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CHAPTER XXIV

The rear-guard of the Grand Army fared worse and worse as the days and weeks passed, its numbers diminished until there remained but a straggling remnant which crept into Vilna, only to be chased out again within a few hours of their arrival there. Louise, in her captain's epaulettes, was still alive and well, though thin and haggard almost beyond recognition for want of good food and rest.

At Vilna she came across several officers of Henri d'Estreville's Lancer regiment, and these she questioned—in terror for their reply—in hopes of news of her friend, who was not with them.

"D'Estreville?" cried one of them, laughing grimly. "Where is he, you ask? I should say that depends, for those who believe in a future existence, upon his past life. Henri was the best of bons camarades, but it may be that good comradeship is a quality which is not highly valued by those who will make up our accounts!"

"Do you mean," poor Louise murmured, "that he has actually died; did you see him die, or was he merely wounded? If so, where has he remained?"

"My friend," said the other, "I did not see him struck down; I know nothing of him. In these days, one thanks God if one is alive at sundown and not buried by these accursed Russian snows, with a thrice-damned Cossack bullet to keep one company. There is no time for friendship and philanthropy and so on."

"He is my dearest friend," Louise murmured; "if only I knew where he had fallen, I would return."

"Mon ami, hell is behind us, in the shape of Platof and Chechakof and their most damnable Cossacks. You would find it even more impossible to go backward than forward. Your friend may be alive and well for aught I know. Can either of you give this gentleman any information?"

"Who is it he wants—one of ours?" asked a second officer who sat by the stove almost too exhausted to eat the mess of stewed horseflesh which had been set before him.

Louise mentioned Henri's name.

"I saw him alive in the forest of Gusinof," said the man; "that is where Platof ambushed us and we got finally separated. He may be a prisoner, or of course Platof's devils may have cut him to pieces; he would not be the only one that died in that accursed wood, not by two thousand! That was the most detestable night I ever spent. Go and look for him in the forest, my friend, if your affection will carry you to so great a length. Good Lord! It is a thing David would have refused to do for Jonathan!" The weary man laughed and filled his mouth with the savoury horseflesh.

"If you are wise," he added, with his mouth still half full, "you will get to Paris the best and quickest way you can, and hope that your friend will find his way there also! Sapristi, it is not likely that either he or you or any of us will get much farther than this. Listen—is that the Cossacks already? Curse them, I must sleep or go mad!"

Fagged, dazed, starved, desperate, the unfortunate rear-guard, led by their indomitable chief, straggled forward. Dogged by hordes of pitiless Cossacks they contrived eventually to reach the river Niemen, and to cross into safety, the last survivors of Napoleon's army; their miserable story is well known and need not be recapitulated.

Louise seemed to bear a charmed life. Though, believing that Henri d'Estreville was among the large majority of the Grande Armée lying beneath the snows of Russia, she would gladly have remained, like her lover, among the ten who stayed behind rather than be the one who escaped—for of Napoleon's half million of men scarcely a tithe returned to their homes—yet Louise saw her companions fall around her and never a bullet touched her or a sword or a spear grazed her.

"You and I are wonders, Prevost," said her colonel. "Are we preserved for great military careers, think you? Nom d'un Maréchal, I think I could be another Ney if I had the opportunity! Sapristi, he is splendid!"

"As for me, I have done with war," Louise sighed. "My days of fighting are over."

"Why, you are but a lad—a conscript of 1812; the year is only now ending and you wear a captain's epaulettes! Nonsense, my son, go home and rest and dream of glory; you will tell a different tale when you have recovered."

Then Louise walked one day into her father's salon while the old man, with Marie, sat and listened as young Havet read out Napoleon's latest bulletin. The Emperor had been in Paris for some little while, having deserted his army, and was already busy with his new project of raising 300,000 men, in order to regain the prestige he had undoubtedly lost in the disastrous Moscow campaign.

"Stop, Havet, who is this that enters without knocking?" exclaimed old Dupré angrily; his temper had not improved of late, owing to the reverses of the French arms and the absence of news of Louise, as to whose safety neither his heart nor his conscience was at rest. Marie uttered a cry of delight. "Father, it is Louise!" she screamed. "Louise—sister. Oh, how thin, how worn, how–"

The sisters embraced one another warmly; old Dupré held his daughter to his heart, endeavouring, after his manner, to suppress every sign of emotion. His arms came in contact with her epaulettes. "Why," he cried, "Marie, Havet, see what is here, the epaulettes of an officer; Louise, you have won promotion—glory—is it not so?"

"I received a commission; what glory can any one claim—on our side—and such a war! There must be officers, nine in ten were killed; do not talk of the war, my father; are you well?"

The old man gazed at his daughter in pride and exultation.

"Listen to her modesty—no glory, says she; a little conscript returns a captain, and no glory! Hola, there, Havet, order food and wine. Mon Dieu, Louise, you have seen adversity, you are thin and in rags, to-morrow you shall have new uniform!—the Emperor already assembles a new army to chastise these Cossacks. Mort de ma vie, my daughter, you shall die a marshal, I swear it!"

Louise did not think it necessary to chill the old man's happiness by telling him that to-morrow she would return to the ordinary costume of her sex; that she was sick of man's attire and of war and all that appertained to the profession of arms; that she was, indeed, weary of life itself and longed to be where Henri d'Estreville was, at rest among the frozen pine-trees in some snow-covered Russian forest.

The evening proved a painful one for Louise, who did her best, however, to maintain a cheerful demeanour, while her father—to whom this was, perhaps, the happiest hour of his life—held forth upon his favourite theme of glory and honour and a marshal's baton in store for Louise, and so forth. Young Havet was to take part in the coming war; if possible he should enlist in Michel Prevost's regiment (the old man laughed heartily as he pronounced the name!), and perhaps Louise would do her best to assist him in his military career.

When the trying evening was over and Louise parted with her sister for the night, Marie took her aside.

"You are depressed, sister, what ails you?" she said. "Oh, I can see plainly that all is not well. Are you ill in body?"

"I am worn and weary, sister; yes, I am depressed; who would not be, that has seen the sights that I have seen since Moscow?"

"Ah—ah! You are not so much in love with war as father would have you?"

"In love with war—bah! It is devil's work, Marie, unsuccessful war, at any rate."

"Tell me, sister, have you seen Henri d'Estreville, is he well?"

Louise flushed and caught at the chair back. "Yes, I have seen him many times. I know not whether I shall see him again. Who can tell who has returned and who not? Nine in each ten have remained."

"Oh, sister, and you love him—is it not so?"

"Love—bah! One has other things to think of than love when one is running in front of the Cossack sabres. Let us talk no more of the war, sister, nor yet of love; let me thank le bon Dieu that I have done both with one and the other; I would rest and rest and again rest."

"Poor Louise," said Marie, kissing her; "poor Louise!"

Afterwards she added, speaking of this to her husband, that Louise must indeed have supped her fill of horrors since even love had been forgotten in the tumults and terrors of war.

Louise submitted to be presented with a new uniform, which her father bought for her the very next day. She would rather have donned her woman's skirt, but for several reasons she consented to figure a while at least as Michel Prevost. One of these was the distaste she felt in her present condition of weakness and utter fatigue of mind and body for any sort of argument or discussion with her father. Another was an irresistible desire to move among those who had returned from the war, in order that she might gather any information there might be with regard to the fate of Henri.

Louise had not altogether despaired of him. Soldiers and officers still dribbled daily into Paris, emaciated, tattered, half-alive; men who had somehow lagged, through wounds or illness, and had contrived to escape the countless dangers which assailed them in their solitary retreat through a hostile country. Why should not Henri have escaped, like others? She would allow herself to hope a little; just a very little.

And about a month after her own arrival a wonderful day dawned for her. Seated at a restaurant close to a table at which sat four officers of Henri's regiment, Louise suddenly caught the sound of his name.

"That makes seven alive," some one was saying; "one better than we thought. Certainly no one could have supposed that D'Estreville would reappear. His has been, I think, the narrowest escape of all. His trials have depressed even his spirit. Have any of you ever seen Henri depressed? He will be here, presently, you shall judge for yourselves. Sapristi! he has left his gaiety with all Ney's guns in the Niemen. Seven officers out of forty–"

Flushed, giddy, almost swooning for joy, Louise stumbled out of the restaurant. "I will return immediately," she told the astonished waiter.

CHAPTER XXV

If any one had informed Henri d'Estreville on the morning when, departing for the war, he took a somewhat affectionate farewell of Louise Dupré, that his strange sensation of particular tenderness for the girl would not only prove an abiding sensation, but would actually develop into something remarkably like the tender passion itself, and that without any further communication, meanwhile, with the object of his affection, he would have laughed the idea to scorn.

It was not in accordance with Henri's temperament that his heart should linger over soft recollections of charms which his eyes no longer beheld. If Chloe were absent, Phyllis, who was present, would fill her place excellently well. No woman had as yet proved herself essential to him. He took his pleasure from the society of the other sex where and when he found it, and this sufficed.

But somehow the memory of Louise had lingered. Perhaps the combination of certain womanly qualities with her splendid skill and courage in manly exercises had impressed him. Certainly he had not forgotten her magnificent eyes, he often recalled these when his recollection of her other features had faded. Louise had made no secret of her preference for Henri over every other man of her acquaintance. That alone, however, would not have greatly attracted the Baron, for he was a favourite with the sex, and Louise was not the first who had been simple enough to lay bare to him her heart of hearts.

"I am a fool," thought Henri; "but there is no doubt that I wish to see her. Perhaps the best medicine for my sickness will be to do so as soon as possible. Probably the first glance will disenchant me. I have somehow, and most foolishly, so embellished my recollections of her that I am remembering an ideality! The reality will soon set me right again!"

Thus it was that one morning as old Pierre sat with his daughter Marie, Louise being absent with Karl Havet, a servant announced the Baron Henri d'Estreville.

"Who is he?" said old Pierre, frowning; "I do not remember to have had a pupil of that name!"

"Ask the Baron to wait a moment in the salon," said Marie. "Do you not remember, father?" she continued, laughing, when the servant had disappeared. "This is a very beautiful young man, and in one respect at least, unique as well."

"Unique?" repeated Dupré; "and how so?"

"In that he is the only male being who ever succeeded in causing our Louise an extra pulse-beat or two. Have you forgotten how she nearly lost her heart, and how distressed you were, just before her departure for the war?"

"Sapristi—I remember the fool. What has he come for, think you?"

"To seek Louise, doubtless. He will find that she is none the softer for her warfaring. I am not sorry she is from home, however, the sight of him might not be good for her, mon père. It would be a pity if her career were spoiled for the sake of a Henri d'Estreville, who, they say, is not too trustworthy."

"Oho!" said old Pierre; "is it so? He shall know that there is no longer a Louise Dupré to listen to his philandering."

This attitude did not bode well for Monsieur le Baron, who awaited Louise in the salon, more agitated than he would have believed possible.

"Monsieur will doubtless remember me," he explained; "it was I who brought Monsieur Paul de Tourelle, the only fencer—it is said—at whose hands Mademoiselle Louise was ever worsted."

"Ah, his was a fine hand with the foils!" said Pierre. "Yes, I remember well. Ha ha! in the first bout she scored twice with the feint flanconnade Dupré—a trick new to him and most successful; but after consideration he thought out a counter which was clever; I remember well. Does Monsieur le Baron come now as a pupil? Let me see, have we already enjoyed the honour of instructing Monsieur le Baron?"

"Monsieur, I have lately returned from the war; I have heard enough of the clash of swords to last me handsomely until the Emperor enters upon a new enterprise and one, let us hope, of better omen. I have come to pay my respects to a friend for whom I entertain feelings of the highest respect—it is Mademoiselle your daughter."

"Ah—Marie; she is within; I will tell her." Old Dupré shuffled off as though to fetch Marie.

"Pardon, Monsieur," said Henri, blushing; the old man was very dense. "You have another daughter; it is Mademoiselle Louise I mean!"

"Louise!" exclaimed Dupré, throwing up his hands; "Monsieur le Baron has not then heard that Louise is dead?"

"Grand Dieu, Monsieur, what are you saying?" exclaimed Henri; his cheek grew suddenly pale; his knees seemed to tremble beneath him; he had risen to his feet, but he sat down again hurriedly.

"She is dead, Monsieur; Louise is dead; she has ceased to exist; do I not express myself with sufficient clearness?"

"Monsieur will pardon my emotion—I had not heard," murmured Henri scarcely audibly. "My God, it is incredible; it is horrible; and I have so looked forward—Monsieur, how long since did this most lamentable event happen?"

"Nearly a year, Monsieur. I fail to remember that Monsieur's acquaintance with my daughter was particularly intimate."

"Monsieur Dupré," said Henri, finding his voice, "I did not mention the circumstance when I was here in May last for the reason that I had not then myself realised it; but it is nevertheless the truth that, short as was my acquaintance with Mademoiselle Louise, it was long enough to convince me that my heart had in Mademoiselle found its intimate, its complement, that in a word I loved Mademoiselle and must lay at her feet my life, my happiness. Monsieur, I was presumptuous enough to think that your daughter was not indifferent to me; her young heart had never, I believe, been assailed; I had the greatest hopes that she would listen favourably to my suit—we should, perhaps, have enjoyed wedded bliss; and I return to be informed by you that she is dead."

"Monsieur le Baron will forgive me," said old Dupré, "but those who know me are well aware that such matters as Monsieur speaks of meet with no sympathetic response from my side. It is my grievance against Destiny, Monsieur, that my children should have been females; Monsieur had not heard this? It is the truth. Consequently, having brought up my daughters as men and taught them the highest skill in manly exercises and to value such attainments more highly than the usual avocations of women, I have ever observed with repugnance any indications of a falling away of either of the girls towards the ordinary womanly foolishness of a desire for love and courtship and such things. Which being the case, Monsieur, I can only reply to your rhapsodical utterances by saying that I thank Heaven Louise ceased to exist in time. I would not have had her exposed to such a declaration as you intended, I suppose, to make to her this day, for ten times the inducements Monsieur could offer."

Henri was silent. The old man's lack of sympathy mattered very little beside the greater fact: the fact of the death of Louise, which Henri felt to be a disaster of the first magnitude; too great, indeed, to be altogether realised so suddenly. Here was a grievance against Destiny, indeed! For once in his life the Baron had come very near to falling honestly in love, and this was the result; it was too appalling, too unfortunate for belief.

"Mademoiselle must have died soon after I left for the war," he murmured. "Was she long ill, Monsieur?"

"Louise died at the beginning of the war, Monsieur; she ceased to exist, I remember, on the day of the conscription in this quartier; her end was sudden; there was no illness."

"She did not, I suppose, leave messages for friends; words of remembrance and so forth—there was not time, perhaps?"

"Doubtless there was neither time nor inclination, Monsieur. Louise was happily but little disposed towards those follies of womankind to which I have made allusion."

"Pardon, Monsieur, I had reason to hope that in my own case Mademoiselle Louise had made an exception."

"Not so, Monsieur; believe me, you are mistaken."

"I think not, Monsieur. I may tell you, since Mademoiselle is dead and I break no confidence, that she had even confessed her love for me."

"Then, Sapristi, Monsieur le Baron, I repeat ten thousand times," cried old Pierre, banging the table with his fist, "that I thank Heaven my daughter ceased to exist before your return from the war. Monsieur le Baron will now understand my sentiments in this matter and will, I trust, for the future retain inviolate the secret he has been good enough to share with me."

Henri bowed and prepared to depart. The man was obviously crazy. Probably the death of Louise had overbalanced his reason. Henri remembered that he had heard long ago of his eccentricity with regard to his daughters and their sex.

"Monsieur will pardon my intrusion," he said politely; "he may rest assured that the secret made over to him shall henceforward remain inviolate in my breast."

When old Pierre returned to his daughter his face betrayed that he was in the best of spirits. He entered the room laughing and swearing round oaths.

"Âme de mon Épée!" he exclaimed; "I think we shall have no more visits from this suitor. The devil! He would have carried Louise from under our noses if we and she had been fools enough to let him. Thanks be to Heaven that Louise—if ever for a moment she wavered, as you seem to suppose—quickly recovered her balance. It was your example, Marie, fool that you made of yourself!" Marie laughed.

"You will sing a different song, my father," she said, "when you have a houseful of little grandsons to educate in the art of the sword. What did you tell the Baron?"

"The old tale—the same which we have told others, that Louise died long since. She 'ceased to exist,' that was my expression. Sapristi, it is the truth! Louise ceased to exist when Michel Prevost came into existence—is it not so? Ha! so it is!"

CHAPTER XXVI

Henri d'Estreville sat at his midday meal at the restaurant specially frequented by the officers of his regiment. He wore the aspect of one who is more than ordinarily depressed. He was pale and distrait and neglected the food which had been placed before him.

Several acquaintances entered the room and saluted him as they passed, but he took no notice of them.

"What ails D'Estreville?" men asked one another. "Is it cards or a woman?"

Among others there entered presently Michel Prevost, who was known to very few, having but lately qualified for the right to sit at meals with the class of men mostly frequenting this eating-house and others of its kind.

Michel looked round and saw Henri d'Estreville. His face flushed and then paled. He sat down on the nearest seat to gather breath and strength. Michel had almost despaired of his friend since the terrible day at Vilna, when the remnant of Ney's division, tattered and war-worn, had marched into the town like men returning from the grave; when he had looked and inquired for Henri among the rest and found him not. Even when he had heard it said, this very morning, that the Baron had reappeared, he had scarcely dared to believe it. For five minutes he sat still, not daring to move or speak. At last he rose from his seat, and advancing from behind came up and touched the Baron's shoulder.

"So you, too, have reached home in safety, mon ami!" he said. "You have returned from the grave indeed! Do you not know that we mourned you for dead? Allow me to share your table? I am a little shy of these super-aristocratic persons in times of peace; in the field the devil may care how many airs they put on; but here it is different. My commission feels new and strange to me; I am afraid at every moment that some one will say 'What right have you here? go out!'" Michel talked quickly, to conceal his agitation. Henri looked up and gave Michel his hand, smiling.

"Yes, I found my way home somehow," he said; "yet for all the joy I feel in living I wish to God I had stayed beneath the Russian snows."

Michel gazed at his friend in amazement.

"Why—what mean you—what has happened?" he asked.

"Michel, mon ami, you have been a good friend to me; you will sympathise; it will do me good to tell you; listen. Have I your permission to bore you with my tale of woe?"

"Yes—speak—who knows, I may be able to counsel you, give you relief–"

"No, it is impossible. Listen, my friend. You may remember our first meeting, when I lay wounded at Smolensk, I spoke confidentially—you will call it raving, I daresay—the subject, women; I confessed many things foolish and wicked; I spoke of one pure sentiment; of the love, strange and unfamiliar, because pure and disinterested, that I cherished for a very simple, very charming maiden whose name–"

"Was Mathilde—was it not?—or Louise; one of the daughters of a maître d'armes."

"Yes; Louise; you professed to know her—to have heard of her, at any rate. Well, let that pass then. It is strange, my friend, but my affection in that quarter has not vanished after the fashion of the wretched sentiment I have hitherto felt for other women, which has evaporated when the object is absent. On the contrary, it has increased in absence. I returned home to Paris inclined, certainly, to love the girl even more than I loved her at parting; a wonderful thing for me, Michel, mon brave, and very remarkable." Henri smiled ruefully at his friend.

"Continue," said Michel, whose face looked pale, perhaps in sympathy with that of his companion.

"Well, I return. I go, almost the first available moment, to see my charming one. I enter the house, my heart glowing with love and sweet anticipation. I am received by her father, who is cold, polite, long-winded, unsympathetic. I ask for Louise–" Henri paused; his fingers tapped upon the table; his voice had grown suddenly hoarse; there was actually moisture in his eyes.

"Continue," murmured Michel, who wondered what was coming, for all this was a surprise to him, neither Dupré nor Marie having breathed a word of the visit of Baron Henri.

"I ask for Louise," D'Estreville continued. "She is dead."

"Dead?" exclaimed Michel, suddenly rising to his feet and pushing back his chair with a clatter. "Who said so? Why dead? What mean you?"

Michel was never so grateful to destiny as at this moment, for he was able to ease his feelings by an exhibition of genuine surprise. But for that he must soon have burst into tears.

"Simply that she is dead. It is true, my friend. 'She is dead,' said her parent, and 'since it appears you come as a lover and would have stolen from me my daughter who should be above such feminine foolishness as love and marriage, I add my thanks to the Highest that she has ceased to exist in time'—these are the very words of her father, whose throat I could have pinched with satisfaction. What say you, mon ami, have I the right to be distressed? By all the Saints, Michel, it is too cruel a trick of Destiny. I could have loved this girl. God knows, I might even have married her. Never before have I felt so fondly disposed towards a woman, never so virtuous. I believe this was true love, my friend, or the beginning of it."

"Nom de la Guerre!" exclaimed Michel. "And she is dead, say you—the father himself declared it?"

"I have said so. 'She ceased to exist'—that was his odd manner of expressing it; 'she ceased to exist on the day of conscription'; it is odd how the crazy old man dates naturally from that day; he is mad upon men; he loves only men, honours men, thinks men; women are nothing to him. You would suppose he would be affected in speaking of the death of his daughter; but no! It seemed that her loss is nothing to him. Why? because she was not a man."

To Henri's surprise and displeasure Michel at this point suddenly burst into a roar of laughter. He looked up frowning.

"I beg ten thousand pardons," cried Michel, half choking; "I am not wanting in sympathy, mon ami; but in truth the attitude and words of this old man are very comical. Forgive me, Baron, I was very rude."

"Enough. I would laugh also if I had the heart. Certainly the old man is a lunatic. Tell me, Michel; what shall I do? What is going on? I shall die of ennui if I sit and nurse my grief, as now. Thanks to Heaven that you have arrived; it may be that the Saints sent you for my salvation, as before at Smolensk. Come, suggest. I must be made amused; must laugh. I must see movement of men and women."

"Ha! you are not so overwhelmed by your grief, I see, that you cannot feel the desire for amusement. That is a good sign, Baron; you will soon recover, I prophesy."

"A good sign, say you? There is no question of recovery. You are far from the truth, my friend. It is distraction that I need. I do not yet ask to be cured, that would be impossible."

"That depends! The rapidity of the healing depends upon the severity or otherwise of the wound. Yours is, I take it, but a shallow slash."

"Michel, you wound me again by these words. I need distraction; but that does not imply that I am not almost heart-broken, which I verily believe that I am. You, who have never been in love, are unable to appreciate the anguish of having loved and lost."

"Thanks be to Heaven I have never yet loved woman in that foolish manner," said Michel. "You are right, my friend. Tell me, is it worth while to love when an accident, such as this from which you now suffer, may in an instant turn love to misery? Is there any woman in this world for whose sake it is worth while to break one's heart?"

"I thought the same but a short while since. You are young, Michel; do not boast. One day you too will love."

"Absit omen!" laughed the other. "I say that there is no woman worth loving; worth, that is, breaking one's heart over, in case she should prove unfaithful, or die or what not."

"And I say that one such, at least, there has been. Do not speak so positively, Michel, my friend, of matters in which you are altogether ignorant."

"Well, have it your own way; but I swear that I, for one, shall never love a woman."

"I am sorry that my grief has had so deterrent an effect upon you," Henri sighed, "though I will not say that I am surprised; for indeed, now that I have lost her before she was won, I wish with all my heart I had never seen her. Like you, I am tempted to swear that I shall never give my heart of hearts to another woman."

"Oh, oh!" laughed Michel. "That is not easily believed; for they say that once a heart has become susceptible to womankind there is no more controlling its vagaries. Be sure, my friend, that we shall find you falling in love, and maybe far more seriously than before, with the first fair lady you see."

Henri looked reproachfully at his friend.

"Let us talk of other things," he said; "it is too early as yet to make of love a jesting matter; my heart is sorer than you think, Michel, or perhaps you would speak more sympathetically. Remember that my grief is as yet very green."

"Forgive me," said Michel, a softer look stealing into his eyes. "I will jest no more. Come, we will walk in the streets of Paris; Sapristi! it is better than Moscow, ha?"