Too blissful for the sense of fatigue, Berenger began to impart to
the Commandant his delight, but the only answer he got was 'Hope,
yes, every hope;' and he again recognized what he had already
perceived, that the indistinctness of his utterance made him
entirely unintelligible to the deaf Commandant, and that shouting
did but proclaim to the whole garrison, perhaps even to the enemy's
camp, what was still too new a joy not to be a secret treasure of
delight. So he only wrung the old Captain's hand, and strode away
as soon as he was released.
It was nearly dark, in spite of a rising moon, but beneath the
cloister arch was torchlight, glancing on a steel head-piece, and
on a white cap, both bending down over a prostrate figure; and he
heard the voice he loved so well say, 'It is over! I can do no
more. It were best to dig his grave at once here in silence--it
will discourage the people less. Renaud and Armand, here!' He paused for a few minutes unseen in the shadow while she closed
the eyes and composed the limbs of the dead soldier; then,
kneeling, said the Lord's Prayer in French over him. Was this the
being he had left as the petted plaything of the palace? When she
rose, she came to the arch and gazed wistfully across the moonlit
quadrangle, beyond the dark shade cast by the buildings, saying to
the soldier, 'You are sure he was safe?' 'My Eustacie,' said Berenger, coming forward, 'we meet in grave
times!' The relief of knowing him safe after the sickening yearnings and
suspense of the day, and moreover the old ring of tenderness in his
tone, made her spring to him with real warmth of gladness, and cry,
'It is you! All is well.
'Blessedly well, ma mie, my sweetheart,' he said, throwing his
arm round her, and she rested against him murmuring, 'Now I feel
it! Thou are thyself!' They were in the dark cloister passage,
and when he would have moved forward she clung closer to him, and
murmured, 'Oh, wait, wait, yet an instant--thus I can feel that I
have thee--the same--my own!' 'My poor darling,' said Berenger, after a second, 'you must learn
to bear with both my looks and speech, though I be but a sorry
shattered fellow for you.' 'No, no,' she cried, hanging on him with double fervour. 'No, I am
loving you the more already,--doubly--trebly--a thousand times.
Only those moments were so precious, they made all these long years
as nothing. But come to the little one, and to your brother.' The little one had already heard them, and was starting forward to
meet them, though daunted for a moment by the sight of the strange
father: she stood on the pavement, in the full flood of the
moonlight from the east window, which whitened her fair face,
flaxen hair, and gray dress, so that she did truly look like some
spirit woven of the moonbeams. Eustacie gave a cry of satisfac-
tion: 'Ah! good, good; it was by moonlight that I saw her first!' Berenger took her in his arm, and held her to his breast with a
sense of insatiable love, while Philip exclaimed, 'Ay, well may you
make much of her, brother. Well might you seek them far and wide.
Such treasures are not to be found in the wide world.' Berenger without answering, carried the little one to the step of
the ruined high altar, and there knelt, holding Eustacie by the
hand, the child in one arm, and, with the moon glancing on his high
white brow and earnest face, he spoke a few words of solemn thanks
and prayer for a blessing on their reunion, and the babe so
wonderfully preserved to them.