Too blissful for the sense of fatigue, Berenger began to impart to the Commandant his delight, but the only answer he got was ’Hope, yes, every hope;’ and he again recognized what he had already perceived, that the indistinctness of his utterance made him entirely unintelligible to the deaf Commandant, and that shouting did but proclaim to the whole garrison, perhaps even to the enemy’s camp, what was still too new a joy not to be a secret treasure of delight.  So he only wrung the old Captain’s hand, and strode away as soon as he was released.

It was nearly dark, in spite of a rising moon, but beneath the cloister arch was torchlight, glancing on a steel head-piece, and on a white cap, both bending down over a prostrate figure; and he heard the voice he loved so well say, ’It is over!  I can do no more.  It were best to dig his grave at once here in silence—­it will discourage the people less.  Renaud and Armand, here!’

He paused for a few minutes unseen in the shadow while she closed the eyes and composed the limbs of the dead soldier; then, kneeling, said the Lord’s Prayer in French over him.  Was this the being he had left as the petted plaything of the palace?  When she rose, she came to the arch and gazed wistfully across the moonlit quadrangle, beyond the dark shade cast by the buildings, saying to the soldier, ‘You are sure he was safe?’

‘My Eustacie,’ said Berenger, coming forward, ’we meet in grave times!’

The relief of knowing him safe after the sickening yearnings and suspense of the day, and moreover the old ring of tenderness in his tone, made her spring to him with real warmth of gladness, and cry, ’It is you!  All is well.

‘Blessedly well, ma mie, my sweetheart,’ he said, throwing his arm round her, and she rested against him murmuring, ’Now I feel it!  Thou are thyself!’ They were in the dark cloister passage, and when he would have moved forward she clung closer to him, and murmured, ’Oh, wait, wait, yet an instant—­thus I can feel that I have thee—­the same—­my own!’

‘My poor darling,’ said Berenger, after a second, ’you must learn to bear with both my looks and speech, though I be but a sorry shattered fellow for you.’

‘No, no,’ she cried, hanging on him with double fervour.  ’No, I am loving you the more already,—­doubly—­trebly—­a thousand times.  Only those moments were so precious, they made all these long years as nothing.  But come to the little one, and to your brother.’

The little one had already heard them, and was starting forward to meet them, though daunted for a moment by the sight of the strange father:  she stood on the pavement, in the full flood of the moonlight from the east window, which whitened her fair face, flaxen hair, and gray dress, so that she did truly look like some spirit woven of the moonbeams.  Eustacie gave a cry of satisfac-tion:  ‘Ah! good, good; it was by moonlight that I saw her first!’