The cloak dropped from her shoulders, and the loose robe enveloping her
fell away from a bosom that throbbed with the passion of a great despair.
Nothing but silence.
She moved to the wall like a little child feeling its way, ran her hand
vaguely along it, and touched a crucifix. With a moan she pressed her
lips to the nailed feet, and came on gropingly to the couch. She reached
down towards it, but drew back as if in affright; for a dumb, desolating
fear was upon her.
But with that direful courage which is the last gift to the hopeless, she
stooped down again, and her fingers touched Valmond's cold hands.
They ran up his breast, to his neck, to his face, and fondled it, as only
life can fondle death, out of that pitiful hunger which never can be
satisfied in this world; then they moved with an infinite tenderness to
his eyes, now blind like hers, and lingered there in the kinship of
eternal loss.
A low, anguished cry broke from her: "Valmond--my love!" and she fell
forward upon the breast of her lost Napoleon.
When the people gathered again in the little church upon the hill,
Valmond and his adventure had become almost a legend, so soon are men and
events lost in the distance of death and ruin.
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