"I fear they are," she said, gazing with him. "I think they are. I think I can remember that they are."
Soon they would be at the top of the long descent on Revins. Should she tell him, he who sat so close, so unsuspecting? An arrowy temptation shot through her mind.
"Is it possible--Why not write a letter when he is gone!"
She saw its beauty, its advantages, and she played with it like someone who knew where to find strength to withstand it.
"He is so happy, so gay," urged the voice, "so full of his plans! And you have left it so late. How painful now, just as he is going, to bid him think: 'I will never see her face again!'"
(How close he sat beside her! How close her secret sat within her!)
"Think how it is with you," pursued the tempting voice. "It is hard to part from a face, but not so hard to part from the writer of a letter."
Over the next crest the Belgian Ardennes showed blue and dim in the distance.
"Stop!" he said, holding up his hand again.
They were on the top of a high plateau; she drew up. A large bird with red under its wings flapped out and hung in the air over the precipice.
"See--the Meuse!" he said. "See, on its banks, do you see down there? Come to the edge."
Hundreds of feet below lay a ribbon-loop of dark, unstirring water. They stood at the edge of the rock looking down together. She saw he was excited. His usually pale face was flushed.
"Do you see down there, do you see in this light--a village?"
"That's Revins. And those dark dots beyond----"
"My factories. Before the summer you'll see smoke down there! They are partially destroyed. One can't see well, one can't see how much--"
"Have you never been back? Have you never seen what's happened?"
She had not guessed this: she was not prepared for this. This was the secret, then of his absorption.
"I've not seen it yet. I've not been able to get away. And the Paris factories have held me every minute. But now I'm here, I'm--I'm wondering--You see that dot beyond, standing separate?"
"That's where I sleep to-night. That's the house."
"But can you sleep there?" she asked, still shocked that she had not realised what this journey was to him.
"Oh, the house is in bad order," he said. "Not ruined. 'Looted,' my old _concierge_ writes. She was my nurse a hundred years ago. She has been there through the occupation. I wrote to her, and she expects me to-night. To-night it will be too dark, but to-morrow before I leave I shall see what they have done to the factories."