LITMIR.BIZ

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is a truth before which everybody will bow for the next two or three generations. You can understand that, in a country like France, when maimed men are to be met by the hundred thousand, the conception of what makes a perfect man will no longer be as hard and fast as it was. In the new form of humanity which is preparing, there will be men with two arms and men with only one, just as there are fair men and dark, bearded men and clean-shaven. And it will all seem quite natural. And every one will lead the life he pleases, without needing to be complete in every limb. And, as my life is wrapped up in you, Little Mother Coralie, and as my happiness depends on you, I thought I would wait no longer before making you my little speech… Well! That's finished! I have plenty more to say on the subject, but it can't all be said in a day, can it?."

      He broke off, thrown out of his stride after all by Coralie's silence. She had not stirred since the first words of love that he uttered. Her hands had sought her forehead; and her shoulders were shaking slightly.

      He stooped and, with infinite gentleness, drawing aside the slender fingers, uncovered her beautiful face:

      "Why are you crying, Little Mother Coralie?"

      He was calling her tu now, but she did not mind. Between a man and the woman who has bent over his wounds relations of a special kind arise; and Captain Belval in particular had those rather familiar, but still respectful, ways at which it seems impossible to take offence.

      "Have I made you cry?" he asked.

      "No," she said, in a low voice, "it's all of you who upset me. It's your cheerfulness, your pride, your way not of submitting to fate, but mastering it. The humblest of you raises himself above his nature without an effort; and I know nothing finer or more touching than that indifference."

      He sat down beside her:

      "Then you're not angry with me for saying.. what I said?"

      "Angry with you?" she replied, pretending to mistake his meaning. "Why, every woman thinks as you do. If women, in bestowing their affection, had to choose among the men returning from the war, the choice I am sure would be in favor of those who have suffered most cruelly."

      He shook his head:

      "You see, I am asking for something more than affection and a more definite answer to what I said. Shall I remind you of my words?"

      "No."

      "Then your answer.. ?"

      "My answer, dear friend, is that you must not speak those words again."

      He put on a solemn air:

      "You forbid me?"

      "I do."

      "In that case, I swear to say nothing more until I see you again."

      "You will not see me again," she murmured.

      Captain Belval was greatly amused at this:

      "I say, I say! And why sha'n't I see you again, Little Mother Coralie?"

      "Because I don't wish it."

      "And your reason, please?"

      "My reason?"

      She turned her eyes to him and said, slowly:

      "I am married."

      Belval seemed in no way disconcerted by this news. On the contrary, he said, in the calmest of tones:

      "Well, you must marry again! No doubt your husband is an old man and you do not love him. He will therefore understand that, as you have some one in love with you."

      "Don't jest, please."

      He caught hold of her hand, just as she was rising to go:

      "You are right, Little Mother Coralie, and I apologize for not adopting a more serious manner to speak to you of very serious things. It's a question of our two lives. I am profoundly convinced that they are moving towards each other and that you are powerless to restrain them. That is why your answer is beside the point. I ask nothing of you. I expect everything from fate. It is fate that will bring us together."

      "No," she said.

      "Yes," he declared, "that is how things will happen."

      "It is not. They will not and shall not happen like that. You must give me your word of honor not to try to see me again nor even to learn my name. I might have granted more if you had been content to remain friends. The confession which you have made sets a barrier between us. I want nobody in my life.. nobody!"

      She made this declaration with a certain vehemence and at the same time tried to release her arm from his grasp. Patrice Belval resisted her efforts and said:

      "You are wrong… You have no right to expose yourself to danger like this… Please reflect."

      She pushed him away. As she did so, she knocked off the mantelpiece a little bag which she had placed there. It fell on the carpet and opened. Two or three things escaped, and she picked them up, while Patrice Belval knelt down on the floor to help her:

      "Here," he said, "you've missed this."

      It was a little case in plaited straw, which had also come open; the beads of a rosary protruded from it.

      They both stood up in silence. Captain Belval examined the rosary.

      "What a curious coincidence!" he muttered. "These amethyst beads! This old-fashioned gold filigree setting!.. It's strange to find the same materials and the same workmanship.."

      He gave a start, and it was so marked that Coralie asked:

      "Why, what's the matter?"

      He was holding in his fingers a bead larger than most of the others, forming a link between the string of tens and the shorter prayer-chain. And this bead was broken half-way across, almost level with the gold setting which held it.

      "The coincidence," he said, "is so inconceivable that I hardly dare.. And yet the face can be verified at once. But first, one question: who gave you this rosary?"

      "Nobody gave it to me. I've always had it."

      "But it must have belonged to somebody before?"

      "To my mother, I suppose."

      "Your mother?"

      "I expect so, in the same way as the different jewels which she left me."

      "Is your mother dead?"

      "Yes, she died when I was four years old. I have only the vaguest recollection of her. But what has all this to do with a rosary?"

      "It's because of this," he said. "Because of this amethyst bead broken in two."

      He undid his jacket and took his watch from his waistcoat-pocket. It had a number of trinkets fastened to it by a little leather and silver strap. One of these trinkets consisted of the half of an amethyst bead, also broken across, also held in a filigree setting. The original size of the two beads seemed to be identical. The two amethysts were of the same color and contained in the same filigree.

      Coralie and Belval looked at each other anxiously. She stammered:

      "It's only an accident, nothing else."

      "I agree," he said. "But, supposing these two halves fit each other exactly."

      "It's impossible," she said, herself frightened at the thought of the simple little act needed for the indisputable proof.

      The officer, however, decided upon that act. He brought his right hand, which held the rosary-bead, and his left, which held the trinket, together. The hands hesitated, felt about and stopped. The contact was made.

      The projections and indentations of the broken stones corresponded precisely. Each protruding part found a space to fit it. The two half amethysts were the two halves of the same amethyst. When joined, they formed one and the same bead.

      There was a long pause, laden with excitement and mystery. Then, speaking in a low voice:

      "I do not know either exactly where this trinket comes from," Captain Belval said. "Ever since I was a child, I used to see it among other things of trifling value which I kept in a cardboard box: watch-keys, old rings, old-fashioned seals. I picked out these trinkets

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