'Spirit!' cried Philip. 'Nay, Madame, it was himself. Ah! and you
are she whom we have sought so long; and this dear child--no wonder
she has Dolly's face.' 'Who--what?' said Eustacie, pressing her temples with her hands, as
if to retain her senses. 'Speak; was yonder a living or dead man--
and who?' 'Living, thank God! and your own husband; that is, if you are
really Eustacie. Are you indeed?' he added, becoming doubtful.
'Eustacie, that am I,' she murmured. 'But he is dead--they killed
him; I swathe blood where he had waited for me. His child's danger
brought him from the grave.' 'No, no. Look at me, sister Eustacie. Listen to me. Osbert
brought him home more dead than alive--but alive still.' 'No!' she cried, half passionately. 'Never could he have lived and
left me to mourn him so bitterly.' 'If you knew--' cried Philip, growing indignant. 'for weeks he lay
in deadly lethargy, and when, with his left hand, he wrote and sent
Osbert to you, your kinsfolk threw the poor fellow into a dungeon,
and put us off with lies that you were married to your cousin. All
believed, only he--sick, helpless, speechless, as he was--he
trusted you still; and so soon as Mericour came, though he could
scarcely brook the saddle, nothing would hold him from seeking you.
We saw only ruin at La Sablerie, and well-nigh ever since have we
been clapped up in prison by your uncle. We were on the way to
Quinet to seek you. He has kept his faith whole through wounds and
pain and prison and threats,--ay, and sore temptation,' cried
Philip, waxing eloquent; 'and, oh, it cannot be that you do not
care for him!' 'Doubt not my faith, sir,' said Eustacie, proudly; 'I have been as
true to him as if I had known he lived. Nor do I know who you are
to question me.' At this moment the child pressed forward, holding between her tow
careful plump hands a red earthenware bowl, with the tisane
steaming in it, and the yellow petals strewn over the surface. She
and Philip had taken a great fancy to each other, and while her
mother was busy with the other patients, she had been left to her
quiet play with her fragments of glass, which she carried one by
one to display, held up to the light, to her new friends; who, in
his weak state, and after his long captivity, found her the more
charming playmate because she so strangely reminded him of his own
little sisters. She thought herself his little nurse, and missing
from his broth the yellow petals that she had been wont to think
the charm of tisane, the housewifely little being had trotted off,
unseen and unmissed, across the quadrangle, over the embankment,
where she had often gathered them, or attended on the 'lessive'
on the river's brink; and now she broke forth exultingly, 'Here,
here is the tisane, with all the soucis. Let me feed you with
them, sir.' 'Ah! thou sweet one,' gasped Philip, 'I could as soon eat them as
David could drink the water! For these--for these---!' and the
tears rushed into his eyes. 'Oh! let me but kiss her, Madame; I
loved her from the first moment. She has the very face of my
little sweeting, (what French word is good enough for her?) didst
run into peril for me, not knowing how near I was to thee? What,
must I eat it? Love me then.' But the boarded door was thrown back, and 'Madame, more wounded,'
resounded. The thrill of terror, the elastic reaction, at the
ensuing words, 'from the north gate,' was what made Eustacie in an
instant know herself to be not widow but wife. She turned round at
once, holding out her hand, and saying with a shaken, agitated
voice, 'Mon frere, pardon me, I know not what I say; and, after
all, he will find me bien mechante still.' Then as Philip
devoured her hand with kisses, and held it fast, 'I must go; these
poor men need me. When I can, I will return.' 'Only let me have the little one,' entreated Philip; 'it is almost
home already to look at her.' And when Eustacie next looked in on them, they were both fast
asleep.