t know how long—Bernoline and I, shoulder to shoulder,—praying from the bottom of our hearts when De Saint Omer returned. I saw him coming and leaned towards her.
“Safe!”
She closed her eyes, and her head dropped on my shoulder. The next moment, the brother was beside her, kneeling.
“Your prayers were heard, little saint. And God has done justice.”
* * * * *
I left them alone and went outside and sat on a toppled stone. Heavens, how benign and innocent that afternoon was, clear blue with powdery clouds above, the young green stealing along a sheltered bush, the shrill piping of a nesting bird somewhere,—a note that pierced through the shattering iteration of the bombardment and down into my brain. It terrified me, that insistent eternal cry of reborn nature that recked neither our sorrows nor our human passing.
Père Glorieux came out presently, drew off his surplice, ranged his communion service, packed it into a box and opened his knapsack. I watched him. Poilu once more, gun at attention, he stood awaiting orders, a bronzed, bearded face that had looked into death and heard the laments of a thousand souls.
* * * * *