"Was that a kiss?" he murmured. "Ah, I was right--you might have loved me, but for my ill-fortune when you overheard me ask for Clotilde--ha ha! do you remember? That was accursed bad luck, indeed! To go to the house of the beautiful, the chaste Vera Demidof, not knowing it was hers, and to ask for Clotilde!"
Paul spoke very faintly; his words came slowly and more slowly.
"Was it a kiss, or did I dream?" he murmured. "Mademoiselle, I--I did my best to protect Maximof as he lay here--it was for your sake--will you reward me with a kiss? I shall not live to tell of you."
Vera bent and put her lips to his forehead. Paul smiled.
"It is paradise," he murmured. "I die content."
They were his last words. Vera waited a moment or two, then she knelt and prayed, made over the dead man the sign of the cross and departed.
In the village she found a peasant awaiting her. "This is the way, lady," he said, in the obsequious manner of the moujik who expects largess. "It was I that found and brought in the gentleman. Lord, he is handsome--and heavy also!"
Vera gave the man money. "Is he alive--is he alive?" she said--"speak quickly!"
"Alive? Lord, yes!" said the moujik, "doing well. We have found a doctor for him and we have not ceased to pray--assuredly he will live, Barishnya!"
The moujik returned to the battlefield, where he spent the night reaping a glorious harvest, with other vultures of his kidney, from the unfortunate dead and dying.
Marie Havet, _née_ Dupré, was much surprised and somewhat concerned on the evening of the day upon which Louise had found, to her almost uncontrollable joy and relief, that Henri was still alive and in Paris when her sister, looking very grave and with signs of tears and past agitation upon her face, drew her aside for a conversation, which, said Louise, must be held absolutely in private. Marie's conscience instantly smote her. She was going to be scolded for saying nothing about the Baron's visit.
"Marie," Louise began, "you may have observed that I returned from the war depressed, not joyous and elated as one returning home after many perils and who has received certain honours and rewards might be expected to be. Did it never occur to you and to my father that this was so?"
