"I don't really know them," said Chérie; "but they—they look very nice," and she turned her blue eyes full upon him, taking a quick survey of his handsome figure and fair, frank face.
George felt himself blush, and hated himself for it.
"You—you would never think of marrying an Englishman, would you?"
Chérie shook her head, and the long lashes drooped over the sea-blue stars. "I am affianced to be married," she said with her pretty foreign accent, "to a soldier of Belgium."
"Oh, I see," said George rather huskily and hurriedly. "Of course. Quite so."
They walked along in silence for a little while. Then he opened her book, which he still held in his hand. "What were you reading? Poetry?"
He glanced at the fly-leaf, on which were written the words "Florian Audet, à Chérie," and he quickly turned the page. "Poetry" … he said again, "by Victor Hugo." Then he added, "Why, this sounds as if it were written for you: 'Elle était pâle et pourtant rose....' That is just what you are."
Chérie did not answer. What was this strange flutter at her heart again? It frightened her. Could it be angina pectoris, or some other strange and terrible disease? Not that it hurt her; but it thrilled her from head to foot.
"You are quite pâle et pourtant rose at this very moment," repeated George, looking at her. Then he added rather bitterly as he handed her back the book, "I suppose you are thinking of the day when you will marry your soldier-lover."
"Perhaps I shall not live to marry anybody," said Chérie in a low voice.
"What an idea!" exclaimed George.
"And as for him," she continued, "he will probably be killed long before that."
"Oh no," said George, "I'm sure he won't. And I'm sure you will.... And I'm sure you're both going to be awfully happy. As for me," he added quickly, "I am going to have no end of a good time. I believe I am to be sent to the Dardanelles. Doesn't the word sound jolly! 'The Dardanelles!' It has a ring and a lilt to it...." He laughed and pushed his hair back from his clear young forehead.
"Good luck to you," said Chérie, looking up at him with a sudden feeling of kindness and regret.
They had turned back, and were now passing the summer-house in full view of the windows of the house. On the schoolroom balcony they saw Louise. She beckoned, and Chérie hurried forward and stood under the balcony, looking up at her.
"Oh, Chérie! I wondered where you were," said Louise, bending over the ledge. "I was anxious. Come up, dear! I want to speak to you."
"Oh yes!" exclaimed Chérie eagerly, remembering Louise's promise of the night before. Then she turned to George. "I must go. So now we must really say good-bye." She laughed. "Or shall we say au revoir?"
"Let us say au revoir," said George, looking her full in the face.
"Au revoir, Monsieur George! Au revoir!"
Then she went indoors.
Two days later George Whitaker went away.
They sent him to the Dardanelles.
And in this world there was never an au revoir for Monsieur George.
CHAPTER XVII
Louise stood in the doorway waiting for Chérie, and watched her coming up the stairs rather slowly with fluttering breath. She drew her into the room and shut the door.
Mireille sat quietly in her usual armchair by the window, with her small face lifted to the sky.
"Chérie," said Louise, drawing the girl down beside her on the wide old divan on which the little Whitakers had sprawled to learn their lessons in years gone by. "I have something to say to you."
"I knew you had," exclaimed Chérie, flushing. "I knew it yesterday when I saw you. It is good news!"
Louise hesitated. "Yes … for me," she said falteringly, "it is good news. For you, my dear little sister, for you … unless you realize what has befallen us—it may be very terrible news."
Chérie looked at her with startled eyes. "What do you mean?" she asked under her breath.
Louise put her hand to her neck as if something were choking her. Her throat was dry; she could find neither words nor voice in which to give to the waiting girl her message of two-fold shame.
"Chérie … my darling … I must speak to you about that night … your birthday-night–"
Chérie started back. "No!" she cried. "You said when we came here that we were to forget it—that it was a dream! Why—why should you speak of it again?"
"Chérie," said Louise in a low voice, "perhaps for you." … She faltered, "for you it may have been a dream. But not for me."
The girl sat straight upright, tense and alert. "What do you mean, Louise?"
"I mean that for me that night has borne its evil fruit. Chérie! I thought of killing myself. But yesterday … I spoke to Dr. Reynolds. He has promised to save me."
"To save you!" gasped Chérie. "Louise! Louise! Are you so ill?"
"My darling, my own dear child, I am worse than ill. But there is help for me; I shall be saved—saved from dishonour and despair." She lowered her voice. "Chérie!"—her voice fell so low that it could hardly be heard by the trembling girl beside her—"can you not understand? The shame I am called upon to face—the doom that awaits me—is maternity."
Maternity! Slowly, as if an unseen force uplifted her, Chérie had risen to her feet. Maternity!… The veil of the mystery was rent, the wonder was revealed! Maternity! That was the key to all her own strange and marvellous sensations, to the throb and the thrill within her! Maternity.
She stood motionless, amazed. A shaft of sunlight from the open window beat upon her, turning her hair to gold and her wide eyes to pools of wondering light. Such wonder and such light were about her that Louise gazed in awed silence at the ethereal figure, standing with pale hands extended and virginal face upturned.
She seemed to be listening.... To what voice? What annunciation did she harken to with those rapt eyes?
Louise called her by her name. But Chérie did not answer. Her lips were mute, her eyes were distant and unseeing. She heard no other voice but a child-voice asking from her the gift of life.
And to that voice her trembling spirit answered.
CHAPTER XVIII
Dr. Reynolds kept his promise to Louise.
In a private nursing-home in London the deed of mercy and of ruthlessness was accomplished. The pitiable spark of life was quenched.
Out of the depths of darkness and despair Louise, after wavering for many days on the threshold of death, came slowly back to life once more.
During the many weeks she was in the nursing-home she saw neither Chérie nor Mireille; but Mrs. Yule came nearly every day and brought good news of them both, saying how happy she and her husband were to have them at the Vicarage.
For Mr. Yule himself had gone to the Whitakers' house, an hour after Louise had left it with Dr. Reynolds, and had taken the two forlorn young creatures away. Their stricken youth found shelter in his house, where Mireille's affliction and Chérie's tragic condition were alike sacred to his generous heart.
The little blind girl, Lilian, adored them both. She used to sit between them—often resting her face against Mireille's arm, or holding the child's hand in hers—listening to Chérie's tales of their childhood in Belgium. She was never tired of hearing about Chérie's school-days at Mademoiselle Thibaut's pensionnat; of her trips to Brussels and Antwerp, and the horrors of the dungeons of Château Steen; of her bicycle-lessons on the sands of Westende under the instruction of the monkey-man; and above all of her visits to Braine l'Alleude and the battle-field of Waterloo, where she had actually drunk coffee in Wellington's sitting-room, and rested in his very own armchair....
Lilian, with her closed eyes and intent face—always turned slightly upward as if yearning towards the light—listened eagerly, exclaiming every now and then with a little excited laugh, "I see … I see...." And those words and the sweet expression of the small ecstatic face made Chérie's voice falter and the tears suffuse her eyes.