"'And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of
the grinding is low, and they shall rise up at the voice of a
bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.

"'Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fear shall
be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the
grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.

"'Because man goeth to his long home--'"

Her voice broke a little.

"'And the mourners go about the streets--'"

He leaned forward, his hand stretched out in the shadows. After a
moment her fingers touched his, moved a little, and were clasped
close. Then it was that, in her silence, he read a despair too
deep, too sudden, too stupefying for expression--a despair
scarcely yet understood. A sensitive young mind, stunned by
realities never dreamed of, recovers slowly; and the first
outward evidence of returning comprehension is an out-stretched
hand, a groping in the shadows for the hand of the best beloved.
Her hand was there, out-stretched, their fingers had met and
interlaced. A great lassitude weighed her down, mind and body.
Yesterday was so far away, and to-morrow so close at hand, but
not yet close enough to arouse her from an apathy unpierced as
yet by the keen shaft of grief.

He felt the lethargy in her yielding fingers; perhaps he began to
understand the sensitive girl lying in the arm-chair beside him,
perhaps he even saw ahead into the future that promised
everything or nothing, for France, for her, for him.

Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped
her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!"--so
he waited, there alone in the darkness.

The bells of Saint-Lys sounded again, scarcely vibrating in the
still air; a bank of sombre cloud buried the moon, and put out
the little stars one by one until the blackness of the night
crept in, blotting out river and tree and hill, hiding the silent
camp in fathomless shadow. He slept.

When he awoke, slowly, confused and uncertain, he found her close
to him, kneeling on the floor, her face on his knees. He touched
her arm, fearfully, scarcely daring; he touched her hair, falling
heavily over her face and shoulders and across his knees. Ah!
but she was tired--her very soul was weary and sick; and she was
too young to bear her trouble. Therefore she came back to him who
had reached out his hand to her. She could not cry--she could
only lie there and try to live