I turn away to hide myself, for they are speaking of me. I, Lucien Peyrafitte, am the “poor devil of a lieutenant,” and it is true that I adore Valerie, the charming girl of whom those jays had spoken with so much recklessness. Although I had known her for several months,—first in Paris, and afterwards here, on the Dutch coast,—I had not breathed one word of love.
Why should I not do so to-night? She was alone at the hotel; there could be no more fitting opportunity.
Retracing my steps along the Plage to the Hôtel Deutschmann, I found her sitting upon the verandah alone, plunged in a deep reverie. In one of those huge wicker chairs which one sees nowhere else but at Scheveningen, I took a seat beside her, and, grasping her white hand, raised it to my lips.
How long I sat there I cannot tell. It must have been several hours. Before we rose to enter the hotel, she had admitted that she loved me, and as a pledge of her affection, had given me a turquoise ring from her finger, while I had kissed her passionately, she returning my caresses and appearing supremely happy.
Yet it was in a brief fool’s paradise that I existed that night, for before midday on the morrow I had left Scheveningen, having received a telegram from one of my comrades in Paris, urging me to return at once, as the regiment was ordered to Africa immediately.
Such was the irony of fate! Just as I had won the love of the woman I worshipped, I was torn away from her without scarcely an opportunity of bidding her farewell.
“We may all three die to-night!”
The words were spoken by Captain Lavigniac, who with myself and Lieutenant Maurel were crouching around the dying embers of our camp-fire.