The paper was thin, and Camille, whose hand trembled, had some difficulty in detaching the leaves from one another.He succeeded, however, at last, and went on reading and writhing.
"By the way, you must address your next letter to me as Colonel Raynal.I was promoted just before this last affair, but had not time to tell you; and my wound stopped my writing till now.""There, there!" cried the baroness."He was Colonel Raynal, and Colonel Raynal was not killed."The doctor implored her not to interrupt.
"Go on, Camille.Why do you hesitate? what is the matter? Do for pity's sake go on, sir."Camille cast a look of agony around, and put his hand to his brow, on which large drops of cold perspiration, like a death dew, were gathering; but driven to the stake on all sides, he gasped on rather than read, for his eye had gone down the page.
"A namesake of mine, Commandant Raynal,"--"Ah!"
"has not been--so fortunate.He"--
"Go on! go on!"
The wretched man could now scarcely utter Raynal's words; they came from him in a choking groan.
"he was killed, poor fellow! while heading a gallant charge upon the enemy's flank."He ground the letter convulsively in his hand, then it fell all crumpled on the floor.
"Bless you, Camille!" cried the baroness, "bless you! bless you! Ihave a son still."
She stooped with difficulty, took up the letter, and, kissing it again and again, fell on her knees, and thanked Heaven aloud before them all.Then she rose and went hastily out, and her voice was heard crying very loud, "Jacintha! Jacintha!"The doctor followed in considerable anxiety for the effects of this violent joy on so aged a person.Three remained behind, panting and pale like those to whom dead Lazarus burst the tomb, and came forth in a moment, at a word.Then Camille half kneeled, half fell, at Josephine's feet, and, in a voice choked with sobs, bade her dispose of him.
She turned her head away."Do not speak to me; do not look at me;if we look at one another, we are lost.Go! die at your post, and Iat mine."
He bowed his head, and kissed her dress, then rose calm as despair, and white as death, and, with his knees knocking under him, tottered away like a corpse set moving.
He disappeared from the house.
The baroness soon came back, triumphant and gay.
"I have sent her to bid them ring the bells in the village.The poor shall be feasted; all shall share our joy: my son was dead, and lives.Oh, joy! joy! joy!""Mother!" shrieked Josephine.
"Mad woman that I am, I am too boisterous.Help me, Rose! she is going to faint; her lips are white."Dr.Aubertin and Rose brought a chair.They forced Josephine into it.She was not the least faint; yet her body obeyed their hands just like a dead body.The baroness melted into tears; tears streamed from Rose's eyes.Josephine's were dry and stony, and fixed on coming horror.The baroness looked at her with anxiety.
"Thoughtless old woman! It was too sudden; it is too much for my dear child; too much for me," and she kneeled, and laid her aged head on her daughter's bosom, saying feebly through her tears, "too much joy, too much joy!"Josephine took no notice of her.She sat like one turned to stone looking far away over her mother's head with rigid eyes fixed on the air and on coming horrors.
Rose felt her arm seized.It was Aubertin.He too was pale now, though not before.He spoke in a terrible whisper to Rose, his eye fixed on the woman of stone that sat there.
"IS THIS JOY?"
Rose, by a mighty effort, raised her eyes and confronted his full.
"What else should it be?" said she.
And with these words this Spartan girl was her sister's champion once more against all comers, friend or foe.
