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Madame de Morteyn came to take her away, but before he dropped her hand in the shadows he felt a pressure that said, "Wait!" so he waited, there alone in the darkness.
"I'm only a special," he said; "I think you'll find the papers in order if not, you've only to gallop back to the Château Morteyn to verify them." An officer with a bewildering series of silver arabesques on either sleeve guided a nervous horse through the throng of troopers, returned Jack's pleasant salute, reached out a gloved hand for his papers, and read them, sitting silently in his saddle.
It was ten o'clock the next morning before he appeared at breakfast, and it was plain, even to the thrush on the lawn outside, that he had bestowed an elaboration upon his toilet that suggested either a duel or a wedding. Madame de Morteyn hid her face, for she could not repress the smile that tormented her sweet mouth. Even the vicomte said: "Oh! You're not off for Paris, Jack, are you?"
He longed to follow the shallow stream, wading to Morteyn, but he dared not risk it; so he went along the bank as far as he could, trying to keep within sound of the waters, until again he found himself close to the park wall. The stream had vanished again. Dawn began to gray the forest; little by little the nearest trees grew from the darkness, and bushes took vague shapes in the gloom.
"Who is in command here?" asked Jack, turning to a handsome dragoon officer who stood leaning on his sabre, the horse-hair crinière blowing about his helmet. "Why, General Farron!" said the officer in surprise. "Farron!" repeated Jack; "is he back from Africa, here in France here at Morteyn?" "He is at the Château de Nesville," said the officer, smiling. "You seem to know him, monsieur."
Lorraine bent nearer as the old man said: "The Château de Nesville is a mass of cinders; Morteyn, a stone skeleton. Pierre is dead. There are many dead there many, many dead. The Prussians burned Saint-Lys yesterday; they shot Bosquet, the letter-carrier; they hung his boy to the railroad trestle, then shot him to pieces.
Lorraine was very wide-awake now she was excited by the stir and the brilliant uniforms. She unconsciously took command, too, feeling that she should act the hostess in the absence of Madame de Morteyn.
This was to be Lorraine's last night at Morteyn; in the morning Jack was to drive her back to her father and then return to Morteyn to accompany his uncle and aunt to Paris. The old people once settled in Paris with Dorothy and Betty Castlemaine, and surrounded by friends again, Jack would take leave of them and return to Morteyn with one servant.
The French infantry had been pouring into Morteyn since late afternoon; they had entered the park when he entered, driving his tumbril with its blood-stained burden; they had turned the river into a moat, the meadow into an earthwork, the Château itself into a fortress.
His aunt and uncle had gone on to Paris; Lorraine's father was dead and her home had been turned into a fort. Saint-Lys was heavily occupied by the Germans, and they held the railroad also in their possession. It seemed out of the question to stay in Morteyn with Lorraine, for an assault on the Château was imminent. How could he get her to Paris? That was the only place for her now.