In the few seconds in which he grasped them, and then bore the child up the embankment in desperate bounds, a hail of bullets poured round him, ringing on his breastplate, shearing the plume from his hat, but scarcely even heard; and in another moment he had sprung down, on the inner side, grasping the child with all his might, but not daring even to look at her, in the wondrous flash of that first conviction. She spoke first. 'Put me down, and let me have my beads,' she said in a grave, clear tone; and then first he beheld a pair of dark blue eyes, a sweet wild-rose face-Dolly's all over. He pressed her so fast and so close, in so speechless and over powering an ecstasy, that again she repeated, and in alarm, 'Put me down, I want my mother!'
'Yes, yes! your mother! your mother! your mother!' he cried, unable to let her out of his embrace; and then restraining himself as he saw her frightened eyes, in absolute fear of her spurning him, or struggling from him, 'My sweet! my child! Ah! do you not know me?'
Then, remembering how wild this was, he struggled to speak calmly:
'What are you called, my treasure?'
'I am la petite Rayonette,' she said, with puzzled dignity and gravity; 'and my mother says I have a beautiful long name of my own besides.'
'Berangere-my Berangere--'
'That is what she says over me, as I go to sleep in her bosom at night,' said the child, in a wondering voice, soon exchanged for entreaty, 'Oh, hug me not so hard! Oh, let me go-let me go to her! Mother! mother!'
'My child, mine own, I am take thee!-Oh, do not struggle with me!' he cried, himself imploring now. 'Child, one kiss for thy father;' and meantime, putting absolute force on his vehement affection, he was hurrying to the chancel.
There Philip hailed them with a shout as of desperate anxiety relieved; but before a word could be uttered, down the stairs flew the Lady of Hope, crying wildly, 'Not there-she is not-' but perceiving the little one in the stranger's arms, she held out her own, crying, 'Ah! is she hurt, my angel?'
'Unhurt, Eustacie! Our child is unhurt!' Berenger said, with an agonized endeavour to be calm; but for the moment her instinct was so entirely absorbed in examining into the soundness of her child's limbs, that she neither saw nor hear anything else.
'Eustacie,' he said, laying his hand on her arm, she started back, with bewildered eyes. 'Eustacie-wife? do you not know me? Ah! I forgot that I am changed.'
'You-you-' she gasped, utterly confounded, and gazing as if turned to stone, and though at that moment the vibration of a mighty discharge of cannon rocked the walls, and strewed Philip's bed with the crimson shivers of St. John's robe, yet neither of them would have been sensible of it had not Humfrey rushed in at the same moment, crying, 'They are coming on like friends, sir!'
Berenger passed his hand over his face. 'You will know me WHEN-IF I return, my dearest,' he said. 'If not, then still, thank God! Philip, to you I trust them!'
And with one kiss on that still, cold, almost petrified brow, he had dashed away. There was a space of absolutely motionless silence, save that Eustacie let herself drop on the chancel step, and the child, presently breaking the spell, pulled her to attract her notice to the flowers. 'Mother, here are the soucis for the poor gentleman's broth. See, the naughty people had spoilt all the paths, and I rolled down and tore my frock, and down fell the beads, but be not angry, mother dear, for the good gentleman picked them up, and carried me up the bank.'
'The bank!' cried Eustacie, with a scream, as the sense of the words reached her ears. 'Ah! no wonder! Well might thy danger bring thy father's spirit;' and she grasped the little one fervently in her arms, murmuring, 'Thank, thank God, indeed! Oh! my precious one; and did He send that blessed spirit to rescue thee?'
'And will you tie up my frock? and may I put the flowers into the broth?' chattered Rayonette. 'And why did he kiss me and hug me so tight? and how did he know what you say over me as we fall asleep?'
Eustacie clasped her tighter, with a convulsive, shudder of thankfulness; and Philip, but half hearing, and barely gathering the meaning of her mood, ventured to speak, 'Madame--'
As if touched by an electric shock, Eustacie started up, as recalled to instant needs, and coming towards him said, 'Do you want anything, sir? Pardon one who has but newly seen a spirit from the other world-brought by his child's danger.' And the dazed, trance-like look was returning.
'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.'