Lorraine Part 37

"Look at him, Jack," she muttered.

"I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You--you are wounded, are you? there--on the neck--"

"It is his blood on my breast."

XXI

THE WHITE CROSS

At ten o'clock that night Jack stepped from the ballroom to the terrace of the Chateau Morteyn and listened to the distant murmur of the river Lisse, below the meadow. The day of horror had ended with a dozen dropping shots from the outposts, now lining the banks of the Lisse from the Chateau de Nesville to Morteyn. The French infantry had been pouring into Morteyn since late afternoon; they had entered the park when he entered, driving his tumbril with its blood-stained burden; they had turned the river into a moat, the meadow into an earthwork, the Chateau itself into a fortress.

On the concrete terrace beside him a gatling-gun glimmered in the starlight; sentinels leaned on their elbows, sprawling across the parapets; shadowy ranks of sleeping men lay among the shrubbery below, white-faced, exhausted, motionless.

There were low voices from the darkened ballroom, the stir and tinkle of spurred boots, the ring of sabres. Out in the hard macadamized road, cannon were pa.s.sing into the park by the iron gate; beyond the road ma.s.ses of men moved in the starlight.

After a moment Jack turned away and entered the house. For the hundredth time he mounted the stairs to Lorraine's bedroom door and listened, holding his breath. He heard nothing--not a cry--not a sob. It had been so from the first, when he had told her that her father lay dead somewhere in the forest of Morteyn.

She had said nothing--she went to her room and sat down on the bed, white and still. Sir Thorald lay in the next room, breathing deeply. Alixe was kneeling beside him, crying silently.

Twice a surgeon from an infantry regiment had come and gone away after a glance at Sir Thorald. A captain came later and asked for a Sister of Mercy.

"She can't go," said Jack, in a low voice. But little Alixe rose, still crying, and followed the captain to the stables, where a dozen mangled soldiers lay in the straw and hay.

It was midnight when she returned to find Jack standing beside Sir Thorald in the dark. When he saw it was Alixe he led her gently into the hall.

"He is conscious now; I will call you when the time comes. Go into that room--Lorraine is there, alone. Ah, go, Alixe; it is charity!--and you wear the white cross--"

"It is dyed scarlet," she whispered through her tears.

He returned to Sir Thorald, who lay moving his restless hands over the sheets and turning his head constantly from side to side.

"Go on," said Jack; "finish what you were saying."

"Will she come?"

"Yes--in time."

Sir Thorald relapsed into a rambling, monotonous account of some military movement near Wissembourg until Jack spoke again:

"Yes--I know; tell me about Alixe."

"Yes--Alixe," muttered Sir Thorald--"is she here? I was wrong; I saw her at Cologne; that was all, Jack--nothing more."

"There is more," said Jack; "tell me."

"Yes, there is more. I saw that--that she loved me. There was a scene--I am not always a beast--I tried not to be. Then--then I found that there was nothing left but to go away--somewhere--and live--without her. It was too late. She knew it--"

"Go on," said Jack.

Suddenly Sir Thorald's voice grew clear.

"Can't you understand?" he asked; "I d.a.m.ned both our souls. She is buying hers back with tears and blood--with the white cross on her heart and death in her eyes! And I am dying here--and she's to drag out the years afterwards--"

He choked; Jack watched him quietly.

Sir Thorald turned his head to him when the coughing ceased.

"She went with a field ambulance; I went, too. I was shot below that vineyard. They told her; that is all. Am I dying?"

Jack did not answer.

"Will you write to Molly?" asked Sir Thorald, drowsily.

"Yes. G.o.d help you, Sir Thorald."

"Who cares?" muttered Sir Thorald. "I'm a beast--a dying beast.

May I see Alixe?"

"Yes."

"Then tell her to come--now. Soon I'll wish to be alone; that's the way beasts die--alone."

He rambled on again about a battle somewhere in the south, and Jack went to the door and called, "Alixe!"

She came, pallid and weeping, carrying a lighted candle.

Jack took it from her hand and blew out the flame.

"They won't let us have a light; they fear bombardment. Go in now."

"Is he dying?"

"G.o.d knows."

"G.o.d?" repeated Alixe.

Jack bent and touched the child's forehead with his lips.

"Pray for him," he said; "I shall write his wife to-night."

Alixe went in to the bedside to kneel again and buy back two souls with the agony of her child's heart.

"Pray," she said to Sir Thorald.

"Pray," he repeated.