“Gallop,” I said, shuddering. “I can smell the moors of Paradise already. The winds will cleanse us.”
We spoke no more; and at last the road turned to the east, down among the trees, and we were traversing 386 the square of Paradise village, where white-capped women turned to look after us, and children stared at us from their playground around the fountain, and the sleek magpies fluttered out of our path as we galloped over the bridge and breasted the sweet, strong moor wind, spicy with bay and gorse.
Speed flung out his arm, pointing. “The circus camp was there,” he said. “They have ploughed the clover under.”
A moment later I saw the tower of Trécourt, touched with a ray of sunshine, and the sea beyond, glittering under a clearing sky.
As we dismounted in the court-yard the sun flashed out from the fringes of a huge, snowy cloud.
“There is Jacqueline!” cried Speed, tossing his bridle to me in his excitement, and left me planted there until a servant came from the stable.
Then I followed, every nerve quivering, almost dreading to set foot within, lest happiness awake me and I find myself in the freezing barracks once more, my brief dream ended.
In the hallway a curious blindness came over me. I heard Jacqueline call my name, and I felt her hands in mine, but scarcely saw her; then she slipped away from me, and I found myself seated in the little tea-room, listening to the dull, double beat of my own heart, trembling at distant sounds in the house—waiting, endlessly waiting.
After a while a glimmer of common-sense returned to me. I squared my shoulders and breathed deeply, then rose and walked to the window.
The twigs on the peach-trees had turned wine-color; around the roots of the larkspurs delicate little palmated leaves clustered; crocus spikes pricked the grass everywhere, and the tall, polished shoots of the peonies glistened, glowing crimson in the sun. A heavy cat 387 sunned its sleek flanks on the wall, brilliant eyes half closed, tail tucked under. Ange Pitou had grown very fat in three months.