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.




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