The lantern failed, and the moonlight was often obscured, or completely blotted out by the passing sullen clouds.

Luc’s right arm was stiff about the heavy child and his left hand cold on the bridle; his very blood was chill. It seemed to him that the creeping bitterness of the night was more intense than all the hurricane snows of Bohemia. He seldom moved his head, and his body was cramped in one position with the weight of the little girl against it; but his mind had never been clearer, more alert, more active.

Picture after picture flashed before him with agonizing vividness—all that had gone to make his life since his return from Bohemia to his last parting, a few hours ago, with ClÉmence in her father’s house formed and faded with mechanical repetition, and against the background of their visionary memories raced his thoughts.

It came to this: a little while ago he had been happy with the ecstatic happiness of youth—of proud, ambitious youth; he had seen honourable labour behind, honourable labour ahead; he had felt love rest against his heart, and seen glory hovering very near. And now—he was riding through the dark, with disease, corruption, perhaps death, in his arms; riding away from the home to which he had lately pledged himself, away from ClÉmence and all she stood for—with a woman associated with humiliation and sadness for his companion—with great chances that he would never be able to turn back again to those things he had left behind.

Yet he was conscious all the time of the highest exaltation perhaps that he had ever known—an intermittent sensation, now weaker, now stronger, that, however, held his heart up steadily.

The night seemed endless. Only once did they meet anyone—some peasants in a cart, who stopped and seemed to wonder at them.

“We carry the plague!” cried Carola as they galloped past, and they heard the men’s cries of terror and supplications to God.

The child began to stir in Luc’s arms. He himself felt faint; the night wind brought on his cough, which had troubled him since his last campaign. He tried to comfort the little girl; she became still again, and, he thought, heavier.

He turned to Carola beside him; since they started she had not spoken to him.

“It must be near the dawn,” he said.

“I do not know,” she answered, and added, after a little, “Are we not off the road? I think we have lost the way.”

The moon was setting. Luc had been dwelling so in his thoughts that he had not noticed through what growing blackness they were riding. A wind was up, and they could hear it shaking some trees near with a deep rustling sound.

“Poplar trees,” came Carola’s voice; and he thought, as he knew she thought, of the poplar trees in the garden off the Rue Deauville.

They drew rein; he had no light whatever, and her lantern had gone out.

“We must wait for the dawn,” said Carola again. “I cannot find the way. The dawn must be soon now, I think.”

He heard her dismount and sigh.

“This is grass—a field,” she continued. “We have left the road. How is the child?”

He turned back the woollen cloak that was damp with dew and delicately touched the small face in the hollow of his arm.

“Very cold,” he answered. “Ah!”

“What is it?” asked Carola.

“Her eyes are wide open and her mouth, but she does not move.”

“Dead?” asked Carola.

“I think—dead.”

He moved his cramped arm from under his burden and laid her across his shoulder while he dismounted; out of the dark came Carola’s hand and touched his arm, then her other hand, and took the child from him.

“We must let the horses go,” he said. “It is raining. Perhaps we could find some shelter.”

Carola’s voice came faintly, as if it was a long way off.

“The child is dead. I cannot feel her heart at all. What soft hair she has!”

Luc heard the jingle of harness as the horses moved away. The rain fell with a cold sting on his bare hands, his blood was frozen, his limbs stiff; the darkness lay like a weight on his eyes.

“We must wait here for the light,” he said.

He heard Carola move.

“Yes, we will wait,” she answered. “Perhaps we had better have stayed in the tent—yet what chance had she there? Oh, my dear, my poor dear!” and he heard her kiss the little tight-rope dancer.

“Give me your hand,” he said; “we might find the trees.” He turned to where he thought she was, and presently felt her hand again, ungloved, in his. With his right hand flung before him, he discovered the long narrow trunks of the trees.

“Here!” he called to his companion. She withdrew her hand from his; he guessed that she was still carrying the child. There was a little pause, then he heard her cast herself on the ground.

“O God, believe that I am tired, tired!” she cried out.

Luc leant against the tree-trunk, gazing across the blackness. For the second time they were alone together in the cold and dark with a dead child between them; it seemed to him a symbol of what separated them and yet what brought them together: death and sorrow—but endeavour and exaltation. The enigma that had seemed to have poorly solved itself in the house of M. de Richelieu was now suddenly again unsolvable. Was she not brave and kind?—what she had appeared in Bohemia—had not all his estimates been utterly wrong? And what was the meaning of this constant crossing of their lives—connected always with death?

He put his hand wearily to his forehead; her voice came up from the ground, near his feet.

“These fields are not new to me, Monsieur de Vauvenargues. I have slept under these trees before. I used to watch the sheep here when I was a little ragged child. Sometimes I used to go to Aix with milk, and see you, Monsieur le Marquis, riding with your brother. Then I had another name—it was before I went to Paris.”

“So you are from Provence?” he murmured.

“Yes. Here I was born, homeless, nameless; and here I shall die, homeless, nameless also. I have done what I wished to, and I regret nothing.”

Luc could not speak; that their lives should have been so twisted together strangely troubled him.

She seemed to divine his silence.

“I could not help this. For Mademoiselle de SÉguy’s sake, I would have done anything it had not happened.”

The rosy face of ClÉmence with her devoted eyes sprang out of the blackness to confront Luc; he shivered and put his hands over his forehead.

“Why do you not speak?” came the weak voice from his feet. “Are you thinking of the future?”

“Yes,” said Luc, with an effort.

He felt that she shuddered.

“Are you—afraid?” she asked, in a tone of horror.

“Yes,” said Luc simply.

The terror of that admission filled the darkness.

Luc set his back against the tree. He could feel the fine rain on his hands and dripping from his hat; he coughed and shivered.

“In Bohemia we were on the heights,” came Carola’s voice; “but this is the lowlands, and there is not one star.”

Luc was thinking again of Paris, and the river, and the beggar on the quay, and of ClÉmence as she had stood in her father’s hall to say good-bye to him with soft lamplight over her face that seemed to express something never to be put into words, and her gown, lace, perfume, and pale colours.

“Speak, Monsieur le Marquis, speak!” the woman’s voice implored. “I am here with a dead child.”

“She is dead, then?” asked Luc.

“I cannot warm her or make her move.” The answer was unsteady and wistful. “Yes, she is dead.”

Luc was thinking now of his home, of his family waiting for him, of their wonder at his absence. He recalled the work he had meant to do to-night and the letters he had intended to write. He was now as cut off from that as if he had been swept to another world.

A sob came shivering up to him; he started with a sense of his great selfishness.

“Rise up, Madame,” he said; “rise up. Take my hand, and stand beside me. It has happened that those brought as near contagion as you are have escaped.”

She did not answer.

“And it may not be the smallpox,” added Luc, against his own deep conviction.

This time she answered.

“I know it is. We are infected, perhaps doomed. As for me, it is no matter; but you—your future?”

Luc made no reply; darkness lay on his brain as well as before his eyes. He felt his strength, almost his life, being drawn from him by the chill and the damp; it seemed worse than the snows of Bohemia. He realized how weak he had been since his illness at Eger; how even the burden of a child and the cold of a night in one of his native fields was almost beyond his endurance.

He turned towards the spot where Carola must be still seated.

“You are cold, Madame? Take my cloak—I am warm enough.”

“No—no!” she said sharply. “I have my own, and I have often slept out in an old thin shawl—I should be used to it.”

“And I,” answered Luc sadly—“I who was a soldier.”

He was unclasping his cloak with numb fingers when he heard her rise to her feet; she touched his shoulder.

“I am warm,” she said.

Her hand trembled down his arm, found his hand and held it. He let her clasp it between hers, which were, as she said, warm. The touch of her soft palms caused a wave of mingled anguish and pleasure to rise to his heart. She came closer; he felt her heavy cloak sweep his foot; the faint Eastern perfume he always associated with her crept into his nostrils; his head sunk slightly on his chest, and he shivered.

She drew his cold hand to her bosom. He felt, with a quickening of all his senses, the stiff smoothness of her satin gown, the straining of her breast against the silk cords, and even the hasty beating of her heart. She raised his hand, and he felt her throat, her chin, and finally her lips.

A soft and timid kiss was lightly pressed on his fingers—the kiss of a suppliant, of one who asks for mercy.

Then she brought his slack hand down to her bosom again.

“You are very cold, Monsieur,” she said; her voice was infinitely sad.

Luc saw her as a humble peasant girl with black hair hanging about her shoulders and bare feet. The great lady had disappeared; he thought only of the girl she had described, keeping sheep in the fields and sleeping under the trees. His brain was numb, and fantasy dazed him. He put out his free hand and caught her shoulder; though he felt the rich velvet of her cloak, he still imagined her as the poor peasant orphan.

She came closer; he felt her breath, and knew her face was very near his. She loosened his hand, and he raised it to her other shoulder. He felt velvet, hard embroidery, and the rise and fall of her breath shaking her frame under his delicate grasp.

“I think the dawn is breaking,” he said. “You and I are strange company to watch the sun rise.”

And he laughed under his breath.

The brim of her hat touched his beaver as she sharply turned her head.

“My God, yes, the dawn!” she murmured. She drew away from him altogether. They were facing east, it seemed, for the sky before them was a watery grey, faint, faint and melancholy; a blue of misty silver, a mere promise of light. Slowly the shapes of things began to form out of the darkness; a pallid glow overspread the heavens; the rain ceased.

Luc never moved. He put his hand before his eyes; in his ears was the rustle of the poplar leaves, sounding very far away. A deeper chill seemed to seize his limbs, to penetrate to his very heart, which was beating faintly, reluctantly, and with a certain sense of pain.

He made an effort to free himself from the invading host of fancies that beset him, and lifted his eyes from the shelter of his palm.

The wet, colourless world was revealed about him; a long gleam of yellow silver divided earth from sky. He saw before him flat meadow land, a few bare trees, a distant wood.

He moved stiffly and looked round for Carola.

Under one of the poplars was the figure of the young woman standing in much the same attitude as that he had observed at the fÊte a few days ago, very still, her head slightly bent, her whole pose expressing containment, humility, and yet a certain pride. His fantasy of a peasant girl was dispelled now. Her clothes, though wet and mud-stained, showed of an incongruous grandeur: the dress that trailed over the damp fallen leaves was brocade and shot with gold threads, the white feathers on her drooping beaver were fastened with a jewelled clasp, and in her ears hung long red diamonds.

She seemed to feel his gaze on her, for she raised and turned her head. Her black hair had fallen under her hat and lay heavy in the folds of her violet velvet cloak.

“We can go on our way now,” she said evenly.

Luc looked at what lay between him and her: a bundle wrapped in the gaudy striped mummer’s cloak; at one end two small feet clad in bright green stockings showed, and at the other a fair damp curl had fallen between the folds of the wrap.

He glanced away, utterly sick; not all the dead that had lined the way from Prague to Eger had power to move him as this little corpse. He heard Carola coming over the leaves, but would not look round.

Now the sun was above the horizon, the whole landscape was brightening rapidly; a faint sparkle of gold began to appear on the wet leaves, on the wet grass. Luc saw the two horses waiting with drooping heads not far off. With a long shiver he moved towards them; when he returned with the bridles in his hand, he found Carola kneeling beside the little girl, who was now decently covered from head to foot in the velvet cloak, which folded her like a rich pall.

Carola was praying. She held between her bare ringless hands a silver and ivory rosary. Her head was bowed reverently, so that her face was hidden by the shade of her hat. The strengthening sun gleamed on the red and gold and brown of the riding-habit that revealed her slight, womanly figure.

Luc stood watching her.

“Do you find consolation in that, Madame?” he asked gently.

She looked up; then, seeing he was holding the horses, rose, slipping the rosary back into the bosom of her gown.

“If not there, where else?” she asked, very sadly. “God is the only kind person I know.”

She came towards her horse, and he helped her to mount. When she was in the saddle he gave her his cloak, and she took it now, without a word, and shivered into it. The dawn seemed colder than the night.

“Do you remember the story of Madame de Montespan and the pigs?” she asked, leaning a little towards Luc.

He stared at her.

“She was very beautiful and very great,” continued Carola, “and when King Louis loved her there were no flowers in France considered worthy to lie on her breast. Then when she fell into disgrace she left the Court and died—still beautiful. And they took her heart to bury it at a certain convent; and the peasant who carried it became weary of the journey, and cast the heart into a ditch, and turned back—and no one cared. And some pigs nosing in the ditch ate the heart of the beautiful Marquise, and lay down that night in their sty with the proudest blood in France staining their jaws—and no one cared except God!” Her eyes flashed. “I think He remembered it against King Louis.”

“Why do you tell me this?” asked Luc, with a shudder.

“Because I have been thrown to the ditch and the swine,” she answered; “and out of the dirt I ask God to remember that I have paid for some of my sins—here on earth.”

He did not understand her, but her speech held him. With his hand on his bridle, he looked up at her, his haggard, resolute, and beautiful face clear in the light of the rising sun.

“M. de Richelieu——” he began.

“Let M. de Richelieu be!” answered Carola. “It is you who have punished me most.”

“I?” he questioned.

“You—to-night—when I was lonely as the damned—and facing death and hell—and you would not kiss me.”

Luc looked at her steadily.

“You have cast my heart alive to the swine,” she said, in a trembling voice, “and God will remember it against you.”

He caught her meaning through a confusion of pain. He realized his own self-absorption; he saw, suddenly and very vividly, her point of view.

“You think I hold you in contempt?” he said hoarsely.

“Why not?” she answered. “Why not?”

Luc shook his head.

“I am not fine, and I am not true,” said Carola. “There is no paint on my face now, and you must see I am a very common creature, Monsieur le Marquis.”

Luc’s hand was so slack on the bridle that his horse began cropping the thin blades of grass that sprouted between the dead leaves.

“Give me the child,” said the Countess.

The day was quite bright now; fields of emerald, skies of pale azure, trees of faint gold were about them as he raised his burden to her saddle. The purple velvet trailed over the wet sides of her white horse; he flung across his own holster the coarse striped mantle, and mounted.

“These nuns,” she said, “are very good. They had, three years ago, when the plague was bad, a hundred people in their hospice.”

Luc offered to take the mummer’s child from her, but she refused. They rode from the fields on to the flat, muddy grey road. The horses were weary, and Carola, using only one hand, rode awkwardly. They went slowly across a country that was wet, glimmering, and silent.

Luc’s thoughts began to stir like waking birds, first shivering, then mounting into the circle of the sunlight. All disturbing pictures of the past vanished from his mind; he only saw the future, an ineffable blaze of glory. He spoke aloud, lifting his face to the fragrant early heavens.

“Whatever happens, I will overcome,” he said.

Carola looked at him, and seemed to shrink into herself. They neither of them spoke until they had crossed a river by a low bridge, and ridden up to the walls and outbuildings of an ancient abbey and convent.

Luc dismounted and helped Carola from her horse. Between them they laid the little girl on the long grass beneath the wall. Luc fastened the horses to a staple that was there for that purpose; his hands were very cold and his whole body shivering. When he came back to the narrow door, he found Carola standing beside the great iron bell. Above her head an ash drooped over the wall; the hard scarlet fruit hung against the grey stone and mortar. She had removed her hat; through the fine black ringlets showed the long red diamonds, flame in crystal, that glittered in her ears. Under Luc’s black cloak, her dress gleamed rich, and soft, and bright. Her face was pallid, hollow, and expressionless.

Luc stepped towards her. She thought he meant to ring, and moved aside; but he stopped before her, looking at her intently.

She glanced up at that: her eyes were bloodshot, and the lids swollen. He saw that she must have been crying, silently, in the dark. She seemed frightened and very humble. She held herself flat against the wall, and the beaver she held dropped from her loosening fingers.

Luc took off his hat. His face was serene and proud; his long locks of hazel-coloured hair, escaping from the black ribbon, blew over his forehead and shoulders; his cravat and the thick lace on his bosom stirred in this same breeze. The beautiful lines of his face showed fatigue but no sadness, and his eyes were clear and radiant.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“ClÉmence,” she answered.

“ClÉmence!”

“It is true—that was my name in Provence,” she murmured. “I would never have told you—why did you ask?”

“ClÉmence,” he repeated. He stood with his hat in his hand as if he was in attendance on a great lady.

“Why do you not ring?” she asked hoarsely.

He made a gesture with his sword hand towards the convent.

“You know what we go into,” he said: “perhaps death—perhaps hideous corruption.”

She smiled bravely.

“There is no need that a nun should be—desirable.”

“You are not afraid?”

“No.”

“Ah—I saw a man once—who had been a soldier—disfigured.”

“I know. I have seen them. I hope it may be me, not you. Ring, Monsieur.”

“One moment. We are set apart from the world, you and I, ClÉmence. We have met many times, very strangely. I think this is going to be the last time.”

“The last time,” she echoed. “And you—are afraid?”

“Afraid that I may miss death, and live—useless. Afraid of—her—afterwards; afraid—of fear.” He smiled grandly as he spoke.

“I am the only person who will ever know that,” she said proudly.

He held out his right hand; she put hers into it, and then he cast his hat away, and suddenly clasped her.

“Take the last kiss I have to give in this gorgeous world!” she cried.

As he kissed her, she sobbed in her throat; and her quick tears wetted his cheek as their lips met the second time. He kissed the ends of her hair, her neck, her hands, the brocade that covered her bosom, then let her free of his embrace, and pulled the long iron chain.

As the strident clang of the bell echoed through the convent, he picked up her beaver and gave it her.

“You know?” she asked. Her lips were still throbbing, so that she could scarcely speak.

“Know?” he murmured unsteadily.

“The great—the useless—love I have always had—for you.”

The convent door opened.