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Then, suddenly aware of what she had confessed, she leaned back and covered her face with her hands. "Lorraine!" he whispered, brokenly. But they were already at the Château. "Lorraine, my child!" cried Madame de Morteyn, leaning from the terrace.
"Lorraine is a very sweet but a very uncertain girl," replied Madame de Morteyn. She led him through the great bay-window opening on the terrace, drew his easy-chair before his desk, placed the journals before him, and, stooping, kissed him. "If you want me, send Charles. I really ought to be with the young people a moment. I wonder why Ricky must leave?" "How far away are you going, Helen?"
She raised her beautiful eyes and asked him how soon he was going to start. "Now," he said. "You will perhaps wait until your old aunt rises," said Madame de Morteyn, and she kissed him on the cheek. He helped her from her chair and led her from the room, the vicomte following with Lorraine. Ten minutes later he was ready to start, and again he promised Lorraine to return at eleven o'clock.
And you are the young nephew of the Vicomte de Morteyn, and that is the little châtelaine De Nesville! Coeur Dieu! Have the Prussians brutalized you, too? Answer me, Monsieur Marche I know you and I know the little châtelaine oh, I know! I, who have watched you at your pretty love-making there in the De Nesville forest, while I was setting my snares for pheasants and hares! Dame! One must live!
"Not if you're going Prussian-hunting across the Rhine. When you come back crowned with bay and laurel and pretzels, you can stop at Morteyn." They nodded and clasped hands. "Au revoir!" laughed Georges. "What shall I bring you from Berlin?" "I'm no Herod," replied Jack; "bring back your own feather-head safely that's all I ask."
At evening, too, when the old vicomte slept on his pillow and the last light went out in the stables, Our Lady of Morteyn saw a very young man sitting, with his head in his hands, at her feet; and he took no harm from the cold stones, because Our Lady of Morteyn is gentle and gracious, and the summer nights were hot in the province of Lorraine. There had been little stir or excitement in Morteyn.
Jack Marche tucked his gun under his arm and turned away along the overgrown wood-road that stretched from the De Nesville forests to the more open woods of Morteyn. He walked slowly, puffing his pipe, pondering over his encounter with the châtelaine of the Château de Nesville.
"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!" "He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against a tree. But she only crouched and took him in her arms, eyes closed, and lips for the first time crushed to his. The glare from the Château Morteyn, now wrapped in torrents of curling flame, threw long crimson shafts of light far into the forest.
So Lorraine, having grown wise in a week, pardoned Jack mentally. Outwardly it was otherwise, and Jack became aware that the atmosphere was uncomfortably charged with lightning. It gleamed a moment in her eyes ere her lips opened. "Take your dog-cart and go back to Morteyn," said Lorraine, quietly. "Let me stay; I am ashamed," he said, turning red.
"I'll stay, too," said Sir Thorald, eagerly; "Cecil and Molly can take the children to Paris; Madame de Morteyn, you really should go also." She leaned back and shook her head decisively. "Then you will both come, you and Madame de Morteyn?" urged Lady Hesketh of the vicomte. The old man hesitated. His wife smiled.
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