“But you ran away from something or someone! You flew away! What were you afraid of, to make you fly away? You are not a coward. What are you afraid of?”
“No—but you wouldn’t understand. My nerves are not quite right—and I lost my temper. I struck a senior officer.”
“And you are a soldier! And the king has decorated you!”
“Any soldier would have done it. You would have done it yourself, under the same circumstances. It was about a friend of mine who is dead. Those swankers who have never seen the whites of the enemies’ eyes don’t understand. He lied about him! I got out and up, and flew and lost myself, and when my petrol was done I made a landing to your light—and here I am.”
“I don’t know. I hope not. I didn’t wait to see. My nerves aren’t right yet. I hit him with my fist. Any man in my place with an ounce of blood in him would have done what I did. But I’m afraid that won’t help me much if they find me, even if he was only knocked out for the count.”
“Listen! It is Grandfather shouting for me. I must go, or he may get out of bed to look for me. You stay here.”
“Until I come back—which will be as soon as I can get away. I’ll take these cartridges. Climb into a mow, and if you hear anyone coming hide under the hay.”
“I am in your hands. You believe what I have told you?”
“Even that you would have done it yourself?”
“Yes, I believe that. There!—he is shouting again!”
“Will you bring me something to smoke? I haven’t a cigarette left.”
“Yes, yes,” she cried, and ran from the barn.
Old Gaspard Javet did not return to the war-path with the celerity feared by Catherine. He kept to his bed all that afternoon and all the next day, his rifle on the patchwork quilt beside him, without showing any sign of his usual energy beyond the power of his voice and an occasional flash of the eyes. The tumble had given his dry joints and stiff muscles a painful wrenching; and his mind had also suffered from the sudden shock of the fall and the emotional explosion that had led to it. Now and then, for brief periods, his memory of the immediate past served him faithfully and he thought clearly and violently on the subject of the unwelcome intruder; and at other times, for hours together, he lay in a state of peace and mild bewilderment.