Omaha daily bee., 1898-07-31
CHAPTER xxvIu-Continued
,@&S

Atonementl The sad knell rang through
her brain, ominous, sonorous, and the
solemn tocsin bore it on, informing atone
ment, atoiementl
At first she wept, leaning on the icy para
pet; for the justice of God is a fearful thing,
and she was young. But her tears froze on
her cheeks, and she went down through the
house and out, and far into the city to the
gates. They would not let her pass. She
came back through the blind, dead avenues,
seeing nothing, hearing nothing, until at her
own door she paused, her hand on the wall.
her ~listless eyes closed. 1t was dawn. Red
Riding Hood came out with a covered
basket, 10 take her place in the line at the
butchers.
Hide smiled when she saw her, and,
stopping, kissed the child. Tell them l
have gone to the Nanterre fort she said.
So she went away into the city. to the
gates again, where cavalry were passing.
And she passed out among the horses and
the troopers. Nobody told her the road. At
a crcssway, in the center of a dismantled
hamlet, the stupid, freezing troopers
wheeled to the west. Hide kept on, her
white face fixed on the road. The gray
dawn came up behind the fortress Of the
east, the bombardment ceased as the sun
appeared, but from the forts the smoke
riffs fed away and the guns flashed steadily,
pounding the heights of Chatillon and the
parapets of st. Cloud, where the sullen
Prussian artillery lay breathless, waiting
for the night again to strike. The frozen
road seemed endless. The devastated, tree.
less fields stretched fiat on either hand. Tt
Hide they seemed burning with the glitter
of the sun, kindling each ice crystal to 6
living coal. Her tired, hot eyes dropped
her feet dragged, but the fever in her breas
gave her no rest, and she moved on un
conscious of her exhaustion.
There were men who called to her a
times; she saw they were soldiers, but sh'
neither heard nor answered their hoarst
halls. Perhaps the pickets thought she wa'
some crazed, starved young thing whos'
suffering had driven her from the doomed
city; perhaps they took her for a nurse, TO
she still wore the gray wool and the rec
cross band above her elbow.
A squad. of Franc-tireurs, outside the out
q, posts, called to her to go back. She die
not even raise her head. A peasant crouchet
before a fire in a ditch by the roadside
warned her that uhlans had been there TIL
night before. She looked at him and passet
on.
There was a shell of blackened villag
beyond her-a mere hamlet, charred, crumb
ling, half hidden in the snow. She enteret
the main street, dragging her tired littl
feet over burned timbers and piles Of bricl
and stone. Twice she stumbled to her knees
but she rose and went on, her gray Skin
powdered with snow. There was a man il
the street, walking ahead-a soldier. II
heard her and waited for her. 1t was som
minutes after he had dropped alongside tina
she heard him talking, but even then sh
did not look at him until he took hold Of he
arm still talking and grimacing.
The man was Stauffer. He still had he
arm; she wrenched it away and move
faster, but even he followed and held he
back. From sheer weakness she fell to he
knees; then she hid her face in her hands
crying as though her heart would break