Chapter XII: Part V: I

_April, 1918_

For weeks, ever since the staggering nightmare of the German thrust in March, we have been marching and counter-marching, entraining and debarking, living in a delirium. I have had no news from home in ages. Heaven only knows where my mail has gone. I can only scribble down a note here and there and wait for a moment that never comes. The war has seen nothing to match this hideous driving tempest of massed artillery. I have ceased to think or to wonder what is in store for me. The imagination, like the body, yields to fatigue and ceases to respond.

* * * * *

We have come back from beyond the English lines to a position of support at X----. The second thrust has rolled through us as it did through the English. Can it be stopped? I begin to lose faith. The sight of this army of refugees streaming through us is heart-breaking. Poor souls, now twice dispossessed from their homes! We have lost in these days all that we fought to recover. No wonder that bitterness has entered our souls: only De Saint Omer remains unfaltering in his faith, cheerful and inspired. But it is not so with the others.

* * * * *

To-morrow I shall have letters from home. An orderly is returning from Paris, and he will stop at the bank for my mail. Thank heaven! Even if it is denied me ever to see home again, it is like a ray of light at the end of winter to know that there is somewhere a calm green world, where Bernoline, Molly and Anne exist.

* * * * *

We go forward in relief to-morrow at daybreak. The tension is terrible.

II

_Taunton, February_

Dear David:

A terrible thing has happened. My head is in a whirl--oh, my poor
lovely Mademoiselle Duvernoy! How shall I tell you? I’m afraid I’m
so upset by it all that I shan’t be able to write you anything
coherently. I still can’t understand. It all happened so suddenly
to-night, only a few hours ago.

We had a member of the visiting French Commission in for
dinner,--quite informally. Father telephoned at the last
minute he was bringing him and I had forgotten to mention it
(Mademoiselle Duvernoy has always been unwilling to come down
when guests were present). I was in the salon, alone with General
de Villers-Costa--that is his name and a very distinguished and
handsome officer he is--when Mademoiselle Duvernoy came abruptly
in, humming to herself. We were so placed that she did not see the
General until she was almost on him, and then,--I thought she was
going to fall. As for him, he looked as though he had seen a ghost!

David, they recognized each other! I heard them cry,

_“Bernoline--Mademoiselle de Saint Omer--vous ici!”_

_“Jacques--pour l’amour de Dieu, pas un mot!”_

Then they stood together for a moment, talking very low and
rapidly, and, at the end, Mademoiselle Duvernoy went by me without
seeing me and up to her room, and General de Villers-Costa stood at
the window a long while, while I waited, feeling as though the sky
had fallen on me. When he turned he came directly towards me, his
eyes very red, in a terrible state of excitement, and said:

“Mademoiselle Brinsmade, as you are a true and loyal woman, I beg
you to forget what you have seen and heard.”

I nodded. I couldn’t say a word and I think tears were in my eyes.

“Mademoiselle” (in his nervousness he kept pulling at his
handkerchief), “did you hear the name I pronounced?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

This seemed to overwhelm him completely, for it was a long moment
before he could continue.

“Mademoiselle--will you believe me that it is all a mistake--an
astounding mistake--and will you, in charity--I ask of you--forget
it?”

“I love Mademoiselle Duvernoy,” I said. “I never could do anything
to hurt her.”

At that moment the others came in. I hurried upstairs, but she was
not in her room. I ran out in the garden, and, at the end of the
walk, I found her sitting, and oh, David,--the look on her face!
I flung my arms about her and wept as though my heart would break
and, for the first time, tears came to her too, and we clung to
each other. She has told me nothing, though I know she loves me
dearly, but just goes about staring in a numbed sort of way. David,
what does it mean? What awful tragedy is in her life,--in the life
of that dear little saint! David, I looked up her name in the
Almanach de Gotha, and there is only one family of that name, the
Duc Henri Plessis de Saint Omer: four sons, and--Bernoline Marie
Renée Plessis de Saint Omer! Is it possible that--

* * * * *

David, just as I was writing, she came into my room, and oh, David,
she has told me all. There have been times when I suspected but I
am overwhelmed. I must try to set it down as it happened, for she
wishes me to write to you.

I was so buried in my letter that I had not heard her entrance
until I felt her hand on my shoulder and looked up to see her at
my side. My face, I know, went red, and involuntarily I tried to
cover up my letter.

“You have written it to David!” she said, looking into my eyes.

And then I guessed! All that I have merely wondered at--put out of
my mind as impossible, as fantastic, flashed back. I knew, and she
knew that I knew, for she said swiftly:

“He is the man that I have loved as I have never loved any one in
my life.”

I write it to you, as she said it, as you have the right to know.

“And whom I shall never see again,” she added. “It is better that
you should write it, dear child.”

I flung myself in her arms and begged her forgiveness, not knowing
what I did. I won’t tell you all she said, David, only that I know
now how you love her, for who could help loving her.

_Later_

The terrible, terrible thing is that she is going away. I have
pleaded with her to stay as my friend: think what it must have been
to her pride all these months--but nothing can move her. There is
something mysterious under it all, something dreadful--I don’t dare
ask--that I feel no one has a right to know.

* * * * *

That night, she came down to dinner. I was so broken up when I saw
her enter that I couldn’t look at her, and the General stopped
short and then began to talk rapidly. She came to me presently,
and, in the same quiet tone, said:

“Anne, dear, I count on your help to-night. Be calm, dear, and
after dinner,--I must speak to General de Villers-Costa.”

Her control was absolute, yet I wonder that every one did not see
the change, for it was no longer Mademoiselle Duvernoy who was in
the room, but Bernoline, daughter of the Duke de St. Omer. Beyond
that there was not a trace of emotion in face or manner. She must
have a will of iron!

Dinner over, I managed to signal the General, and the three of us
went into the garden together until we were well hidden from the
house.

“And now, Anne, dear, thank you, and may I ask you to wait for us
here just a moment. Monsieur de Villers-Costa, will you walk with
me a little ahead?”

It must have been at least ten minutes before they returned, and
the General was so evidently upset that he could not say a word as
we came back. At the terrace Mademoiselle de Saint Omer turned and
said, with the gracious smile which is hers alone,

“In this sad day I am fortunate in having two such loyal friends in
whom I have perfect trust.”

Wasn’t that fine of her: not a question of our promising,--just
trust! Then she went into the house, but as I started to follow
her, the General stopped me.

“Mademoiselle--I beg of you--just a moment. I haven’t that
strength--a moment to get hold of myself.”

“I, too,” I said hastily, and we went and leaned over the
balustrade, without a word.

“Thank you,” he said, at last, drawing himself up. “I can go in,
now.” And he added, with a little touch of pride I loved, “Such are
our women, Mademoiselle,--do you wonder that we fight on?”

* * * * *

She left to-day. Every one is terribly broken up,--even the
servants, who, I think, instinctively felt her quality. She is
returning to the convent in New York, but I think her intention is
to sail for France. I feel so helpless, and so alone.

* * * * *

I could not write you last night and had to put my pen down. I
don’t know when I have been so completely broken up. It seems all
so hideously unjust. She told me that she had written you, for the
last time, but I cannot believe that. Surely, there must be some
way out; life can’t be so cruel as that. David, my dear friend,
will you believe me that I have thought of you all these days and
that my heart goes out to you?

The shock must have been terrible to her, for everything about
her seemed absolutely petrified and her eyes looked at you with
such a dry, such a burning heat. She never seemed to know she was
talking to us or to be aware of what was around her. Her whole
mind is concentrated on some fixed resolve. That is the terrible
part,--with all my love, I cannot help her!

I shall not forget her last words when I caught her hands and
implored her a last time not to go.

“I have failed: and this is my punishment.”

Whatever can she mean, David, and what is it she is planning to do?

_New York_

Just a last line. I am sailing next week for France. I have
enlisted for the war in the Red Cross as a hospital assistant.
Father has arranged all for me, like the dear that he is,--without
a single objection. And what do you think: I have seen Mademoiselle
Duvernoy, and we are going over on the same boat! I know that this
will be some comfort to you, for, David, I, too, love her, and I
know she loves me, and is glad that I am to be with her. My address
in Paris is below: it is quicker, they tell me, than the Red Cross.
If you are in Paris before I go to my post, do come to me, David.

ANNE.

_St. Rosa’s Convent,_
_New York_

David:

I am here with the good sisters. In a week I sail for France. This
must be my last letter to you, and I shrink from the pain that it
must bring you. Anne has written you what happened at Taunton.
She knows only who I am, and my cousin, General de Villers-Costa,
whatever he may suspect, knows no more. He is of my blood, and he
is an absolutely loyal gentleman. His lips are sealed. To you alone
I must tell everything. Better for us both if I had done so in the
beginning. I couldn’t. You will understand why.

David, I have told only two deliberate lies in my life, and each
has been followed by a dreadful calamity: the first to save the
life of a soldier of France; and the second to you, when you asked
me if I were married. I did it because I thought I was doing it
for your sake, because I was tried beyond my strength, because I
no longer knew what to do, and because, David, I couldn’t bear to
leave in your heart a memory that would haunt you. I tell you now
because it is inevitable.

David, I have failed, and God has seen fit to punish me. For months
I have been tortured by remorse, for months I have refused to bear
the full burden of my cross, and no one will ever know--not even
you--the agony of my indecision. Now, my way is clear. I know what
I must do, and I shall do it.

David, it is so hard to tell you, for as you know now, I am of
an old and proud race, that guards its honor with its life; and,
David, I am a woman who loves you. Forgive me, if you can, in my
weakness. My family thinks me dead. For their sake, for the honor
of my family, of my brother, whom you know now is at your side, I
am and must remain dead. When I tried to escape from my destiny it
was for their sake and their sake alone. Only one other person in
this world besides you knows the truth, and that is Marianne, my
old nurse, whom you saw at Bordeaux, and who has in her keeping my
baby.

I cannot tell you in detail; that would be too horrible, and all
the courage that I have built up would not be proof against that
hideous memory.

You know that my mother and I were caught in the first German rush
through Luxemburg. Our château was but a few kilometers from the
border. It was taken and retaken, again and again. We stayed, as
a duty to our peasants, to our old men and to our poor women and
children. We believed in our pride that the authority of our name
and presence could save them from torture and worse than torture.
How little we knew the beasts with whom we were dealing! We thought
we were safe, for the German commander was an acquaintance of my
brothers,--had visited us in our home in the years before the war!
For we knew many Germans and we trusted in the honor of a gentleman
of noble descent!

David, it is so hard to write it down. I can only do it by moments.
Twice we were accused of signaling to the French,--twice imprisoned
and threatened with execution,--we who gave our days and nights to
but one thought,--the comforting of the dying, friend and enemy.
We saw our home battered to pieces, everything we loved destroyed,
everything we owned in the world wiped out, and yet, despite every
agony, we stayed on, trusting in our sacred mission, to protect and
aid those we loved.

And then came the lie. He was a little _poilu_, hardly more than a
boy, who had been left behind, too wounded to carry away. We hid
him in our own apartment, my mother and I, and to do it we lied.
God forgive me, I would do it again! For discovery meant death: he
was an Alsatian and for them the Boches know no pity. For three
long weeks we were able to conceal his presence,--until he was able
to make a try at escape. They caught him and all was discovered.
And then--

They tore my mother from me and sent her off somewhere into the
interior, to work in the fields. She was spared the worst,--the
knowledge of what happened to me. She died. And to me came worse
than death,--but oh, the ferocity of it, the brutality of it, the
stamping of a weak woman with the rage of the victor; and he who
did it was the one, above all, who by every tradition of chivalry,
by every instinct of race, religion and honor--

* * * * *

David, my religion, my faith was all that was left me. What was
I to do? To take one’s life is to us a mortal sin; even that
escape was denied me. And the horror when I knew that my shame was
eternally fastened upon me! For the first months I sought death as
only I had the right to seek it, praying for the mercy of a quick
end, exposing myself in every bombardment, seeking every post of
danger. Men were killed at my side--a child that ran to me was
blown to pieces--and I lived.

Then, for the sixth time, our little village was retaken, and I
escaped that night into France. A faithful soul gave out the report
that I had been killed, and so, thank God, for the honor of my
name, I am dead to-day.

The rest? I found my old nurse, Marianne, who concealed my identity
and placed the baby (I have never been able to call it mine) with
her family. I rebelled against it--God forgive me for that sin, as
He in His high righteousness has seen fit to punish me. David, what
those months were only a woman can know.

I had not meant to write you like this: but I cannot write it
calmly. I have never rebelled against God,--only sometimes, I have
not been able to understand. I have tried to think of His stern and
equal justice. I have tried to think of all the other women,--yes,
of those who have suffered more hideously than I. There was a
girl--a child--but no, I cannot even write it. I try to say to
myself that it is right that we too, the proud women of France,
should suffer with the humblest.

David, where I was wrong was in trying to escape from what was in
the will of God. It was my baby, and I forsook it. Night and day,
that remorse, that conflict has been in my heart. And now, that
through His justice, God has opened my eyes, I know my duty. I am
going back to him,--my baby. I shall disappear from the world. No
one shall ever know from now on what has become of me. But, since
this is my cross, and since life in this world is not for me, I
shall take up that cross, and, little by little, I shall learn no
longer to rebel. The Holy Virgin, Mother of Sorrows, will watch
over me and give me that courage. The child of hate is still an
immortal soul and I, its mother, must save it for eternity.

David, I had thought that to write all this to you would break me.
It has not. I feel as though something had purified my spirit, and
I feel all at once a clarity of vision, a courage that is calm and
will not falter. The truth, _mon ami_, cannot weaken us. It is
only when we refuse to face it that we are weak. I feel this so
strongly. Share this knowledge with me, and do not suffer for me.
I am no longer of this world.

David, it is only of you I think now. Now that the moment has
come to say farewell, I can tell you all the love that is in my
heart for you, has always been, will always be. David, how little
you guessed what was in my heart, for I think I loved you from
the first moment our eyes met,--when I saw in yours that look of
sympathy--there on the dock. When you came to me that night on the
deck, out of the night, and stood by my side, I knew that if I did
not fight against it with all my will, I should love you and bring
sorrow into your life. And how I fought against you! But in the
moment when I felt the strongest I would see a look in your eyes,
a wounded, uncomprehending look, and all my strength would go. At
times it was all I could do to keep back the tears from my eyes! If
only I had not seen all the need of a woman’s love in your life!

And then, one night, after long sleepless hours, I had such a
strange dream. I dreamed that I was on a rock in the midst of a
great sea that rose and swirled about me, and, all at once I looked
down and saw your face in the waters, and you were struggling
towards me. I ran down to the edge and stretched out my hands and
caught you and drew you up to safety, all wet and limp in my arms.
And, ever since, this has haunted me, and at times I have seen in
it a sign of your struggling to find your true self and that I, in
some mysterious way, was meant to give you strength. I was so torn
by differing impulses. I passed such long hours in my little berth,
praying to the dear Virgin to help me to struggle, to be strong for
your sake. But the moment I came into your presence, the moment
I met your eyes, _mon ami_, I was just a woman, a weak, helpless
woman, whose whole being went to you in the longing to love and be
loved.

David, may God forgive me if I have done wrong by you; forgive me,
too,--for I have loved you with every thought and every impulse of
my life, with an intensity beyond my strength. I love you as only
those can love, who have known the depths of sorrow and suffering;
as those who need love in their lives. If it had only been
possible, what happiness I could have given thee, David, to you,
who were so gentle and so strong! I know I haven’t the right to say
this, but I must! Just for these minutes, I am what I was born to
be. Don’t utterly forget me, David,--or rather, yes, utterly forget
me, for your sake. I do not know any longer what I am saying, and
to end is the end of all. Forget me. It is right and your duty.
You must, for your sake, for my sake: but, afterwards, long years
afterwards,--when you can do so calmly, remember that somewhere in
this world, just as the dusk comes in over the world,--I shall be
kneeling and praying for your happiness.

B.

III

I have been in a stupor for hours, my mind paralyzed, my brain unable to comprehend. Instead of rereading the letter eagerly, I put it mechanically back in its envelope and wrapped it up in the little rubber-lined case I carry along with me. I do not know that I shall ever be able to bring myself to read it again. It is too hideous--too incomprehensible. Good God! Such things do not happen! But why? Why? No, I cannot realize it!

* * * * *

For fifty-eight hours I have not lain down or closed my eyes. Ordinarily, after a second night of watchfulness, my physical nature revolts and I tumble over unconsciously. But now, at this moment, I am as keenly awake as though sleep were unknown to my brain. Inside my head, there is a feeling of a great, shining, hollow vacancy, and my little thoughts seem to rattle around in its luminous space, quite lost. I have done the strangest things, with a perfectly calm exterior. This morning I came upon a group of _poilus_, kneeling before a priest, Père Glorieux, a _poilu_ likewise, a black robe hastily drawn over his soiled uniform,--giving the Communion with a solemn majesty that I shall ever remember. I went and knelt among them, gazing up at the rough bearded face with eyes that shone down into my soul, quite unconscious of anything further than the instinct within me. When he came to me, he hesitated.

“_Vous êtes catholique, mon fils?_”

I drew up, hastily.

“_Non, non, je ne suis pas catholique. Pardon._”

He bowed, hardly noticing the strangeness of my actions in the tumult about us, and I moved away, without realization either,--I was thinking of Bernoline.

* * * * *

That afternoon I slept for the first time. One moment I had been moving around, giving orders for the storing of our kit, and the next--I must have dropped suddenly like a drunken man, for when I came to, it was late afternoon, and my orderly told me I had slept fourteen hours without moving. I remember nothing of the last four days, except,--except that letter. Yet I have been, to all intents and purposes, a rational man, moving and speaking instinctively, meeting and answering my fellow officers,--and all is a blur. I remember no more than a swimming sensation of being buffeted in contending floods of humanity; of hearing motor lorries roaring endlessly in my ears; of being thundered over, shrieked over; of being borne along on the flotsam and jetsam of human tides, with dimly remembered half-lights; of a child’s running to a dressing station, holding a broken jaw together; of a dog to whom I fed a crust; of an old woman, with red stockings, riding on an army kitchen, and I think I must have broken into a laugh!

* * * * *

Still we are in the back wash of refugees, old men, women, cattle, wounded _poilus_ straggling to the rear, torn regiments returning. They pass us like apparitions, eyes set and sullen. Only occasionally a cry from the ranks, a cry of old age or defiant youth, but the rest, the muddied human flood, rolls by, grim and inert. Fatalism! In our ranks a great deal of grumbling, but we know what that grumbling is worth. The aspect of the fields is hideous. The only thing which rouses our resentment is the passing to and fro of Boche aeroplanes and the sudden spurts of flame beneath them as they pass. We hate them, with a blind, unreasoning hatred, as the tiger must hate the weapon that slays it from a safe distance. For the rest, indifference.

* * * * *

The attack seems stemmed. We are in the second line, ready to relieve the ----th Division when our turn comes. Our aeroplanes have swarmed in, and everywhere there are strange falcon-like encounters, under the clouds and above them. To-day, as I was seeking General La Pierre’s headquarters, Maurice de Saint Omer hailed me around a jutting wall.

“_Eh, l’Americain!_ David, _mon bon vieux_! Still alive?”

I shrank from him; why, I don’t know. But the touch of his hand hurt me.

“_Mais, qu’est-ce que tu as, mon vieux. Tu es blessé?_”

“No--sleep!”

“Turn in here. We have a cellar as luxurious as the Ritz. Lunched?”

“Sufficiently.” I could not look at him. It seemed a dream, to be letting him chatter on so nonchalantly, with the letter that lay in my pocket. “Only just located you. How’s every one?”

“Not so bad,” he said, looking around. “Pretty warm at times. D’Arvilliers, poor fellow, blown to pieces--a few flesh wounds. We counter-attacked the day before yesterday. Hot work. Took a number of prisoners. The Boches are fagged out. Nothing to eat for days.”

“Have we stopped them?”

“Absolutely. Enormous losses. This time they’re done for!”

Others grumble and look serious; with him, not an instant’s wavering. Victory is his faith. There I recognize the race of Bernoline.

* * * * *

Bernoline! For all these days I have rejected her from my mind, by some involuntary instinct of self-preservation. I think at times during that blank moment it must have been touch and go with me. Where was my mind all the while? Who knows? That I am still able to reason sanely may be due to this hideous obsession of panic and retreat which has mercifully crowded in on my struggling consciousness. Still I cannot realize it!

I have just taken out the two letters and examined the postmarks. They were mailed five weeks ago. She has been in France, then, for weeks!

IV

And, in this moment of all moments, a letter from Letty. Others I had taken and torn to shreds. When this came, I laughed out loud and opened it.

_David mio_:

You love me: you have always loved me, or you could not have hated
me so. It is in your blood. I loved you and I love you, or I could
never have done the thing I did. _Que voulez vous?_ We are made as
we are made. Why struggle, and what is your victory worth?

Come back to me. You will find me changed in all but one thing.
Yes, I am a little pagan: I am good and bad: I am capricious,
changing, cruel, but I love you! _Tu te souviens?_ What is all the
rest worth? _Viens, pour un jour or pour toujours! A ton plaisir,
mon roi!_

You will not believe me? I sign my name in full.

LETTY DE TINQUERVILLE LITTLEDALE.

A woman who dares to do that _must_ love you!

LETTY.

We struggle on and we say to ourselves that we can struggle just so far. Yet we go on struggling until there comes a moment of utter defeat, a moment of terrible weakness, of crushing moral fatigue, when the will cries out that too much has been asked of it and we are ready to throw over everything. Up to such a breaking point we can contend: that reached, everything crumbles and the rest is panic. I know. I have been there.

* * * * *

Thank God I was not in the Paris of Letty at that moment, when I was saying to myself, “Why be tormented by a conscience--why deny one’s self for an ideal--when all it means is this dead loneliness, this blank ache of denial, this laying bare of a hundred nerves to daily pain!”

A sudden hatred swept over me against myself, a scorn and a bitter rebellion. Why couldn’t I be like other men, who close up their hearts, cease dreaming, and avoid the price of great emotions? To take life in little measures, to play in the shallows and avoid the tempestuous depths: other men, most men, live in this tranquil, tolerant attitude; why not I? They may never know the exaltation of a moment but they will not bear the dead despair of years.

Yes, just for that moment--the bitterest in my life--everything in me rebelled against myself. I cursed myself: I ridiculed my compunctions and my sickly conscience, my oversensitive imagination, and my groping after futility. I hated everything I was and everything I had done that had brought me to this living bankruptcy. I broke into a laugh--a laugh of contempt and derision at myself--flung into my things and went riotously into the night, seeking some befuddling oblivion,--some sudden end of this martyrdom of discipline--and, after a quarter of an hour’s blind wandering, I turned abruptly into an open chapel and down on my knees, there to remain inertly until the frenzy had spent itself! But--if it had been Paris--and Letty’s shadowy eyes at my side--

* * * * *

This was two days ago. The storm has passed. Somehow, the struggle has been met anew. I take no credit. That moment of weakness was too real. A man who looks back honestly over his own life is terrified at the things that did not happen,--and not by the strength of his own will, but by the saving quality of circumstance or accident. Few women can understand this: every man will.

* * * * *

Action has cleared my brain--the necessity of going on--of doing some little, appointed thing. The tension is relaxing; the swaying, stumbling conflict has stabilized itself. Arras is saved and we have even counter-attacked the attackers and regained some ground! Many prisoners are coming in.

* * * * *

I have been out with a covering party cleaning up the dugouts and among other discoveries we have made prisoner a fierce-looking old fellow--quite a prize--a General von Holwitz. His left arm was pretty badly shot up. So I was delegated to take him to a dressing station and have it attended to. Brought him back to our post, as he looks pretty much played out, and coffee and a touch of brandy will pull him up amazingly. Even if he is a Boche, he is a gentleman and an officer.

De Saint Omer came in while I was feeding my prisoner, and recognized him as an old acquaintance of pre-war days. Curiously enough, Von Holwitz was visibly upset by the meeting and drew back into his Prussian shell. But that is the way with these war lords,--defeat is something they cannot bear, and I fancy that the humiliation of being made a prisoner is galling to him.

* * * * *

Our dugout is about six miles back of the front lines but as we are in a strategic village the crossroads are heavily bombarded. The cellars are full of refugees. De Saint Omer’s attitude towards his prisoner is strictly courteous but the conversation is along conventional lines, naturally. To-night Von Holwitz sleeps with us; to-morrow he goes to the rear, while we, in all probability, are destined for a forward sector.

V

_In Germany, February, 1919_

Ten months have passed since I broke off,--ten months in which I have shrunk again and again from opening this chronicle to write down the final chapters. For months, only the constant affection of De Saint Omer, who has watched over me like a brother, and the loyalty of Anne have kept me sane and struggling to accept life as it has had to be readjusted and lived out. I have been through battle after battle, buried twice under a torrent of shells, sought the thickest of the danger, and come through unscathed. The war is ended, the armistice has come, and ahead is the more difficult thing--life.

A month ago I tried to write and gave it up. This last week a new calm has come into my spirit,--a strange, sudden convalescence, like the lifting of a long fever. I shall suffer to write down the end, and yet I shall suffer more until it is done. It is only the record of a last few hours, six or seven in all, and yet it is the record of the ending of a lifetime and the beginning of another. To write it will not be difficult. Every word, every look is implanted in my memory, has haunted me in the delirium of the night and the walking unreality of the day, from the moment I came into the courtyard at R---- until the final parting, when I saw her with the baby in her arms.

* * * * *

She might have come, passed at my side and gone, without my ever knowing it if it had not been for her old nurse, Marianne. R---- was under a prolonged bombardment that morning. The Boches must have had wind of the passage of an artillery support, for they opened up on the crossroads in the public square at dark and kept at it venomously all night. Our casualties were heavy and, just before dawn, a squadron of Fokkers bombed us, adding to the inferno. We stuck close to our cellars all morning,--De Saint Omer, our Boche Von Holwitz, and myself, but towards noon, as the fire seemed to lessen somewhat, or rather to leave the streets of the village and concentrate on the Square, De Saint Omer decided to take his prisoner back to headquarters and have him sent to the rear. He went out with Von Holwitz who, to give the devil his due, showed good nerve, and I promised to follow presently.

I finished shaving and tidying up and started after them, but hardly had I poked my head out before the Boches began to search out the village with shrapnel, and I was driven to shelter. At the end of an hour I succeeded in making my way through the ruins of cellars to an area of comparative quiet. The streets were badly cut up and blocked. I crossed behind a pile of masonry, entered the wreck of the church, and gaining the shelter of a wall, passed into the garden of what had once been a convent. There I stopped amazed.

A child--hardly more than a baby--was seated in the gravel path, gravely picking up the pebbles and build them in heaps, and by his side an old peasant woman, on her knees, was sobbing and telling her beads.

The village had, I knew, its smatter of refugees, hidden away in cellars, awaiting an opportunity to escape, and the spot was somewhat out of the line of fire. But the sight of a child, sitting unconcernedly there, under the split skies where shells were screaming to and fro, while half a mile away the houses were crumbling and great holes being torn in the streets, filled me with horror.

I stepped forward, and said, peremptorily:

_“Que diable faites vous ici, ma bonne vielle?”_

She looked up at me, startled at my voice. I stared at her, sprang back, started forward and, placing my hand on her shoulder, peered at her. Over the passage of months, of a hundred shifting scenes, a memory came slowly back to me, a face seen in the wet dawn of a November morning, on the docks at Bordeaux.

“Marianne!”

Her jaw dropped and she started up, staring at me,--but no recognition came to her.

Marianne! Then the child was--

* * * * *

The next moment, I heard De Saint Omer’s voice around the wall. A sudden flash of what had happened came to me. I stumbled to the opening, turned the corner, and came upon them: De Saint Omer, Von Holwitz, planted in a corner, and before me, in the blue and white uniform of the Red Cross--Bernoline!

* * * * *

The next moment, oblivious of all the rest, I had her in my arms. She lay there, inert, weakly incapable of words, a poor, fluttering bird, listening to my voice that cried out to her. Gradually, her arms rose, passed around my neck, and tightened there.

“_Ah, mon Dieu_, even you!”

I realized nothing; neither the significance of her cry of despair, nor the grim erectness of the brother, nor the shadowy third, waiting with crossed arms against the wall. I only knew life had come again to me. I had her. I would never let her go. She had come to me again, again into my life! No matter what had been the past, no matter what her reasons, her pleadings or her will,--this time nothing could separate us again. I had come out of the inferno and the delirium back to life and hope.

“Bernoline, I have almost gone mad!”

She took my head in her hands and looked in my eyes.

“_Ah mon bien aimé_--if I could have spared you this! David, give me your strength for these last minutes!”

“What do you mean?”

I looked from her to the two men and back again. Still I did not seize the situation. Then, all at once, the tense rigidity of their attitudes struck me. I had the feeling of arriving on the skirts of tragedy,--of something having happened before, of my being out of it--an intruder, a mere spectator--while something ominous and terrifying was moving to its culmination. I felt that and instinctively I caught her in my arms again, to hold her against the unseen thing that threatened us. I tried to collect my wits to piece together this mystery. If De Saint Omer were here--then he, too, knew. Bernoline had told him; with the child present no concealment was possible.

Then, I think for the first time, out of the blur, I became aware of the incongruity of Von Holwitz being there. I looked at him and saw the stone pallor on his face. Yet I did not understand.

“What is it? What are you all waiting for? Bernoline, why is that man here?”

Then I saw it in her face! Good God!

VI

When I next remember anything, Bernoline’s arms were around me, and I was staring at Von Holwitz, who was gasping for breath against the wall, a streak of blood curved on his cheek. De Saint Omer--he must have had arms of steel--had me by the collar, and I heard Bernoline crying,

“David, David, for my sake--don’t!”

I turned and looked at her,--a look that must have frightened her, for I heard her say:

“_Ah, mon bien aimé_, will you desert me now?”

My brain cleared instantly. I put my hand over my eyes and pressed against the dull numbness that filled my head. When I looked up, De Saint Omer had loosened his hold and stood watching me.

“David, understand well one thing,” he said sharply, to bring me to my senses. “As head of my family, I _command_ here.”

Even then nothing could have held me,--nothing but the touch of her hand.

“God! You can stand here and _reason_!”

“Come to your senses! At once!” he ripped out, with the suddenness of a drill master. “Do you hear me, _Lieutenant_ Littledale! At once!”

It was incongruous, grotesque, and involuntary, but I came to attention and my hand went up in salute. Our eyes met, and what I saw there made me forget everything else.

_“Pardon, mon commandant._ I am at your orders.”

Then I looked at Von Holwitz; if there was death brooding in the face of De Saint Omer, the face of the other was the face of the dead.

“David, you will do everything exactly as I decide,” De Saint Omer said more quietly, though his eyes continued to blaze imperiously, dominating my own. “Monsieur, I am quite capable of protecting the honor of my sister and the name of my family.”

“Do as he says, _mon ami_” said Bernoline, staring past me. “He has the right.”

“_Mon commandant_,” I repeated stiffly. “I shall obey.”

From that moment everything seemed to occur outside of me. I was there, but only to look on helplessly and incredulously,--an American watching the unfolding of some grim scene in the Middle Ages, a spectator before an older race, disciplined, proud, exact to their point of honor, as their old grim generations had held to that honor.

I, who could understand but the instinct of murder--blinding, groping, two-handed murder--was dominated, morally and physically, by the cold, punctilious, relentless decision in the burning eyes of De Saint Omer that sent a chill into my heart as though I were back in the days of the Sforzas and Malatestas. What was he going to do? What were they waiting for?

The next moment I knew. The gravel cried out; a shadow fell between us, and a _poilu_ stood at attention.

“_Mon commandant_, you sent for me?”

It was Père Glorieux, soldier of God and France, gun in hand, knapsack on his back.

“You have your surplice?”

_“Oui, mon commandant.”_

“Good. Just a moment.” He turned to me, designating Von Holwitz with his thumb. “You have your revolver?”

_“Oui, mon commandant.”_

I drew it but I did not trust myself to meet the eyes of Von Holwitz, who was sitting and staunching his wound with a handkerchief.

“Save yourself the trouble,” I heard him say. “I expect nothing!”

De Saint Omer, moving to one side, began to talk to Père Glorieux. Once or twice I saw the soldier start and glance in our direction, but immediately he controlled himself. Finally they returned.

“Mademoiselle, it is customary to confess,” Père Glorieux began, to my growing amazement.

“_Mon père_--I did--this morning.”

“I shall take communion, too,” said De Saint Omer. “If you will hear me, first--”

The _poilu_, for he still was the soldier, passed on and confronted Von Holwitz.

“You are Catholic?”

“I am.”

“Do you do this willingly?”

“More than willingly.”

“For the good of your soul, my son, you will confess!”

“That is my desire.”

He straightened up, solemn and abrupt, but the assumption of dignity was spoiled by the wound on his cheek which continued to flow and against which he kept continually pressing his handkerchief.

“Commandant de Saint Omer, I do not expect any mercy. I would not ask for it. That is understood. I ask you to trust to my honor. I shall not evade any decision you make.”

“Your honor?”

“There _is_ an honor at such times--among men of our kind,” he said stubbornly.

Curiously enough, the phrase of Alan’s flashed into my mind; every man, his code. Even Von Holwitz, brute and bully, wished to die like an officer. I think De Saint Omer saw that, for he nodded, and I pocketed my revolver.

“Follow me,” he said peremptorily.

The three men moved across the garden, to a further niche in the wall. Père Glorieux, opening his knapsack, drew a surplice over his uniform and rose with a sudden majesty. De Saint Omer had fallen to his knees, while Von Holwitz waited, sitting some distance apart.

I had my arm around Bernoline, still supporting her broken strength, and at last I turned to her, screwing up courage to ask the question I feared.

“Bernoline!”

_“Oui, mon ami?”_

“What is it they’re going to do? What is going to happen?”

She tried to tell me, but couldn’t. Again I asked the question.

“You do not know?”

“For God’s sake, what is it?”

“David--I--I--am to marry him!”

“Marry _him_!”

“It is for the honor of the family,” she said, as a tired child repeats a formula. “Maurice has said it must be so. I have no choice.”

“And afterward?”

She shivered and sagged against my shoulder. Again the world went black about me. To stand at her side and to witness that! Yet I knew I was powerless to oppose, and even in my misery I gave justice to his reason. The first part was clear, but--afterwards? The time seemed endless, as we waited there, clinging to each other, too numb with the sense of pain to utter word or protest.

“Lieutenant Littledale!”

I came sharply back to my senses.

“Follow us--take care of my sister--into the chapel--”

Père Glorieux first, then the two men, side by side, and back of them Bernoline and I; so we went, around the wall, where, I remember, Marianne’s wrinkled face shone wet with tears. There a ghastly thing happened.

The child, startled by our apparition, started to run, stumbled, and lurched against the leg of Von Holwitz. Never shall I forget the look on his face as he looked down!

Bernoline sprang forward, an instinctive movement of motherhood--who knows, perhaps the first--and snatched him up. The child, frightened, began to cry. I took him hurriedly and put him in the arms of the nurse. Bernoline stood, waiting my return, and the tears were standing in her eyes as she looked back.

“God help me to feel as a mother,” she said, staring beyond me. “David, your hand.”

Together, we picked our way across the strewn débris to the chapel.

“Charlotte Corday! Charlotte Corday!” kept running through my mind. Why? I don’t know. An irrelevant suggestion, unless it were the feeling of a martyr in the tumbrils of the Revolution, going to her execution. Yes, I think that was the thought.

I remember little of the mockery of a service. I stood in the shadows, unable to think or pray, hearing from time to time the shriek of a traveling shell, the mumbled, hurried cadences from the altar, and across the shattered walls, from time to time, in the quiet between explosions, the cry of the child; that child who, too, was a human being with an immortal soul, and must work out its destiny of wrath. Once, a stray shell burst several hundred yards away and a flying crumb of masonry fell in the nave and ricocheted a moment. No one moved. De Saint Omer stood like an avenging angel, arms folded, waiting.

* * * * *

It was over. She came to me directly, gave a little sigh, and lay shuddering in my arms.

“And now?”

It was the voice of Von Holwitz, facing his judge.

“Follow me.”

“Murder?”

At this Bernoline started up and running to her brother, caught him by the arm.

“_Maurice, qu’est-ce que tu vas faire?_”

“_Ne crains rien, ma petite soeur. Aie foi! La justice du bon Dieu se fera._ General von Holwitz--are you ready?”

“I am curious to know your plan. Is it murder?”

“Monsieur, you forget that you are among Frenchmen,” he said, looking down at him. “I have no further explanations to make to you. Père Glorieux, you will inform Mademoiselle de Saint Omer.”

None of us noticed the slip until afterwards. Von Holwitz flushed under the rebuke, shrugged his shoulders, and then turned to Bernoline.

“I do not imagine that you contemplate claiming my name for my son.”

He waited. No one answered him.

“If you should wish a written attestation, I shall be glad to give it. That was all I wanted to say. Père Glorieux,”--he drew out his pocketbook and handed it to the _poilu_,--“you will find here the address of my mother. The rest--for the necessary masses. Ready, now.”

He turned and, with the spirit of bravado that remained to the end, his heels clicked and his hand came to salute.

“Ahead of me--and walk as I direct you,” said de Saint Omer’s stern voice. “_Bernoline, ma petite soeur, prie pour ton frère._”

The last I saw of Von Holwitz was the eternal red and white handkerchief pressed to his cheek,--a man who was going to his death, annoyed at a scratch! They passed and the voice of Père Glorieux cried out,

“Pray for the souls of both of them!”

* * * * *

What happened I have never been able to see quite clearly. They went down the main street, twenty paces between them, and straight to the murderous intersection at the Square. What was the idea in the mediaeval imagination of De Saint Omer; the judgment of God, as by some trial of fire; or, if that failed him, a resort to the duel? I don’t know. Strange as it may seem, it is a question I have never asked. I couldn’t. The past between us two is something buried and protected by the granite weight of suffering. At any rate, it ended there in the Square. Thank God for that!

* * * * *

We had been on our knees--I don’t know how long--Bernoline and I, shoulder to shoulder,--praying from the bottom of our hearts when De Saint Omer returned. I saw him coming and leaned towards her.

“Safe!”

She closed her eyes, and her head dropped on my shoulder. The next moment, the brother was beside her, kneeling.

“Your prayers were heard, little saint. And God has done justice.”

* * * * *

I left them alone and went outside and sat on a toppled stone. Heavens, how benign and innocent that afternoon was, clear blue with powdery clouds above, the young green stealing along a sheltered bush, the shrill piping of a nesting bird somewhere,--a note that pierced through the shattering iteration of the bombardment and down into my brain. It terrified me, that insistent eternal cry of reborn nature that recked neither our sorrows nor our human passing.

Père Glorieux came out presently, drew off his surplice, ranged his communion service, packed it into a box and opened his knapsack. I watched him. _Poilu_ once more, gun at attention, he stood awaiting orders, a bronzed, bearded face that had looked into death and heard the laments of a thousand souls.

* * * * *

_“David, mon frère!”_

I rose, seeing nothing. De Saint Omer came to me and took my hand in his quick, vibrating grip.

“From now on, we are brothers. It is a solemn promise,” he said, looking into my eyes. “And now, David, _mon frère_, there is only one person to be thought of,--Bernoline. You will give her the courage she needs. I know her decision. It is the only one. We are an old race, and, when we see our duty, we never hesitate. Come to me afterwards.” He opened his arms and took me into them in a long embrace. Then he turned to his sister.

“It is good-by until--” He raised his finger to the calm serenity above. “Sister, your blessing.”

He dropped to one knee. She laid her hands on his forehead and her lips moved silently. Then he rose and went hurriedly out. The _poilu_ turned and went to join Marianne and the child. I was alone with Bernoline.

“Good God! If a shell would only end it all!”

“_Mon ami_, that is why death is not the hardest.”

I held out my arms. She came to them, her eyes looked into mine, our lips came together, and that first kiss, which was our last, was given with our mingled tears.

* * * * *

I did not attempt to struggle against our fate. I knew it was hopeless. She did not move; nor did her arms relax their straining tension while time went by us unheeded, until--

“I love you, David _mon adoré_. I have always loved you, with all my being,” she said, looking into my eyes.

“Bernoline, I would marry you now, to-day. I could go with you anywhere, into any life--you and your child--nothing can matter,” I said brokenly.

“I know.” She tried to smile and couldn’t. “Thank you, dear, for not making it harder. And now come.”

She held out her hand and, taking it, I followed her blindly.

All that I remember is my standing there in the swept garden of the convent, is seeing her take the child from the nurse and raise it to her shoulder. Thus bearing her cross, she went out of my life forever.

* * * * *

All the rest is only numbed pain and incomprehension,--weeks and months. To-day I am alive, and the world has somehow come back to me. How, I don’t know.

Now that I have written it down, I feel as though something had changed in me. Our sorrows destroy us, or themselves. Somewhere before, I remember writing that. Something is gone in me that the rest may struggle up and go on.

VII

There is little more to add, only two letters,--one from Bernoline and one from Anne, without whom I would not be here to-day. They came to me, worn and postmarked, a week before we went into the final struggles of July, and through those final months of hurricane and tireless slaughter I carried them over my heart--together.

David:

I write this last letter to you. Would that I had never crossed
your path, to bring the unhappiness that I have brought into your
life. I write this to you as the final and supreme proof of my
love, of all that I would have given you every hour of the year,
had God willed it. It is of Anne that I write.

I went to her at B----, where she is stationed, and told her
all, though much she had guessed. David, she is no longer the
girl, untried and undisciplined. She is a woman that you will be
proud of as your wife, when the time comes, and the ache and pain
have passed. There is a bigness in her soul, something deep and
honest--and she loves you. She has always loved you and, what is
wonderful in a woman’s heart--she understands. There will never be
anything petty or unworthy of a great nature. She loves you, David;
how much, how beautifully; with what a maternal affection you can
never guess. And you need this protecting love. If you could have
been present, have seen the look in her eyes, her simplicity and
her dignity, when I asked her to be your strength, to watch over
you these months!

“I love him,” she said. “I have never really loved any one else,
and I took a vow long ago that if I could not belong to him, I
would never marry any other man.”

Perhaps I have no right to tell you this, but in this moment
I think you should know. Do not turn from her, David. It is a
treasure that awaits you.

I have thought of you ever since I left you; I think of you every
moment of my hours in the little chapel that alone brings me some
strength, and I have seen far ahead of the pain of the present. I
would that I could take into my heart all that I cannot keep you
from suffering, that you must suffer for a while for having come
into my sad life. Yes, David, it will be hard--readjustment is
hard--it is sometimes so much easier to go on, no matter what we
have to bear. But you will come out of this period of trial. You
will come out superbly. Happiness will be waiting for you; do not
delay too long. For, dear friend, you are one of those who need
happiness in your life. All this period of unrest and indecision
which so often has depressed you and shaken your confidence will
give you a bigger vision and a surer charity, when once life is
stable and calm. And, David, that will come; I know it--I feel it
so strangely. I do see ahead, and I think this power is given me as
some consolation for what I must bear.

Don’t let your mind dwell too much on me. I have my faith, David,
and I can accept anything. Sacrifice must fall on all equally in
this terrible trial. I am only one of a million women,--remember
that!

And now, it must be good-bye--_Ah, mon bien aimé_, how hard it
is to write. I feel as though thy hand were in my hand and that
I were clinging to it, unable to let it go. I do not ask thee to
forget me. Remember me only to help thee. Be strong--be true to
yourself--accept life nobly. Your country is a great country; men
like you are needed. Be what you can, whether it be big or little,
to give it leadership. Suffering we cannot avoid, mon ami, but
unselfish achievement is alone lasting satisfaction. Davy, _mon
bien aimé_, aim high, for your own sake--and for the peace of soul
of one who night and day will keep you both in her prayers.

BERNOLINE.

David:

Bernoline has been here, and told me, and oh, my heart goes out to
you. You will need to know that you are not alone in this world,
that there is some one who shares your sorrow and holds you dear.
Will you let me be all that to you--just for the present. Will
you let me give you just a little of the great love that you are
denied, and let me tell you that in friendship or otherwise, as
it may come to you, I am always at your side. I don’t know how I
find the courage to write you thus. I know you will respect it.
We are not children, dear. We are man and woman, and we both know
suffering. If I thought only of myself, I would never send this
letter. But we live in the midst of death, when little things fade
away, and at the thought of your utter loneliness, David, dear, I
think of nothing else but the love you need, and I can do no less
after having known Bernoline.

David, she is not of this world. I shall always love her as you
love her, as a peasant kneels and adores an ideal among the shadows
and the candles. She has a strength that is not my strength, a
faith that I envy but cannot find. I went with her to the little
chapel of St. Anne, and knelt while she prayed. If you could have
seen her face! I thought it was not the sculptured calm of the
Madonna enshrined in heaven but the serenity in her worn eyes that
was the miracle. A little saint, David, has crossed our paths and
we must be true to the memory. Let me help you, David, dear.

ANNE.

VIII

A week has gone since I started these final pages. I have been amazed at the feeling of detachment that has come to me. Bernoline and Maurice have often spoken to me of that state of grace which in their faith lifts men and women above the earth to seek heaven. I have seen this same unhuman state of grace, of sanctified sacrifice, among officers and _poilus_ during the war,--the need to live in some rarefied atmosphere. Family and friends recede before the proud isolation of the soul dedicated to a sacrificial death. It is not quite that with me. Yet there has come with the final writing a serenity that surprises me. Is it that I have suffered beyond my capacity--for each of us has in him only a certain capacity to suffer--or is it life in its strange compensations that is molding me? To-day, for the first time, I can recall Bernoline and feel a quiet happiness to have been privileged to know her. Until now I have felt only my bondage to the past. To-day--_noblesse oblige_--I want to live, and count in the living. The bitterness and the rebellion are gone; an inspiration remains.

* * * * *

In this new liberation, Anne, too, counts for much. I have seen her three times,--once in a week’s _permission_ we were together every day. Twice a week her letters come to me. It is strange how Bernoline has brought us together. We both feel it. There is a great moral force in love, and against its silent, cumulative movement the meanness and littleness of life must yield. As Bernoline, in her faith, wished to see us, we shall become.

* * * * *

There is beyond the inherent nobility that is in Anne a largeness of spirit that is hard for a man to understand. She reveres the memory of Bernoline and in her great heart there is no trace of jealousy. At least, if there is, it is wonderful how she conceals it. That is a quality which I do not think would be in me. I can look ahead--we both can--and see what is coming; yet until every corner of my heart is wholly and loyally hers, I cannot offer it to her. To do so would be to offend what is the one thing to build on,--absolute honesty between us, that brings the deepest reverence.--Yet, to-day, I know the time is near.

* * * * *

We both feel the call to service and often have discussed where we may fit in to do our little part. For a life that is closed in about our own self-centered enjoyment is now impossible. We see the failure of our generation,--its failure to rise to its opportunities and responsibilities, its consequent weakening and approaching impotence and the inevitable surging up from beneath of another more virile force; the substitution of a natural for an artificial power (as Alan would have said). It _is_ a challenge.

Once, when we were discussing this, Anne said to me a very searching thing.

“David, our kind hasn’t even the instinct of self-preservation.”

True--but if we haven’t we shall have to yield, as we should yield.

Anne constantly surprises me. I find in her such an eager outlook on life,--a longing to read, to explore, to question, to find an illuminating purpose for living. Her mind, as it awakens, leads mine on, and I react to its stimulus.

* * * * *

I have no illusion about myself. The part I may be called on to play is but a little part in the progress of my country. Yet, there must be thousands of us--quiet, patient lieutenants--to make possible the coming of a real leader.

* * * * *

I think I understand better now the mystery of good and evil, the thought that has run all through these pages,--often groping, turned back on itself, and often in seeming contradiction. Sometimes out of evil there comes a healthy reaction, but the moral quality of an act remains, much as we should like to believe otherwise. Temptations, the great salient temptations that determine a life, are as rare as opportunities. They are opportunities to be met and dominated. Neither Letty nor any of her kind can to-day even for a moment swerve me from my clear perception of values. That, at least, I know. Yet, in my memory that will always be a tithe to be paid. I have won a certain mastery,--but a scar will abide.

* * * * *

The mystery of good and the pain that from a pure source may often destroy a life is this. In each of us is the choice between rebellion and acceptance of life; in each is the reaching out beyond our designated paths, towards a love that has the romance, the mystery and the wonder of life, that we know is forbidden us. Even so in the Garden of Eden, the fruit of the tree of knowledge was forbidden. The other is facing actuality, founding our lives on a logical, practical companionship, and growing into unity through mutual respect and the test of experience. To different natures, different answers. Rebel against life and destroy ourselves with a beating of the wings against the bars of circumstance,--or meet it with a deliberate, difficult acceptance? Which, I wonder, is the more fortunate nature? But for those who have a tiny, latent spark hidden away under layers of bread-and-butter years--an uneasy stirring of remembered dreams--youth, too often, must be burned out, like a fever.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Narrative sentences followed by quoted dialog sometimes end with commas rather than with periods.