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<h2> CHAPTER XLVIII. THE WANING MOON </h2>
<p>Armand had wakened from his attack of faintness, and brother and sister
sat close to one another, shoulder touching shoulder. That sense of
nearness was the one tiny spark of comfort to both of them on this dreary,
dreary way.</p>
<p>The coach had lumbered on unceasingly since all eternity—so it
seemed to them both. Once there had been a brief halt, when Heron's rough
voice had ordered the soldier at the horses' heads to climb on the box
beside him, and once—it had been a very little while ago—a
terrible cry of pain and terror had rung through the stillness of the
night. Immediately after that the horses had been put at a more rapid
pace, but it had seemed to Marguerite as if that one cry of pain had been
repeated by several others which sounded more feeble and soon appeared to
be dying away in the distance behind.</p>
<p>The soldier who sat opposite to them must have heard the cry too, for he
jumped up, as if wakened from sleep, and put his head out of the window.</p>
<p>"Did you hear that cry, citizen?" he asked.</p>
<p>But only a curse answered him, and a peremptory command not to lose sight
of the prisoners by poking his head out of the window.</p>
<p>"Did you hear the cry?" asked the soldier of Marguerite as he made haste
to obey.</p>
<p>"Yes! What could it be?" she murmured.</p>
<p>"It seems dangerous to drive so fast in this darkness," muttered the
soldier.</p>
<p>After which remark he, with the stolidity peculiar to his kind,
figuratively shrugged his shoulders, detaching himself, as it were, of the
whole affair.</p>
<p>"We should be out of the forest by now," he remarked in an undertone a
little while later; "the way seemed shorter before."</p>
<p>Just then the coach gave an unexpected lurch to one side, and after much
groaning and creaking of axles and springs it came to a standstill, and
the citizen agent was heard cursing loudly and then scrambling down from
the box.</p>
<p>The next moment the carriage-door was pulled open from without, and the
harsh voice called out peremptorily:</p>
<p>"Citizen soldier, here—quick!—quick!—curse you!—we'll
have one of the horses down if you don't hurry!"</p>
<p>The soldier struggled to his feet; it was never good to be slow in obeying
the citizen agent's commands. He was half-asleep and no doubt numb with
cold and long sitting still; to accelerate his movements he was suddenly
gripped by the arm and dragged incontinently out of the coach.</p>
<p>Then the door was slammed to again, either by a rough hand or a sudden
gust of wind, Marguerite could not tell; she heard a cry of rage and one
of terror, and Heron's raucous curses. She cowered in the corner of the
carriage with Armand's head against her shoulder, and tried to close her
ears to all those hideous sounds.</p>
<p>Then suddenly all the sounds were hushed and all around everything became
perfectly calm and still—so still that at first the silence
oppressed her with a vague, nameless dread. It was as if Nature herself
had paused, that she might listen; and the silence became more and more
absolute, until Marguerite could hear Armand's soft, regular breathing
close to her ear.</p>
<p>The window nearest to her was open, and as she leaned forward with that
paralysing sense of oppression a breath of pure air struck full upon her
nostrils and brought with it a briny taste as if from the sea.</p>
<p>It was not quite so dark; and there was a sense as of open country
stretching out to the limits of the horizon. Overhead a vague greyish
light suffused the sky, and the wind swept the clouds in great rolling
banks right across that light.</p>
<p>Marguerite gazed upward with a more calm feeling that was akin to
gratitude. That pale light, though so wan and feeble, was thrice welcome
after that inky blackness wherein shadows were less dark than the lights.
She watched eagerly the bank of clouds driven by the dying gale.</p>
<p>The light grew brighter and faintly golden, now the banks of clouds—storm-tossed
and fleecy—raced past one another, parted and reunited like veils of
unseen giant dancers waved by hands that controlled infinite space—advanced
and rushed and slackened speed again—united and finally torn asunder
to reveal the waning moon, honey-coloured and mysterious, rising as if
from an invisible ocean far away.</p>
<p>The wan pale light spread over the wide stretch of country, throwing over
it as it spread dull tones of indigo and of blue. Here and there sparse,
stunted trees with fringed gaunt arms bending to prevailing winds
proclaimed the neighbourhood of the sea.</p>
<p>Marguerite gazed on the picture which the waning moon had so suddenly
revealed; but she gazed with eyes that knew not what they saw. The moon
had risen on her right—there lay the east—and the coach must
have been travelling due north, whereas Crecy...</p>
<p>In the absolute silence that reigned she could perceive from far, very far
away, the sound of a church clock striking the midnight hour; and now it
seemed to her supersensitive senses that a firm footstep was treading the
soft earth, a footstep that drew nearer—and then nearer still.</p>
<p>Nature did pause to listen. The wind was hushed, the night-birds in the
forest had gone to rest. Marguerite's heart beat so fast that its
throbbings choked her, and a dizziness clouded her consciousness.</p>
<p>But through this state of torpor she heard the opening of the carriage
door, she felt the onrush of that pure, briny air, and she felt a long,
burning kiss upon her hands.</p>
<p>She thought then that she was really dead, and that God in His infinite
love had opened to her the outer gates of Paradise.</p>
<p>"My love!" she murmured.</p>
<p>She was leaning back in the carriage and her eyes were closed, but she
felt that firm fingers removed the irons from her wrists, and that a pair
of warm lips were pressed there in their stead.</p>
<p>"There, little woman, that's better so—is it not? Now let me get
hold of poor old Armand!"</p>
<p>It was Heaven, of course, else how could earth hold such heavenly joy?</p>
<p>"Percy!" exclaimed Armand in an awed voice.</p>
<p>"Hush, dear!" murmured Marguerite feebly; "we are in Heaven you and I—"</p>
<p>Whereupon a ringing laugh woke the echoes of the silent night.</p>
<p>"In Heaven, dear heart!" And the voice had a delicious earthly ring in its
whole-hearted merriment. "Please God, you'll both be at Portel with me
before dawn."</p>
<p>Then she was indeed forced to believe. She put out her hands and groped
for him, for it was dark inside the carriage; she groped, and felt his
massive shoulders leaning across the body of the coach, while his fingers
busied themselves with the irons on Armand's wrist.</p>
<p>"Don't touch that brute's filthy coat with your dainty fingers, dear
heart," he said gaily. "Great Lord! I have worn that wretch's clothes for
over two hours; I feel as if the dirt had penetrated to my bones."</p>
<p>Then with that gesture so habitual to him he took her head between his two
hands, and drawing her to him until the wan light from without lit up the
face that he worshipped, he gazed his fill into her eyes.</p>
<p>She could only see the outline of his head silhouetted against the
wind-tossed sky; she could not see his eyes, nor his lips, but she felt
his nearness, and the happiness of that almost caused her to swoon.</p>
<p>"Come out into the open, my lady fair," he murmured, and though she could
not see, she could feel that he smiled; "let God's pure air blow through
your hair and round your dear head. Then, if you can walk so far, there's
a small half-way house close by here. I have knocked up the none too
amiable host. You and Armand could have half an hour's rest there before
we go further on our way."</p>
<p>"But you, Percy?—are you safe?"</p>
<p>"Yes, m'dear, we are all of us safe until morning-time enough to reach Le
Portel, and to be aboard the Day-Dream before mine amiable friend M.
Chambertin has discovered his worthy colleague lying gagged and bound
inside the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. By Gad! how old Heron will curse—the
moment he can open his mouth!"</p>
<p>He half helped, half lifted her out of the carriage. The strong pure air
suddenly rushing right through to her lungs made her feel faint, and she
almost fell. But it was good to feel herself falling, when one pair of
arms amongst the millions on the earth were there to receive her.</p>
<p>"Can you walk, dear heart?" he asked. "Lean well on me—it is not
far, and the rest will do you good."</p>
<p>"But you, Percy—"</p>
<p>He laughed, and the most complete joy of living seemed to resound through
that laugh. Her arm was in his, and for one moment he stood still while
his eyes swept the far reaches of the country, the mellow distance still
wrapped in its mantle of indigo, still untouched by the mysterious light
of the waning moon.</p>
<p>He pressed her arm against his heart, but his right hand was stretched out
towards the black wall of the forest behind him, towards the dark crests
of the pines in which the dying wind sent its last mournful sighs.</p>
<p>"Dear heart," he said, and his voice quivered with the intensity of his
excitement, "beyond the stretch of that wood, from far away over there,
there are cries and moans of anguish that come to my ear even now. But for
you, dear, I would cross that wood to-night and re-enter Paris to-morrow.
But for you, dear—but for you," he reiterated earnestly as he
pressed her closer to him, for a bitter cry had risen to her lips.</p>
<p>She went on in silence. Her happiness was great—as great as was her
pain. She had found him again, the man whom she worshipped, the husband
whom she thought never to see again on earth. She had found him, and not
even now—not after those terrible weeks of misery and suffering
unspeakable—could she feel that love had triumphed over the wild,
adventurous spirit, the reckless enthusiasm, the ardour of self-sacrifice.</p>
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