"Star-shell, rockets, and so forth. They regularly treat us to a display before they begin to pound us again. Where are we fighting? Oh, pretty busy north—as far as Ypres and as far south as La Bassée. French on our right—French and Belgians on the left of us. More French holding Verdun. My hat! what gorgeous fighters! Men of steel with muscles of vulcanised rubber. And we thought the Gaul an absinthe-drinking degenerate. I tell you we wanted this War to open our eyes for us. Perhaps they did too! Here's one of the Sisters coming now!"
Hurrying felt slippers with rope soles shuffled over stone pavements. The key grated and the bolts shot back. A little Sister Portress in a close guimpe and flowing black veil, with a blue-checked apron tied over her habit, swung back the heavy door, holding her lantern high.
Just Heaven, upon how cold a night Madame had arrived from England! Madame must be perished. But there was coffee, and soup très chaud not only for Madame but for M. l'Officier. And also the chauffeur. Madame la Supérieure would never permit that either should proceed without nourishment. If M. l'Officier and his attendant preferred not to enter, the Sister would wait upon them in the car.
And so Patrine, after taking leave of her red-tabbed escort, was led away to the Mother Superior, a little, bright-eyed, kindly Religious, full of solicitude for Mademoiselle, who, confessing to having emptied a Thermos of hot coffee, and a box of sandwiches during the later stages of the transit, was borne away from the guest's refectory up and down several crooked flights of ancient stairs to a white-washed apartment, containing a prie-dieu and a big plaster Crucifix, a great walnut bed with faded Directoire curtains, a minute washstand,—a faint smell of scorched wood, emanating from the perforated metal registers of a calorifère, and a bad little coloured print of Lord Roberts, within a stitched border of yellow immortelles and faded laurel-leaves, that had been green and fresh six months before....
Patrine spent a white night in the town where the old brave heart of the great soldier had given its last throb for England. Not because those thudding guns in the north and east kept her wakeful—or because she had never stayed in a convent before.
She was going to Sherbrand—her Flying Man—who had been supposed to be dead and found to be living,—and who had written to say that he did not want Patrine. The letter lay against her heart, and her hands were folded tightly over it, as she lay staring with shining eyes at the drawn curtains flapping in the chill breeze stinging through the open window that had been fastened with a nail when the English guest arrived.
CHAPTER LXXI
LIVING AND DEAD
"PATHETIC ECHO OF AIR-TRAGEDY. SHERBRAND, R.F.C., NOT DEAD OR PRISONER. RESCUED BY AMERICAN RED CROSS AMBULANCE. IN HOSPITAL NEAR YPRES. WILL RECOVER, BUT BLIND FOR LIFE."
The clamorous headlines had followed close on a telephone from Sir Roland. Patrine had learned what it means to cry for joy—an unforgettable experience. She had discovered that one who kneels down to thank God for a boon so marvellous, has no words left to offer Him, nor even tears and sighs.