"My poor boy!" nearly broke from Patrine, and hot tears scalded her eyelids. He started, though she had uttered no word, and brought down those unseeing eyes. His nostrils expanded as he inhaled the air. His thick fair brows contracted. The first Caudron, exchanging signals with the second, had ceased hovering and floated onwards, but Sherbrand's thoughts had been brought down out of his sky.
"What is it? ... Why?" said the intent and frowning look. He snuffed the air again and pondered still, and suddenly Patrine comprehended. Some waft of perfume from her hair or clothes had reached the sense made keener by his blindness, evoked some once-loved image, roused some memory of her.
She crouched low, and looked up at the lean, lined visage yearningly. Dear heart! how changed he was to-day from her young Mercury of the Milles Plaisirs. And yet this altered face of his, marred by the broad, new-healed scar that traversed the left cheek and temple, and the cloudy look of suffering in the prominent grey-blue eyes, was dearer than ever to Patrine.
How bravely the ribbon of the Croix de Guerre and the purple, green, and silver of the Belgian Order showed against the war-stained khaki. What woman living would not glory in such a lover, welcome the sacred charge, rejoice to be his guide and minister! ... "Oh, my blind eagle, to sit mateless in the darkness shall not be your fate, God being good to me!" Some words like these were on the lips of Patrine.
But the words were unspoken. He was turning those cloudy, troubled eyes towards his unseen sky again as though trying to project the vision of his soul through the depths of aërial distance. Then he desisted as though wearied by the effort. His stern face softened to dreamy tenderness. His lips moved. Very quietly, but with infinite wistfulness, he uttered her own name:
"Patrine! Patrine!"
He was thinking of her—he was dreaming of her—he was still her lover. She knew a joyful shock, a checking of the pulses.... Then her blood whirled on its crimson circle as though arteries and veins were brimmed with wine. Her bosom heaved, her eyes were misty jewels, and out of the wonderful silence about them came to her the low, sweet soughing of her long-lost Wind of Joy.
She moved to Sherbrand, kissed him full upon the mouth, and called him: "Alan!" And a great cry broke from him—a cry of wonder, triumph, and joy. As his arms swept out to enfold her she knew that she had conquered. She had not been deceived in reading love between the formal lines.
"Life has nothing more to give!" was Patrine's thought as his arms held her. It seemed that Death would be a tiny price to pay for such a wonderful moment as this.
"My love, my love! Did you really think we could live without each other?" she stammered through his eager kisses. "Didn't you know I would have to come and carry you back home by the hair of your head? Did you dare to dream that I or any of the people who love you could get on without you? Your mother, and Aunt Lynette—and Bawne and Uncle Owen—and Sir Roland—who managed things for me to come to you!—and Margot and her boy ... for there is a boy—a regular topper—born last November—with eyes just like poor Franky's! And you're to come back and be kind to him and his mother—because you promised Franky you would! So that old ghost of your succession to the Viscounty is laid—and I'm glad of it! Another stone heaved out of the way that leads me back to you!"