“Aimée?” he gasped. “You!”
“Dieu! Edmond. You!—fancy you here, just at the moment when—”
“When—what?” he echoed. “Tell me, why are you here—in this place? Why are you not in Brussels? It is not safe for you here, my darling!”
And he placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder and, in the dim light of the lantern, looked straight into her dear face.
She gazed at him. He was in his heavy military overcoat, with a rifle slung upon his shoulder, for he had come down into the town from the fortress above, where his machine-gun was posted, in order to take a message from his captain to the captain of infantry holding the head of the wrecked bridge close by.
A few brief, hasty words sufficed to explain the terrible scene at Sévérac; how she and her mother had fled, and the reason of her long tramp to Dinant. There, in that dark, silent little square before the ruined church, with the high ruined old fortress on the cliff above, he drew her weary head down upon his breast, imprinting upon her white brow a long, passionate kiss, and murmuring:
“Ah! my darling, I have prayed to God that I might be spared to see you once again—if only just once—for the last time!”
“No, no,” she cried, lifting her lips to his, and kissing him long and fervently. “No. We shall win, Edmond, and you will live. Right and justice are, surely, upon our side, and we shall vanquish this German enemy of civilisation. Brute force can never win in the face of Providence and God’s good-will.”
“True, darling. But you must save yourself,” he urged. And, hastily, he told her of the attack upon Liège, the retreat to the Meuse, the bombardment of Dinant, and the valiant manner in which the defenders had fought and retaken the citadel.
In those five minutes in which the devoted pair stood together in the dim, flickering light, he held her in his strong embrace. Their affection was a fierce and passionate devotion, the fire of a love unquenchable. He repeated in her ear his fervent love for her, and then he added in a hard voice: