The dissolution of the marriage was a great tie between them.So much that, seeing how much she looked up to Raynal, the doctor said one day to the baroness, "If I know anything of human nature, they will marry again, provided none of you give her a hint which way her heart is turning."They, who have habituated themselves to live for others, can suffer as well as do great things.Josephine kept alive.A passion such as hers, in a selfish nature, must have killed her.
Even as it was, she often said, "It is hard to live."Then they used to talk to her of her boy.Would she leave him--Camille's boy--without a mother? And these words were never spoken to her quite in vain.
Her mother forgave her entirely, and loved her as before.Who could be angry with her long? The air was no longer heavy with lies.
Wretched as she was, she breathed lighter.Joy and hope were gone.
Sorrowful peace was coming.When the heart comes to this, nothing but Time can cure; but what will not Time do? What wounds have Iseen him heal! His cures are incredible.
The little party sat one day, peaceful, but silent and sad, in the Pleasaunce, under the great oak.
Two soldiers came to the gate.They walked feebly, for one was lame, and leaned upon the other, who was pale and weak, and leaned upon a stick.
"Soldiers," said Raynal, "and invalided.""Give them food and wine," said Josephine.
Rose went towards them; but she had scarcely taken three steps ere she cried out,--"It is Dard! it is poor Dard! Come in, Dard, come in."Dard limped towards them, leaning upon Sergeant La Croix.A bit of Dard's heel had been shot away, and of La Croix's head.
Rose ran to the kitchen.
"Jacintha, bring out a table into the Pleasaunce, and something for two guests to eat."The soldiers came slowly to the Pleasaunce, and were welcomed, and invited to sit down, and received with respect; for France even in that day honored the humblest of her brave.
Soon Jacintha came out with a little round table in her hands, and affected a composure which was belied by her shaking hands and her glowing cheek.
After a few words of homely welcome--not eloquent, but very sincere--she went off again with her apron to her eyes.She reappeared with the good cheer, and served the poor fellows with radiant zeal.
"What regiment?" asked Raynal.
Dard was about to answer, but his superior stopped him severely;then, rising with his hand to his forehead, he replied, with pride, "Twenty-fourth brigade, second company.We were cut up at Philipsburg, and incorporated with the 12th."Raynal instantly regretted his question; for Josephine's eye fixed on Sergeant La Croix with an expression words cannot paint.Yet she showed more composure, real or forced, than he expected.
"Heaven sends him," said she."My friend, tell me, were you--ah!"Colonel Raynal interfered hastily."Think what you do.He can tell you nothing but what we know, not so much, in fact, as we know; for, now I look at him, I think this is the very sergeant we found lying insensible under the bastion.He must have been struck before the bastion was taken even.""I was, colonel, I was.I remember nothing but losing my senses, and feeling the colors go out of my hand.""There, you see, he knows nothing," said Raynal.
"It was hot work, colonel, under that bastion, but it was hotter to the poor fellows that got in.I heard all about it from Private Dard here.""So, then, it was you who carried the colors?""Yes, I was struck down with the colors of the brigade in my hand,"cried La Croix.
"See how people blunder about, everything; they told me the colonel carried the colors.""Why, of course he did.You don't think our colonel, the fighting colonel, would let me hold the colors of the brigade so long as he was alive.No; he was struck by a Prussian bullet, and he had just time to hand the colors to me, and point with his sword to the bastion, and down he went.It was hot work, I can tell you.I did not hold them long, not thirty seconds, and if we could know their history, they passed through more hands than that before they got to the Prussian flag-staff."Raynal suddenly rose, and walked rapidly to and fro, with his hands behind him.
"Poor colonel!" continued La Croix."Well, I love to think he died like a soldier, and not like some of my poor comrades, hashed to atoms, and not a volley fired over him.I hope they put a stone over him, for he was the best soldier and the best general in the army.""O sir!" cried Josephine, "there is no stone even to mark the spot where he fell," and she sobbed despairingly.
"Why, how is this, Private Dard?" inquired La Croix, sternly.
Dard apologized for his comrade, and touching his own head significantly told them that since his wound the sergeant's memory was defective.
"Now, sergeant, didn't I tell you the colonel must have got the better of his wound, and got into the battery?""It's false, Private Dard; don't I know our colonel better than that? Would ever he have let those colors out of his hand, if there had been an ounce of life left in him?""He died at the foot of the battery, I tell you.""Then why didn't we find him?"
Here Jacintha put in a word with the quiet subdued meaning of her class."I can't find that anybody ever saw the colonel dead.""They did not find him, because they did not look for him," said Sergeant La Croix.
"God forgive you, sergeant!" said Dard, with some feeling."Not look for OUR COLONEL! We turned over every body that lay there,--full thirty there were,--and you were one of them.""Only thirty! Why, we settled more Prussians than that, I'll swear.""Oh! they carried off their dead."
