“Quite free?”
Her dark eyes looked into his with a candour that was almost fierce. And Brent understood.
“Yes, free. My wife died during the first year of the war. I’m quit of the whole miserable business; only, over there, I should always be labelled an ex-convict. I didn’t mind so much during the war; you lost yourself in the bigness of it and in the heart of your pal. But when it was over——”
“The past came back.”
And then she smiled, and opening the old blue gate in the garden wall, looked out over Beaucourt.
“There’s the old world—everybody’s past. We are beginning all over again, old Durand—you—I—even Bibi. But Bibi will be just the same as ever, and after all there is so little for Bibi to find out. You are just an Englishman who chose to stay in France.”
“I’m a deserter,” he said. “I suppose they would call me that. Beckett—the man buried over there would not have grudged me the chance; he was the sort of fellow who never minded risking his head. I have seen him go to a farm that was being shelled and bring away the dog that was chained up in the yard.”
And then he added, “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. You are just Paul Rance, a Breton who had lived in England, and who has not gone back to England.”
“Yes,” said Brent; “but there are occasions in life when a man has to produce papers, documents, and I have nothing but the pay-book and disc that belonged to my friend. I would rather like you to take charge of them.”