Very pale and desperate, Henri took the night A train for Folkestone
after he had said good-by to Sara Lee. He alternately chilled and
burned with fever, and when he slept, as he did now and then, going off
suddenly into a doze and waking with a jerk, it was to dream of horrors.
He thought, in his wilder intervals, of killing himself. But his code
did not include such a shirker's refuge. He was going back to tell his
story and to take his punishment.
He had cabled to Jean to meet him at Calais, but when, at dawn the next
morning, the channel boat drew in to the wharf there was no sign of
Jean or the car. Henri regarded the empty quay with apathetic eyes.
They would come, later on. If he could only get his head down and sleep
for a while he would be better able to get toward the Front. For he
knew now that he was ill. He had, indeed, been ill for days, but he did
not realize that. And he hated illness. He regarded it with suspicion,
as a weakness not for a strong man.
The drowsy girl in her chair at the Gare Maritime regarded him curiously
and with interest. Many women turned to look after Henri, but he did
not know this. Had he known it he would have regarded it much as he
did illness.
The stupid boy was not round. The girl herself took the key and led the
way down the long corridor upstairs to a room. Henri stumbled in and
fell across the bed. He was almost immediately asleep.
Late in the afternoon he wakened. Strange that Jean had not come. He
got up and bathed his face. His right arm was very stiff now, and pains
ran from the old wound in his chest down to the fingers of his hand. He
tried to exercise to limber it, and grew almost weak with pain.
At six o'clock, when Jean had not come, Henri resorted to ways that he
knew of and secured a car. He had had some coffee by that time, and he
felt much better--so well indeed that he sang under his breath a
strange rambling song that sounded rather like Rene's rendering of
Tipperary. The driver looked at him curiously every now and then.
It was ten o'clock when they reached La Panne. Henri went at once to
the villa set high on a sand dune where the King's secretary lived. The
house was dark, but in the library at the rear there was a light. He
stumbled along the paths beside the house, and reached at last, after
interminable miles, when the path sometimes came up almost to his eyes
and again fell away so that it seemed to drop from under his feet--at
last he reached the long French doors, with their drawn curtains. He
opened the door suddenly and thereby surprised the secretary, who was a
most dignified and rather nervous gentleman, into laying his hand on a
heavy inkwell.