'And to-day is Tuesday,' I said. 'Steve! you will not lose time?'
'No, no.'
'You will see her in the morning? In the morning, lad,' I continued feverishly, clinging to the bars and peering out at him. 'I must get out of this before Sunday! And this is Tuesday! Steve!'
'Hush!' he answered. 'They are coming back.'
CHAPTER XXII.
[GREEK AND GREEK.]
What my lady's thoughts were during her long ride back to the camp, I do not know. But I have heard her say that when she rode into the village, a day and a half in advance of the dusty, lumbering convoy, she could scarcely believe that it was the place she had left, the place in which she had lived for a fortnight. And this, though all remained the same. So much does the point from which we look at things alter their aspect.
The general had sent on the news of the Waldgrave's loss by messenger, that she might be spared the pain of telling it; and Fraulein Max and Marie Wort were waiting on the wooden platform before the house when she rode wearily in. The sight of those two gave her a certain sense of relief and home coming, merely because they were women and wore petticoats. But that was all. The village, the reeking camp, the squalid soldiery, the whining beggars filled her--now that her eyes were opened and she saw this ugly face of war stripped of the glamour with which her fancy had invested it--with fear and repulsion. She wondered that she could ever have liked the place and been gay in it, or drawn pleasure from the amusements which now seemed poor and tawdry.
Fraulein Max ran down into the road to meet her, and when she had dismounted, covered her with tearful caresses. But the Countess, after receiving her greetings, still looked round wistfully as if she missed some one; and then in a moment moved from her, and mounting the steps went swiftly to the dark corner by the porch whither Marie Wort had run, and where she now stood leaning against the house with her face to the wall.
My lady, whom few had ever seen unbend, took the girl in her arms, and laid her head on her shoulder and stroked her hair pitifully.