Not till then did he carry her into the lamplight by Philip's bed,
and scan therein every feature, to satisfy his eyes with the
fulfilled hope that had borne him through those darkest days, when,
despairing of the mother, the thought of the child had still
sustained him to throw his will into the balance of the scale
between life and death. Little Berangere gazed up into his face
silently, with wondering, grave, and somewhat sleepy eyes, and then
he saw them fix themselves on his powder-grimed and blood-stained
hands. 'Ah! little heart,' he said, 'I am truly in no state to
handle so pure a piece of sugar as thou; I should have rid myself
of the battle-stains ere touching thee, but how recollect anything
at such a moment?' Eustacie was glad he had broken the spell of silence; for having
recovered her husband, her first instinct was to wait upon him.
She took the child from him, explaining that she was going to put
her to bed in her own rooms up the stone stair, which for the
present were filled with fugitive women and children who had come
in from the country, so that the chancel must continue the lodging
of Berenger and his brother; and for the time of her absence she
brought him water to wash away the stains, and set before him the
soup she had kept warm over her little charcoal brazier. It was
only when thus left that he could own, in answer to Philip's
inquiries, that he could feel either hunger or weariness; nay, he
would only acknowledge enough of the latter to give a perfect charm
to rest under such auspices. Eustacie had dispatched her motherly
cares promptly enough to be with him again just as in taking off
his corselet he had found that it had been pierced by a bullet, and
pursuing the trace, through his doublet, he found it lodged in that
purse which he had so long worn next his heart, where it had spent
its force against the single pearl of Ribaumont. And holding it up
to the light, he saw that it was of silver. Then there returned on
him and Philip the words they had heard two days before, of silver
bullets forged for the destruction of the white moonlight fairy,
and he further remembered the moment's shock and blow that in the
midst of his wild amaze on the river's bank had made him gather his
breath and strength to bound desperately upwards, lest the next
moment he should find himself wounded and powerless.
For the innocent, then, had the shot been intended; and she running
into danger out of her sweet, tender instincts of helpfulness, had
been barely saved at the extreme peril of her unconscious father's
life. Philip, whose vehement affection for the little one had been
growing all day, was in the act of telling Berenger to string the
bullet in the place of the injured pearl, as the most precious
heirloom of Ribaumont bravery, when Eustacie returned, and learning
all, grew pale and shuddered as danger had never made her do
before: but this strange day had almost made a coward of her.