VI
A man came through the broken gateway and stood for a moment gazing around him in the falling twilight at the ruins—a tall sergeant of the Horse Artillery. He caught sight of Philomène and the children and stared at them, harder still.
“Well, I’ve seen things to-day,” he said. “But if you ain’t the unlikeliest. Who belongs here?”
“I could have told you, yesterday,” answered Philomène, in an old voice, following his look around.
“And you’ve seen these things? You?” he asked. His face was dirty—a mask of gunpowder; but his eyes shone kindly, and Pauline, without recognising his uniform, knew him for a friend. “Well, I’m——! But who lives here just now?”
“There’s nobody at home just now but me and the children, as you see,” said Philomène. “Were you looking for somebody?” with another look around. “He will be hard to find.”
The tall sergeant leaned an elbow against the gate. He was tottering with fatigue. “It’s a victory, that’s what it is,” he said; “an almighty victory.”
“It ought to be, God knows,” Philomène assented.
“And—and——But you’ll be busy, no doubt?”
“Moderately.”