"Non--non," her voice rose shrilly. "There is no Christ here on this cross. The canaille pulled him down and dragged him away in the dirt when They passed. There were peasants who begged Them to leave the figure, but They left only the cross--and once--three days after They had defiled it--I saw a spy crucified there. I helped cut him down. Now it's empty!"
"Sacré, it is like Them," the man said. "I'd wondered why the cross was bare. I'm not one of your believers, but I can see how it would hurt a good woman like you."
"A good woman?" She questioned vaguely, as if in her innocence all were good. "Mon Dieu, I only know that it hurt."
He looked up at the crucifix. The sky was slowly, very slowly, lightening.
They were silent. And in the stillness they could feel the expectancy of dawn; the terse waiting for the light. The eager, anticipating stare of each was fixed upon the other's face.
The black of the sky merged very gradually into a pale, sickly gray. Far to the east quivered a thin streak of yellow light.
The three drab shadows of them cowered beneath the cross.
Mauve and pink and golden light spread slowly over the firmament.
"No, it can't be!" He muttered, his eyes upon the man's face--this man whom he had sat with those long hours before the dawn, whose hand he still held in his. He thought he caught the man's whispered "sacré!"
"Voilà!" She taunted. "But it is--oh, so pretty! A French soldier with a leg shot off and a German officer to nurse him. You two--you who spoke of hate, do you still sit hand in hand?"
"The girl from Chalet Corneille!" He had known he would not forget her face.
"The dark has made cowards of you," she mocked. "Before the morning you clung together. But now it is dawn!" Her voice rang out bitterly, brutally clear. "Did not one of you ask, 'Is there anything greater than hate'?"
"Sacré! What you say is just." The wounded man's eyes were raised to glance at the light-quivering firmament. Slowly the eyes caught the sight of something else. Very gradually they took in that unexpected thing. Mechanically the words were jerked out: "It--was--I--who--asked--" A sudden pause--a quick gasp--"God forgive me--it--was--I!"
The uncanniness of the words shocked him. In spite of himself, his own eyes followed the man's wide stare; followed it from the eastern horizon, over the shimmering sky; followed it until he reached the crucifix. The hand, which, at the girl's words, had half-heartedly sought his pistol, shook now as he crossed himself.