CHAPTER XXXVI

In the château, Madame and Marie, together with the old Breton woman, were the only ones left. After Paulette's departure they searched for Antoine, but found that he had gone, as Marie knew he would be.

The long day had worn away somehow. Madame went up to her room and shut herself in. Marie's nerves, almost at the breaking-point, sent her feverishly wandering about the house and grounds, up and down and back and forth, never seeming to find a place to rest. Once or twice she came back to the gate-house and tried to talk to Angéle, but the girl, her eyes red and swollen, her face mottled with weeping, splashed and scrubbed the already immaculate floor in a frenzy of industry, her conversation limited to monosyllables, and Marie turned back again to her own room.

She had brought with her from Paris materials for the little _layette_ that would be needed, but her hands shook so over the tiny garments that the needle ran deeply into her finger and the blood stained the white linen. She stared at the red spot with wild eyes. What a horrible omen, she thought, what a frightful thing. Blood stains on her baby's clothes! Did that mean that her efforts at reparation had come too late?

She threw aside the bit of linen as though it scorched her fingers, and fell on her knees in agony.

"Holy Mother," she began. Surely the blessed Virgin would hear a woman who longed so sincerely to right whatever wrong she had done.

When she rose from her knees it was with renewed courage and hope. The one poignant remorse that stabbed her was that when Gerome had told her of his love, she had not bared to him her life in Vienna. How much sorrow, how many endless days of regret are caused by the first deception practised from a false sense of pride or for the purpose of hiding some truth about ourselves which if disclosed might cause us at the time embarrassment, or pain. Often whatever is gained is paid for a hundredfold by the humiliation and grief that follows when the truth must be told.

To Marie, pacing her room, came the full realization of this. If she had only confided in Gerome, he might have forgiven her and they would have been almost as happy as they had been, without this dreadful suffering being possible. She could then have denounced Von Pfaffen when she had found herself face to face with him again.

The burning tears coursed down her cheeks, and with all her soul she prayed to be given the opportunity to tell her husband everything.

Toward evening Madame knocked at her door.

"Let us go down to the salon, dear," she said. "I shall bring little Angéle up to the house and we will stay together to-night."

"Yes, _Maman_," answered Marie, through the door; "I shall be down directly."

As Madame's footsteps died away, she hastily smoothed her hair and refreshed her face with water, then went downstairs to join the others in the long vigil that was before them.

All night long the voice of the guns rose in deafening crescendo, making sleep impossible, while on the horizon, orange, crimson, and mauve flashes broke the darkness.

All night long the four women sat together in the little salon, waiting for what they dared not put into words.

Madame sat silent and tragic in her great chair, her delicate hands clasped loosely in her lap. Her eyes looked far away, beyond to-night, beyond to-morrow, even beyond this world.

Angéle whimpered in her corner.

Marie staring from one to the other, wondered what they would say when they knew everything.

The roar of the guns was incessant, rolling, thundering, like mighty waves beating against granite cliffs, deafening, appalling, filling all the air with an agony of sound. Then just before dawn, suddenly, as though a giant hand had intervened, the tumult ceased and was followed by a breathless hush. The women looked at one another. There was something in this unusual stillness that was ominous, fearful, more terrible than had been the pandemonium of sound.

Far away a cock crowed and was answered by another. The wind stirred among the leaves and set them to whispering. Then they heard a distant, intermittent rattle, sharp, spiteful, venomous, unmistakable to anyone who had ever heard it. It was the sound of rifles and machine guns. Instantly they understood. That which shot and shell had begun, the bayonet was to finish. The artillery had ceased, to permit the men to come out of the trenches! To go over the top! To charge!

As the light grew, the staccato rattle of the distant rifle fire was interrupted every now and again by a dull boom. The enemy was answering.

Several times a terrible detonation roared in their ears, the windows shook with the concussion, the very rafters of the old château shivered and trembled, and across the fields a great column of black smoke and dirt spouted wildly in the air where a shell had struck and burst.

Madame, standing tall and erect by the window, vibrated with every sound of the distant battle. She was fighting by the side of her men, this woman, reared in luxury, in whose veins ran the blood of her country's best, whose indomitable will lifted her above all difficulties, leveled all obstacles and knew no fear. A worthy mother of a noble son!

Old Nanine sat dry-eyed, seemingly unconscious of the sounds of the conflict about them. Centuries of passive obedience, of unreasoning sacrifice, had left its heritage of outward indifference. Stolid, emotionless, she waited, but in the core of her heart burned the unquenchable flame of mother-love for the last son, out there, where flesh and blood was holding its unequal contest against steel and iron.

Silent, with white cheeks, and lips tightly compressed sat Marie, every nerve strained taut, as her imagination carried her into the battle. Each shot that was fired seemed aimed at her own heart, each sound in the air shrieked aloud of some calamity to Gerome. She knew that she would gladly have undergone whatever tortures could be given her to know that he would come back to her, maimed, torn, bleeding, no matter how, but only come back to her!

As the reverberations grew louder and more terrifying, she rose to her feet, and went to the window beside Madame.

"God give them victory!" she breathed at last.

Madame stared at the ridge of the hill where the road wound over to Draise.

"My husband is there," she said, with calm exultation, "my brothers are there; my son is there."

Marie flung out her arms, an agony of longing in her eyes.

"Gerome," she cried, "Gerome!"

"And somewhere out among it all," went on Madame, in that strange, vibrant voice, her eyes never leaving the horizon, "somewhere out there is my little Paulette, my baby, gone from our shelter to the man she loves."

"She is taking to him much more than her love!" murmured Marie, but Madame did not seem to hear her.

"And now," she said, wondering, "even Antoine is gone!"

Marie closed her eyes with a shudder of horror. Antoine! How she loathed even the mention of his name. His going had brought about all this! For the thousandth time she asked herself if it would not have been better to have denounced him at once.

"Antoine left without a word, without a sign. Even he must fight for his country," went on Madame's steady voice.

Marie rose to her feet and paced up and down the room.

"When will it be over?" she cried. "When will it be over?"

Madame turned her eyes from the ridge which lay incongruously sparkling in the early sunshine, while the air shook with the terrific thunder of the guns, shouting their message of death and destruction.

"We women must watch and wait," she said. "Daughters of men! Wives of men! Mothers of men!"

Marie stopped in her restless pacing.

"Mothers of men!" she whispered. When the day of reckoning came, what would she say to Gerome's child, if it should be a son? Would he be able to look into her eyes with pride, or would her memory be hateful to him?

Madame looked at her with tender understanding.

"It is for that, dear," she said, "we women must watch and wait!"

To watch and wait! If that were all! This great struggle must end some day. And to each of these women would be given her measure of sorrow. The agony of suspense would be over.

But for her it was different.

No matter what the consequences were of her effort to circumvent the enemy, the fact of her having withheld the truth from her husband might never cease to bear its harvest of evil.

She threw herself face down again on the couch, her shoulders heaving convulsively, her slight frame torn with the bitterness of her sorrow.

Nanine looked at her stolidly.

"There are others of us," she said, "who have our griefs."

"Poor Nanine," said Madame sympathetically, "you have given two sons, and now the youngest, Jacques, is out there!"

The old woman's eyes were dry, her face was set.

"Yes, Madame," she said; "what are women for? In peaceful times the country takes our money for the army, and when war comes we must give our men who've earned the money!"

Marie lifted herself from among the pillows and stared at her wonderingly through her red, swollen lids.

"And you'd give all?" she asked, "everything you care for, everything, for your country?"

"But yes," the old woman's answer was a matter of course; "what else is there to do?"

"We all would!" Madame spoke with the voice of France. "Our men are not fighting for material gain, but in defense of our homes. The enemy's heel is on the breast of our beloved country, and to remove his hated tread that defaces our sacred soil, we will give our loved ones to the last man!"

Her words woke in Marie's heart the eager, breathless emotion that comes into being with the sound of martial music.

"I'm beginning to understand what all that means," she said. "This wonderful love that came to me seemed greater than anything in the world; it made me happier than I ever dreamed of being. If this cause for which he is fighting is more glorious, I want to give him to it. I want to make the sacrifice. But oh, it's hard, it's terribly hard!"

Madame put her arm about the shaking shoulders.

"You are not strong," she said, gently smoothing the girl's hair as she let her weep against her shoulder. After a moment she went on, "Don't you think that I know the wonder, the beauty of a great love? Don't you think I realize what it means? Every woman does, from Nanine here, and little Angéle, to the greatest queen, but each of us sees it differently. Real love is unselfish, it makes you want to give as well as receive. It will not let you choke with clinging arms!"

The old woman had followed her mistress' words with wonder, not understanding, but feeling the thought that lay back of them with the intuition of universal womanhood.

"Even when a poor peasant woman like me cares for her man like I cared for mine," she said, "you fight for him, with him, but you don't hang onto his coat-tails when he wants to fight for himself."

Madame rose and crossed to the window, where she stood looking in the direction from whence came the incessant thunder of the guns.

"I'd rather have my boy die out there," she said proudly, "fighting in defense of his country, than to know he did not have the will to go."

Marie stumbled across the room and threw herself at Madame's feet, her arms about her knees.

"You wonderful woman," she cried. "His mother, can you forgive me? How different everything would have been if my own mother had lived!"

Madame tried to raise her.

"Marie dear," she pleaded, "don't; there is nothing you have done, excepting love my boy too much. Come, don't ask my forgiveness for that!" but Marie clung about her knees, still weeping bitterly.

"You don't know," she sobbed, "you can't know how much I love him! And I am so unworthy!"

Madame stooped and lifted her to her feet.

"You must not feel unhappy because you are of our enemies' blood," she said; "no one questions your loyalty to our cause!"

But Marie covered her ears to shut out the sounds that grew louder and louder every minute, and sank miserably into a chair.

Angéle's fingers were busy again with her rosary, her lips with a prayer, and old Nanine crossed herself.

At the window Madame stood watching, her soul in her eyes. Over the brow of the hill long lines of gray motors were crawling, on the sides of which she could just make out a blood-red cross.

A spasm of pain touched her heart. The never-ending line of ambulances, what agony, what misery they carried. An hour ago splendid young manhood, now shattered wrecks!

And going in the opposite direction swung a long blue column of marching men. Strong, virile, filled with courage! Forward! Onward! For France!

Faintly, through the dull roaring, came the sound of the Marseillaise.

She stretched out her arms to them in an ecstasy of patriotism. Her voice clear and sweet as a bugle.

"March on," she cried. "March on--to victory or death!"