And this, too, she remembered: Once in a wild moment Henri had said he
would follow her to America, and that there he would prove to her that
his and not Harvey's was the real love of her life--the great love,
that comes but once to any woman, and to some not at all. Yet on that
last night at Morley's he had said what she now felt was a final
farewell. That last look of his, from the doorway--that had been the
look of a man who would fill his eyes for the last time.
She got up and stood by the window. What had they done to him? What
would they do? She looked at her watch. It was four o'clock in the
morning over there. The little house would be quiet now, but down along
the lines men would be standing on the firing step of the trench, and
waiting, against what the dawn might bring.
Through the thin wall came the sound of Harvey's heavy, regular
breathing. She remembered Henri's light sleeping on the kitchen floor,
his cap on the table, his cape rolled round him--a sleeping, for all
his weariness, so light that he seemed always half conscious. She
remembered the innumerable times he had come in at this hour, muddy,
sometimes rather gray of face with fatigue, but always cheerful.
It was just such an hour that she found him giving hot coffee to the
German prisoner. It had been but a little earlier when he had taken her
to the roof and had there shown her Rene, lying with his face up toward
the sky which had sent him death.
A hundred memories crowded--Henri's love for the Belgian soldiers, and
theirs for him; his humor; his absurd riddles. There was the one he had
asked Rene, the very day before the air attack. He had stood stiffly and
frowningly before the boy, and he had asked in a highly official tone: "What must a man be to be buried with military honors?"
"A general?"
"No."
"An officer?"
"No, no! Use your head boy! This is very important. A mistake would
be most serious."
Rene had shaken his head dejectedly.
"He must be dead, Rene," Henri had said gravely. "Entirely dead. As I
said, it is well to know these things. A mistake would be unfortunate."
His blue eyes had gleamed with fun, but his face had remained frowning.
It was quite five minutes before she had heard Rene chuckling on the
doorstep.
Was he still living, this Henri of the love of life and courting of
death? Could anything so living die? And if he had died had it been
because of her? She faced that squarely for the first time.