# Little Comrade (Munsey's Magazine)/Chapter 16

pp. 898–906

### CHAPTER XVI
#### Stewart Fulfils His Trust

When Stewart opened his eyes again, it was to find himself looking up into a good-humored face, which he did not at first recognize. It was brown and dirty; there was a three days' growth of beard upon cheeks and chin, and a deep red scratch ran across the man's forehead; but the eyes were bright and the lips smiling, as of a man superior to every fortune. Stewart recognized the little Belgian captain whose troops had defended the village.
Instantly memory surged back upon him—memory bitter and painful. He raised his head and looked about him. He was lying under a clump of trees not far from the bank of a little stream, along which a company of Belgian soldiers were busy throwing up entrenchments.
“Ah, so you are better!” said the captain in his clipped French. His eyes beamed with satisfaction. “That is good! A little more of that smoke, and it would have been all over with you!”
He gestured toward the eastern horizon, above which hung a black and threatening cloud.
Stewart pulled himself to a sitting posture and stared for a moment at the cloud as it billowed in the wind. Then he passed his hand before his eyes and stared again. Suddenly all his strength seemed to go from him, and he lay quietly down again.
“So bad as that!” said the officer sympathetically, struck by the whiteness of his face. “And I have nothing to give you—not a swallow of wine—not a sip!”
“It will pass,” said Stewart hoarsely. “I shall be all right presently. But I do not understand French very well. Do you speak English?”
“A little,” answered the other, and spoke thereafter in a mixture of French and English, which Stewart found intelligible, but which need not be indicated here.
“Will you tell me what happened?” Stewart asked at last.
“Ah, we drove them out!” cried the captain, his face gleaming. “My men behaved splendidly—they are brave boys, as you yourself saw. We made it—how you say?—too hot for the Germans; but we could not remain. They were pushing up in force on every side, and they had set fire to the place. So we took up our wounded and fell back. At the last moment I happen to remember that I had seen you dodging along the street in face of the German fire, so I look for you in this house and in that. At last I find you in a room full of smoke, lying across a bench, and I bring you away. Now we wait for another attack. It will come soon—our scouts have seen the Germans preparing to advance. Then we fight as long as we can and kill as many as we can, and then give back to a new position. That, over and over again, will be our part in this war—to hold them until France has time to strike. But I pity my poor country!”
The Belgian's face grew dark.
“There will be little left of her,” he went on, “when those barbarians have finished. They are astounded that we fight, that we dare oppose them; they are maddened that we hold them back, for time means everything to them. They revenge themselves by burning our villages and killing defenseless people. Ah, well, they shall pay! Tell me, my friend,” he added in another tone, “why did you risk death in that reckless fashion? Why did you kneel beside that bench?”
“It was there I left my comrade,” Stewart answered brokenly, his face convulsed. “She was wounded—she could not walk—I went to look for a cart—for an ambulance—I had scarcely taken a step when the Germans swept over the barricade and into the town. When I got back to the house where I had left her she was not there.”
“Ah!” said the other, looking down at Stewart thoughtfully. “It was a woman, then?”
“Yes.”
“Your wife?”
“She had promised to become my wife”; and Stewart looked at the other steadily.
“You are an American, are you not?”
“Yes—I have my passport.”
“And madame—was she also an American?”
“No, she was a Frenchwoman. She was shot twice in the leg as we ran toward your barricade—seriously—it was quite impossible for her to walk. But when I got back to the house she was not there. What had happened to her?”
His companion gazed out over the meadows and shook his head.
“You looked in the other rooms?” he asked.
“Everywhere—all through the house—she was not there! Ah, and I remember now,” he added, struggling to a sitting posture, his face more livid, if possible, than it had been before. “There was a great blood-stain on the floor that was not there when I left her. How could it have got there? I cannot understand!”
Again the officer shook his head, his eyes still on the billowing smoke.
“It is very strange,” he murmured.
“I must go back!” cried Stewart. “I must search for her!”
He tried to rise. The other put out a hand to stop him, but drew it back, seeing it unnecessary.
“Impossible!” he said. “You see, you cannot even stand!”
“I have had nothing to eat since yesterday,” Stewart explained. “Then only some eggs and apples. If I could get some food—”
He broke off, his chin quivering helplessly. He was very near to tears.
“Even if you could walk,” the other pointed out, “even if you were quite strong, it would still be impossible. The Germans have burned the village; they are now on this side of it. If madame is still alive, she is safe. Barbarians as they are, they would not kill a woman.”
“Oh, you don't know!” groaned Stewart. “You don't know! They would kill her without compunction!”
Weakness and hunger and despair were too much for him. He threw himself forward on his face, shaken by great sobs.
The little officer sat quite still, his face very sad. There was no glory in war—that was merely a fiction to hold soldiers to their work; it was all horrible, detestable, inhuman. He had seen brave men killed, torn, mutilated; he had seen inoffensive people driven from their homes and left to starve; he had seen women weeping for their husbands and children for their fathers; he had seen terror stalk across the quiet countryside—famine, want, despair!
The paroxysm passed, and Stewart gradually regained his self-control.
“You will, of course, do as you think best,” said his companion at last; “but I could perhaps be of help if I knew more. How do you come to be in these rags? Why was madame dressed as a man? Why should the Germans kill her? These are things that I should like to know; but you will tell me as much or as little as you please.”
Before he was well aware of it, so hungry was he for comfort, Stewart found himself embarked upon the story. It flowed from his lips so rapidly, so brokenly, as poignant memory stabbed through him, that more than once his listener stopped him and asked him to repeat. For the rest, he sat staring out at the burning village, his eyes bright, his hands clenched.
When the story was over he arose, faced the east, and saluted stiffly.
“Madame!” he said—and so paid her the highest tribute in a soldier's power.
Then he sat down again, and there was a moment's silence.
“What you have told me,” he said slowly at last, “moves me beyond words. Believe me, I would advance this instant, I would risk my whole command, if I thought there was the slightest chance of rescuing that intrepid and glorious woman. But there is no chance. That village is held by at least a brigade.”
“What could have happened?” asked Stewart again. “Where could she have gone?”
“I cannot imagine. I can only hope that she is safe. Most probably she has been taken prisoner. Even in that case, there is little danger that she will ever be recognized.”
“But why should they take prisoner a wounded civilian?” Stewart persisted. “1 cannot understand it, unless—”
His voice died in his throat, his face turned livid.
“Unless what?” asked the officer, turning on him quickly. “What is it you fear?”
“Unless she was recognized!” cried Stewart hoarsely.
But the other shook his head.
“If she had been recognized—which is most improbable—she would not have been taken prisoner at all. She would have been shot immediately.”
And then again that dark stain upon the floor flashed before Stewart's eyes. Perhaps that had really happened. Perhaps that blood was hers!
“How can I learn her fate?” he groaned. “I must know the truth of it!”
“Yes,” said the other gently, “it is the missing who cause the deepest anguish. One can only wait and hope and pray. That is all that you can do—that and one other thing.”
“What other thing?” Stewart demanded.
“She entrusted you with a mission, did she not?” asked the little captain. “Living or dead, she would be glad to know that you fulfilled it, for it was very dear to her. You still have the letters?”
Stewart thrust his hand into his pocket and brought them forth.
“You are right,” he said, and rose unsteadily. “Where can I find General Joffre?”
The other had risen, too, and was supporting him with a strong hand.
“That I do not know,” he answered; “somewhere along the French frontier, no doubt, mustering his forces.”
Stewart looked about him uncertainly.
“If I were only stronger!” he began.
“Wait,” the little officer broke in. “I think I have it. I am expecting instructions from our headquarters at St. Trond—they should arrive at any moment—and I can send you back in the car which brings them. At headquarters they will be able to tell you something definite, and perhaps to help you.”
He glanced anxiously toward the east, and then cast an appraising eye over the entrenchments his troops had dug. “We can hold them back for a time,” he added, “but we need reenforcements badly. Ah, there comes the car!”
A powerful gray motor spun down the road from the west, kicking up a great cloud of dust, and in a moment the little captain had received his instructions. He tore the envelope open and read its contents eagerly. Then he turned to his men, his face shining.
“The Sixty-Third will be here in half an hour,” he shouted. “We will give those fellows a hot dose this time!”
His men cheered the news with waving shakos, then, with a glance eastward, fell to work again on their trenches, which would have to be extended to accommodate the reenforcements. Their captain stepped close to the side of the purring car, and made his report to an officer who sat beside the driver. The two carried on a low-toned conversation. More than once they glanced at Stewart, and the conversation ended with a sharp nod from the officer in the car. The other came hurrying back to Stewart.
“It is all right,” he said. “You will be at St. Trond in half an hour”; and he helped the American to mount into the tonneau.
For an instant Stewart stood there, staring back at the cloud of smoke above the burning village; then he dropped into the seat and turned to say good-by to the gallant fellow who had proved so true a friend. The Belgian captain was standing with heels together, head thrown back, hand at the vizor of his cap.
“Monsieur!” he said simply, as his eyes met Stewart's, and then the car started.
Stewart looked back and waved his hand to that martial little figure, so hopeful and indomitable. A mist of tears came before his eyes. Would he ever see that gallant friend again? Chance was all against it. An hour hence, the Belgian might be lying in the road, bullet through his heart; if not an hour hence, then to-morrow or next day. And before this war was over, how many others would be lying so, their arms flung wide, their eyes staring at the sky—just as those young Germans had lain back yonder?
He thrust such thoughts away—they were too bitter, too terrible. But as his vision cleared, he saw on every hand the evidence of war's desolation.
The road was thronged with fugitives—old men, women, children—fleeing westward away from their ruined homes, away from the plague which was devastating their land. Their faces were vacant with despair or wet with silent tears. For whither could they flee? Where could they hope for food and shelter? How could their journey end, save at the goal of death?
The car threaded its way slowly among these heart-broken people. It passed through silent and deserted villages, by fields of grain that would never be harvested, along quiet streams which would soon be red with blood. At last it came to St. Trond, and stopped before the town hall, from whose beautiful old belfry floated the Belgian flag.
“If you will wait here, sir,” said the officer, and jumped to the pavement and hurried up the steps.
So Stewart waited, an object of much curiosity to the passing crowd. Other cars dashed up from time to time, officers jumped out with reports, jumped in again with orders, and dashed away. Plainly Belgium was not dismayed, even in face of this great invasion; she was fighting coolly, intelligently, with her whole strength.
And then an officer came down the steps, jumped upon the foot-board of the machine, and looked at Stewart.
“I am told you have a message,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I am a member of the French staff. Can you deliver it to me?”
“I was told to deliver it only to General Joffre.”
“Ah! In that case—”
The officer caught his lower lip between the thumb and little finger of his left hand, as if in perplexity. So naturally was it done that for an instant Stewart did not recognize the sign; then, hastily, he passed his left hand across his eyes.
The officer looked at him keenly.
“Have we not met before?” he asked.
“In Berlin, on the 22nd,” Stewart answered.
The officer's face cleared, and he stepped over the door into the tonneau.
“I am at your service, sir,” he said. “First you must rest a little, and have some clean clothes and a bath and food. I can see that you have had a hard time. Then we will start.”
An hour later, more comfortable in body than it had seemed possible he could ever be again, Stewart lay back among the deep cushions of a high-powered car which whizzed southward along a pleasant road. He did not know his destination. He had not inquired, and indeed he did not care; but had he known Belgium, he would have recognized Landen and Ramillies; he would have known that those high white cliffs ahead bordered the Meuse; he would have seen that this pinnacled town they were approaching was Namur.
The car was stopped at the city gate by a sentry, and taken to the town hall, where the chauffeur's papers were examined and verified. Then they were off again, across the river and straight southward, close beside its western bank.
Stewart had never seen a more beautiful country. The other shore was closed in by towering, rugged cliffs, with a white villa here and there, squeezed in between wall and water, or perched on a high ledge. Sometimes the cliffs gave back to make room for a tiny, red-roofed village; again they were riven by great fissures or pitted with yawning chasms.
Evening came, and still the car sped southward. There were no evidences here of war. As the calm stars came out one by one, Stewart could have fancied that it was all a dream but for that dull agony of the spirit which he felt would never leave him, and for that strand of lustrous hair which now lay warm above his heart and which, alas, was all he had of her!
Yes, there were the two letters which rustled under his fingers as he thrust them into his pocket. He had looked at them more than once during the afternoon, delighting to handle them because they had been hers, imagining that he could detect on them the faint, subtle aroma of her presence.
He had turned them over and over, had slipped out the sheets of closely written paper, and had read them through and through, hoping for some clue to the identity of the woman he had lost. It was an added anguish that he did not even know her name! The letters did not help him. They contained nothing but innocent, careless, light-hearted, impersonal gossip, written apparently by one young woman to another. “My dear cousin,” they were addressed, and Stewart could have wept at the irony which denied him even her first name.
They were in English—excellent English—and the envelopes bore the superscription, “Mrs. Bradford Stewart, Spa, Province of Liège, Belgium.” But so far as he could see they had nothing to do with her—they were just a part of the elaborate plot in which he had been unwittingly entangled.
But what secret could they contain? A code? If so, it must be a very perfect one, for nothing could be more simple, more direct, more unaffected, than the letters themselves. A swift doubt swept over him. Perhaps, once in the presence of the general, he would find that he had played the fool—that there was nothing in these letters.
And yet a woman had risked her life for them. Face to face with death, she had made him swear to deliver them. Well, he would keep his oath.
He was still very tired, and at last he lay back among the cushions, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.
“Halte là!” cried a sharp voice.
The brakes squeaked and groaned as they were jammed down. Stewart sat up and looked about him. Ahead gleamed the lights of a town; he could hear a train rumbling past along the river-bank.
There was a moment's colloquy between the chauffeur and a man in uniform; a paper was examined by the light of an electric torch; then the man stepped to one side and the car started slowly ahead.
The rumbling train came to a stop, and Stewart, rubbing his eyes, saw a regiment of soldiers leaping from it down to a long, brilliantly lighted platform. They wore red trousers and long blue coats folded back in front.
With a shock Stewart realized that they were French—that these were the men who were soon to face those gray-clad legions back yonder. Then, above the door of the station, its name flashed into view—“Givet.” They had passed the frontier—they were in France.
The car rolled on, crossed the river by a long bridge, and finally came to a stop before a great, barnlike building, every window of which blazed with light. Streams of officers were constantly arriving and departing. A sentry leaped upon the foot-board; again the chauffeur produced his papers. An officer was summoned, who glanced at the document, and immediately stepped back and threw open the door of the tonneau.
“This way, sir, if you please,” he said to Stewart.
As the latter rose heavily, stiff with long sitting, the Frenchman held out an arm and helped him to alight.
“You are very tired, is it not so?” he asked.
He led the way up the steps, along a hall, and into a long room where many persons were sitting on benches against the walls or slowly walking up and down.
“You will wait here,” added the guide. “It will not be long”; and he hurried away.
Stewart dropped upon a bench and looked about him. There were a few women in the room—and he wondered at their presence there—but most of its occupants were men, some in uniform, others in civilian dress of the most diverse kinds, of all grades of society. Stewart was struck at once by the fact that they were all silent, exchanging not a word, not even a glance. Each kept his eyes to himself as if it was a point of honor so to do.
Suddenly Stewart understood. These were agents of the secret service, waiting to report to their chief, or to be assigned to some difficult and dangerous task. One by one they were summoned, disappeared through the door, and did not return.
At last it was to Stewart the messenger came.
“This way, sir,” he said.
Stewart followed him out into the hall, and into a little room beyond a deep ante-chamber, where a white-haired man sat before a great table covered with papers. The messenger stood aside for Stewart to pass, then went swiftly out and closed the door.
The man at the table examined his visitor with a long and penetrating glance, his face cold, impassive, expressionless.
“You are not one of ours,” he said at last.
“No, I am an American.”
“And yet you have a message?”
“How came you by it?”
“It was entrusted to me by one of your agents, who joined me at Aix-la-Chapelle.”
A sudden flame of excitement blazed into the cold eyes.
“May I ask your name?”
“Bradford Stewart.”
The man snatched up a memorandum from the desk and glanced at it. Then he sprang to his feet.
“Your pardon, Mr. Stewart,” he said. “I did not catch your name—or, if I did, my brain did not supply the connection, as it should have done. My only excuse is that I have so many things to think of. Pray sit down.” He drew up a chair. “Where is the person who joined you at Aix?”
“I fear that she is dead,” answered Stewart in a low voice.
“Dead!” echoed the other, visibly and deeply moved. “Dead! But no, that cannot be!” He passed his hand feverishly before his eyes. “I will hear your story presently; first, the message. It is a written one?”
“Yes, in the form of two letters.”
“May I see them?”
Stewart hesitated.
“I promised to deliver them only to General Joffre,” he explained.
“I understand; but the general is very busy. I must see the letters for a moment before I ask him for an audience.”
Without a word Stewart passed them over. He saw the flush of excitement with which the other looked at them; he saw how his hand trembled as he drew out the sheets, glanced at them, thrust them hastily back, and touched a button on his desk.
Instantly the door opened and the messenger appeared.
“Ask General Joffre if he can see me for a moment on a matter of the first importance,” said the man. The messenger bowed and withdrew. “Yes, of the first importance,” he added, turning to Stewart, with shining eyes. “Here are the letters—I will not deprive you, sir, of the pleasure of yourself placing them in our general's hands. And it is to him you shall tell your story.”
The door opened and the messenger appeared.
“The general will be pleased to receive monsieur at once,” he said, and stood aside for them to pass.
At the end of the hall was a large room crowded with officers. Beyond this was a smaller room where six men, each with his secretary, sat around a long table. At its head sat a plump little man, with white hair and bristling white mustache, which contrasted strongly with a face darkened and reddened by exposure to wind and rain, and lighted by a pair of eyes incredibly bright.
He looked up as Stewart and his companion entered.
“Well, Fernande?” he said. Stewart did not know till afterward that his companion was the famous head of the French Intelligence Department, the eyes and ears of the French army—captain of an army of his own, every member of which went daily in peril of a dreadful death.
“General,” said Fernande, in a voice whose trembling earnestness caused every man present suddenly to raise his head, “I have the pleasure of introducing to you an American, Mr. Bradford Stewart, who, at great peril to himself, has brought you a message of the first importance.”
General Joffre bowed.
“I am pleased to meet Mr. Stewart,” he said. “What is this message?”
“It is in these letters, sir,” said Stewart, and placed the envelopes in his hand.
The general glanced at them, then slowly drew out the enclosures.
“We shall need a candle,” said Fernande; “also a flat dish of water.”
One of the secretaries hastened away to get the needed articles. He was back in a moment, and Fernande, having lighted the candle, took from his waistcoat-pocket a tiny vial of blue liquid and dropped three drops into the dish.
“Now we are ready, gentlemen,” he said. “You are about to witness a very interesting experiment.”
He picked up one of the sheets, dipped it into the water, then held it against the flame of the candle. Stewart, watching curiously, saw a multitude of red lines leap out upon the sheet—lines which zigzagged this way and that.
As sheet followed sheet, the whole staff crowded around the head of the table, snatching them up, holding them to the light, bending close to decipher minute writing. Their eyes were shining with excitement, their hands were trembling; they spoke in broken words.
“The enceinte—oh, a new work here at the left—I thought so—three emplacements—but this wall is simply a mask—it would present no difficulties—that position could be flanked—”
It was the general himself who spoke the final word.
“This is the weak spot,” he said, his finger upon the last sheet of all. Then he turned to Stewart, his eyes gleaming. “Monsieur,” he said, “I will not conceal from you that these papers are, as Fernande has said, of the very first importance. Will you tell us how they came into your possession?”
As briefly as might be, Stewart told the story—the meeting at Aix, the arrest at Herbesthal, the flight over the hills, the passage of the Meuse, the attack on the village. At the end his voice faltered despite his effort to control it.
At first the staff had kept on with its examination of the plans, but first one and then another laid them down and sat and listened. For a moment after he had finished they sat silent, regarding him. Then General Joffre rose slowly to his feet, and the members of his staff rose with him.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I will not attempt to tell you how your words have moved me; but on behalf of France I thank you; on her behalf I give you the highest honor which it is in my power to bestow.” His hand went to his button-hole and detached a red ribbon, from which hung a little five-rayed star of white enamel, edged with gold. In a moment he had affixed it to Stewart's coat. “The Legion, monsieur!” he said, and he stepped back and saluted.
Stewart, a mist of tears before his eyes, his throat suddenly contracted, looked down at the decoration.
“It is too much,” he protested brokenly. “I do not deserve—”
“It is the proudest order in the world, monsieur,” broke in the general, “but it is not too much. You have done for France a greater thing than you perhaps imagine. Is there anything else that I can do for you? If there is, I pray you to command me.”
Stewart felt himself shaken by a sudden convulsive trembling.
“If I could get some news,” he murmured brokenly, “of—of my little comrade.”
General Joffre shot him a quick glance. His face softened, grew tender with comprehension.
“Fernande,” he said.
Fernande bowed.
“Everything possible shall be done, my general,” he said. “I promise it. We shall not be long without tidings.”
“Thank you,” said Stewart. “That is all, I think.”
“And you?”
“I? Oh, what does it matter?” And then he turned, fired by a sudden remembrance of a great white tent, of loaded ambulances. “Yes, there is something I might do. I am a surgeon. Will France accept my services?”
“She is honored to do so,” said the general quickly. “I will see that it is done. Until to-morrow—I will expect you”; and he held out his hand, while the staff came to a stiff salute.
“Until to-morrow,” repeated Stewart.
He followed Fernande to the door. As he passed out he glanced behind him. The members of the staff were bending above those red-lined sheets, their faces shining with eagerness.
The officers in the outer room, catching sight of the gold-rimmed star, saluted as he passed; the sentry in the hall came stiffly to attention.
But Stewart's heart was bitter. Honor! Glory! What were they worth to him, alone and desolate?
“Monsieur!” It was Fernande's voice, low, vibrant with sympathy. “You will pardon me for what I am about to say, but I think I understand. It was not alone for France you did this thing—it was for that 'little comrade,' as you have called her, so brave, so loyal, so indomitable that my heart is at her feet. Is it not so?”
He came a step nearer, and laid a tender hand on Stewart's arm.
“Do not despair, I beg of you, my friend. She is not dead—it is impossible that she should be dead! Fate could not be so cruel. With her you shared a few splendid days of peril, of trial, and of ecstasy; then you were whirled apart, but only for a time. Somewhere, some time, you will find her again, awaiting you. I know it, I feel it!”
But it was no longer Fernande that Stewart heard—it was another voice, subtle, delicate, out of the unknown. His bosom lifted with a deep, convulsive breath.
“You are right,” he whispered. “I, too, feel it! Some time, somewhere—”
And his trembling fingers sought that tress of lustrous hair, warm above his heart.
Far away to the east, a sentry in the gray uniform of the German army paced slowly back and forth before a great white house looking across a terraced garden down upon the Meuse. Three days before it had been the beautiful and orderly home of a wealthy Belgian; now it reeked with the odor of ether and iodoform. In the spacious dining-room an operating-table had been installed, and a sterilizing apparatus simmered in one corner. Along its halls and in every room rows of white cots were ranged—and each cot had its bandaged occupant.
Before the door, two surgeons, thoroughly weary after a hard day, sat smoking and talking in low tones. Within, a white-clad nurse stole from cot to cot, assuring herself that all was as well as might be.
In a tiny room on the upper floor a single cot had been placed. As the nurse stopped at the open door and held aloft her night-lamp, her eyes caught the gleam of other eyes, and she stepped quickly forward.
“What is it?” she asked softly. “Why are you not asleep? You are not in pain?”
The patient—a slender lad, seemingly, or could it be a girl?—smiled and made a negative sign.
“I do not know German,” he—or she—said in French.
The nurse placed her cool hand upon the patient's brow to assure herself that there was no access of fever.
“I speak French a little,” she said painfully, in that language. And then she hesitated. “Tell me, fräulein,” she went on, after a moment, “how you came to be wounded. We have wondered much.”
“My brother and I were trying to get through your lines to Brussels, where our mother is,” the other answered. “I slipped on a suit of my brother's clothes, thinking to make better progress; but we were too late. We were caught between two fires when your men stormed that village.”
Despite the smile, there was a shimmer of anxiety in the eyes she turned upon the nurse. It was a poor story, but she had been able to devise no better one. The nurse, at least, accepted it unquestioningly.
“Ach, how terrible!” she commented. “And your brother—what of him?”
“When I was wounded, he carried me into a house, and then hastened away to summon aid. Before he could get back, your men had taken the village.”
“Then he is safe, at least?”
“Yes, I am sure of it.”
“And he will come for you, of course, as soon as he can?”
“Yes, I am sure of that also!”
There was a subtle timbre in the voice that caught the nurse's ear, and she looked down again into the luminous eyes.
“You do not seem to mind your misfortune,” she said. “You seem even happy!”
The eyes which gazed up at her were softly, wonderfully brilliant. A deeper color crept into the pale cheeks.
“I am happy,” said the girl, almost in a whisper; “very happy!”
The nurse paused a moment longer, strangely thrilled. Then her training asserted itself.
“You must not excite yourself,” she cautioned. “You must go to sleep. Good night.”
“Good night!” came the murmured answer. “I will try to sleep.”
But for long and long she lay staring up into the darkness, glowing with the precious memory of a man's strong arms about her, his ardent lips on hers.
“He is safe!” her soul assured her. “He will seek you up and down the world until he finds you. You shall lie again upon his breast; you shall hear his heart beating—some time, somewhere!”
And with a long sigh of contentment, she closed her eyes and slept.
THE END