Lorraine. Robert W. ChambersЧитать онлайн книгу.
is easy to understand now," she said.
"Yes, easy to understand. They want me for war correspondent."
"Are you going?"
"I don't know—" He hesitated, trying to see her eyes in the darkness. "I don't know; shall you stay here in the Moselle Valley?"
"Yes—I suppose so."
"You are very near the Rhine."
"There will be—there shall be no invasion," she said, feverishly. "France also ends at the Rhine; let them look to their own!"
She moved impatiently, stepped from the stones to the damp gravel, and walked slowly across the misty lawn. He followed, leading the horses behind him and holding his telegram open in his right hand. Presently she looked back over her shoulder, saw him following, and waited.
"Why, will you go as war correspondent?" she asked when he came up, leading the saddled horses.
"I don't know; I was on the Herald staff in New York; they gave me a roving commission, which I enjoyed so much that I resigned and stayed in Paris. I had not dreamed that I should ever be needed—I did not think of anything like this."
"Have you never seen war?"
"Nothing to speak of. I was the Herald's representative at Sadowa, and before that I saw some Kabyles shot in Oran. Where are you going?"
"To the river. We can hear the carriage when it comes, and I want to see the lights of the Château de Nesville."
"From the river? Can you?"
"Yes—the trees are cut away north of the boat-house. Look! I told you so. My father is there alone."
Far away in the night the lights of the Château de Nesville glimmered between the trees, smaller, paler, yellower than the splendid stars that crowned the black vault above the forest.
After a silence she reached out her hand abruptly and took the telegram from between his fingers. In the starlight she read it, once, twice; then raised her head and smiled at him.
"Are you going?"
"I don't know. Yes."
"No," she said, and tore the telegram into bits.
One by one she tossed the pieces on to the bosom of the placid Lisse, where they sailed away towards the Moselle like dim, blue blossoms floating idly with the current.
"Are you angry?" she whispered.
He saw that she was trembling, and that her face had grown very pale.
"What is the matter?" he asked, amazed.
"The matter—the matter is this: I—I—Lorraine de Nesville—am afraid! I am afraid! It is fear—it is fear!"
"Fear?" he asked, gently.
"Yes!" she cried. "Yes, it is fear! I cannot help it—I never before knew it—that I—I could be afraid. Don't—don't leave us—my father and me!" she cried, passionately. "We are so alone there in the house—I fear the forest—I fear—"
She trembled violently; a wolf howled on the distant hill.
"I shall gallop back to the Château de Nesville with you," he said; "I shall be close beside you, riding by your carriage-window. Don't tremble so—Mademoiselle de Nesville."
"It is terrible," she stammered; "I never knew I was a coward."
"You are anxious for your father," he said, quietly; "you are no coward!"
"I am—I tremble—see! I shiver."
"It was the wolf—"
"Ah, yes—the wolf that warned us of war! and the men—that one who made maps; I never could do again what I did! Then I was afraid of nothing; now I fear everything—the howl of that beast on the hill, the wind in the trees, the ripple of the Lisse—C'est plus fort que moi—I am a coward. Listen! Can you hear the carriage?"
"No."
"Listen—ah, listen!"
"It is the noise of the river."
"The river? How black it is! Hark!"
"The wind."
"Hark!"
"The wind again—"
"Look!" She seized his arm frantically. "Look! Oh, what—what was that?"
The report of a gun, faint but clear, came to their ears. Something flashed from the lighted windows of the Château de Nesville—another flash broke out—another—then three dull reports sounded, and the night wind spread the echoes broadcast among the wooded hills.
For a second she stood beside him, white, rigid, speechless; then her little hand crushed his arm and she pushed him violently towards the horses.
"Mount!" she cried; "ride! ride!"
Scarcely conscious of what he did, he backed one of the horses, seized the gathered bridle and mane, and flung himself astride. The horse reared, backed again, and stood stamping. At the same instant he swung about in his saddle and cried, "Go back to the house!"
But she was already in the saddle, guiding the other horse, her silken skirts crushed, her hair flying, sawing at the bridle-bit with gloved fingers. The wind lifted the cloak on her shoulders, her little satin slipper sought one stirrup.
"Ride!" she gasped, and lashed her horse.
He saw her pass him in a whirl of silken draperies streaming in the wind; the swan's-down cloak hid her body like a cloud. In a second he was galloping at her bridle-rein; and both horses, nose to nose and neck to neck, pounded across the gravel drive, wheeled, leaped forward, and plunged down the soft wood road, straight into the heart of the forest. The lace from her corsage fluttered in the air; the lilies at her breast fell one by one, strewing the road with white blossoms. The wind loosened her heavy hair to the neck, seized it, twisted it, and flung it out on the wind. Under the clusters of ribbon on her shoulders there was a gleam of ivory; her long gloves slipped to the wrists; her hair whipped the rounded arms, bare and white below the riotous ribbons, snapping and fluttering on her shoulders; her cloak unclasped at the throat and whirled to the ground, trampled into the forest mould.
They struck a man in the darkness; they heard him shriek; the horses staggered an instant, that was all, except a gasp from the girl, bending with whitened cheeks close to her horse's mane.
"Look out! A lantern!—close ahead!" panted Marche.
The sharp crack of a revolver cut him short, his horse leaped forward, the blood spurting from its neck.
"Are you hit?" he cried.
"No! no! Ride!"
Again and again, but fainter and fainter, came the crack! crack! of the revolver, like a long whip snapped in the wind.
"Are you hit?" he asked again.
"Yes, it is nothing! Ride!"
In the darkness and confusion of the plunging horses he managed to lean over to her where she bent in her saddle; and, on one white, round shoulder, he saw the crimson welt of a bullet, from which the blood was welling up out of the satin skin.
And now, in the gloom, the park wall loomed up along the river, and he shouted for the lodge-keeper, rising in his stirrups; but the iron gate swung wide, and the broad, empty avenue stretched up to the Château.
They galloped up to the door; he slipped from his horse, swung Lorraine to the ground, and sprang up the low steps. The door was open, the long hall brilliantly lighted.
"It is I—Lorraine!" cried the girl. A tall, bearded man burst in from a room on the left, clutching a fowling-piece.
"Lorraine! They've got the box! The balloon secret was in it!" he groaned; "they are in the