The Bronze Eagle Part 52

But even before the words were out of Madame's mouth, Crystal was running along the corridor--ready to obey. At the foot of the stairs St.

Genis intercepted her.

"Let me pa.s.s!" she cried wildly.

"Not before you have said that you have forgiven me!" he entreated as he clung to her white draperies with a pa.s.sionate gesture of appeal.

An exclamation which was almost one of loathing escaped her lips and with a jerk she freed her skirt from his clutch. Then she ran quickly up the stairs. Outside the door of her own room on the first landing she paused for one minute, and from out of the gloom her voice came to him like the knell of pa.s.sing hope.

"If he comes back alive out of the h.e.l.l to which you condemned him," she said, "I may in the future endure the sight of you again. . . . If he dies . . . may G.o.d forgive you!"

The opening and shutting of a door told him that she was gone, and he was left in company with his shame.

CHAPTER XII

THE WINNING HAND

Until far into the night the air reverberated with incessant cannonade--from the direction of Genappe and from that of Wavre--but just before dawn all was still. The stream of convoys which bore the wounded along the road to Brussels from Mont Saint Jean and Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte had momentarily ceased its endless course. The sky had that perfect serenity of a midsummer's night, starlit and azure with the honey-coloured moon sinking slowly down towards the west. Here at the edge of the wood the air had a sweet smell of wet earth and damp moss and freshly cut hay: it had all the delicious softness of a loved one's embrace.

Through the roar of distant cannonade, Bobby had slept. For a time after St. Genis left him he had watched the long straight road with dull, unseeing eyes--he had seen the first convoy, overfilled with wounded men lying huddled on heaped-up straw, and had thanked G.o.d that he was lying on this exquisitely soft carpet made of thousands of tiny green plants--moss, gra.s.s, weeds, young tendrils and growing buds and opening leaves that were delicious to the touch. He had quite forgotten that he was wounded--neither his head nor his leg nor his arm seemed to hurt him now: and he was able to think in peace of Crystal and of her happiness.

St. Genis would have come to her by then: she would be happy to see him safe and well, and perhaps--in the midst of her joy--she would think of the friend who so gladly offered up his life for her.

When the air around was no longer shaken by constant repercussion, Bobby fell asleep. It was not yet dawn, even though far away in the east there was a luminous veil that made the sky look like living silver. Behind him among the trees there was a moving and a fluttering--the birds were no longer asleep--they had not begun to sing but they were shaking out their feathers and opening tiny, round eyes in farewell to departing night.

That gentle fluttering was a sweet lullaby, and Bobby slept and dreamed--he dreamed that the fluttering became louder and louder, and that, instead of birds, it was a group of angels that shook their wings and stood around him as he slept.

One of the angels came nearer and laid a hand upon his head--and Bobby dreamed that the angel spoke and the words that it said filled Bobby's heart with unearthly happiness.

"My love! my love!" the angel said, "will you try and live for my sake?"

And Bobby would not open his eyes, for fear the angel should go away.

And though he knew exactly where he was, and could feel the soft carpet of leaves, and smell the sweet moisture in the air, he knew that he must still be dreaming, for angels are not of this earth.

Then a strong kind hand touched his wrist, and felt the beating of his heart, and a rough, pleasant voice said in English: "He is exhausted and very weak, but the fever is not high: he will soon be all right." And to add to the wonderful strangeness of his dream, the angel's voice near him murmured: "Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!"

Why should an angel thank G.o.d that he--Bobby Clyffurde--was not likely to die?

He opened his eyes to see what it all meant, and he saw--bending over him--a face that was more exquisitely fair than any that man had ever seen: eyes that were more blue than the sky above, lips that trembled like rose-leaves in the breeze. He was still dreaming and there was a haze between him and that perfect vision of loveliness. And the kind, rough voice somewhere close by said: "Have you got that stretcher ready?" and two other voices replied, "Yes, Sir."

But the lips close above him said nothing, and it was Bobby now who murmured: "My love, is it you?"

"Your love for always," the dear lips replied, "nothing shall part us now. Yours for always to bring you back to life. Yours when you will claim me--yours for life."

They lifted him onto a stretcher, and then into a carriage and a very kind face which he quickly enough recognised as Mme. la d.u.c.h.esse d'Agen's smiled very encouragingly upon him, whereupon he could not help but ask a very pertinent question:

"Mme. la d.u.c.h.esse, is all this really happening?"

"Why, yes, my good man," Madame replied; and indeed there was nothing dreamlike in her tart, dry voice: "Crystal and I really have dragged Dr.

Scott away from the bedside of innumerable other sick and wounded men, and also from any hope of well-earned rest to-night: we have also really brought him to a spot very accurately described by our worthy friend, St. Genis, but where, unfortunately, you had not chosen to remain, else we had found you an hour sooner. Is there anything else you want to know?"

"Oh, yes! Madame la d.u.c.h.esse, many things," murmured Bobby. "Please go on telling me."

Madame laughed: "Well!" she said, "perhaps you would like to know that some kind of instinct, or perhaps the hand of G.o.d guided one of our party to the place where you had gone to sleep. You may also wish to know, that though you seem in a bad way for the present, you are going to be nursed back to life under Dr. Scott's own most hospitable roof: but since Crystal has undertaken to do the nursing, I imagine that my time for the next six weeks will be taken up in arguing with my dear and pompous brother that he will now have to give his consent to his daughter becoming the wife of a vendor of gloves."

Bobby contrived to smile: "Do you think that if I promised never to buy or sell gloves again, but in future to try and live like a gentleman--do you think then that he will consent?"

"I think, my dear boy," said Madame, subduing her harsh voice to tones of gentleness, "that after my brother knows all that I know and all that his daughter desires, he will be proud to welcome you as his son."

The doctor's wide barouche lumbered slowly along the wide, straight road. In the east the luminous veil that still hid the rising sun had taken on a hue of rosy gold: the birds, now fully awake, sang their morning hymn. From the direction of Wavre came once more the cannon's roar.

Inside the carriage Dr. Scott, sitting at the feet of his patient, gave a peremptory order for silence. But Bobby--immeasurably happy and contented--looked up and saw Crystal de Cambray--no longer a girl now, but a fair and beautiful woman who had learned to the last letter the fulsome lesson of Love. She sat close beside him, and her arm was round his reclining head, and, looking at her, he saw the lovelight in her dear eyes whenever she turned them on him. And anon, when Mme. la d.u.c.h.esse engaged Dr. Scott in a close and heated argument, Bobby felt sweet-scented lips pressed against his own.

THE END