The letter was unsigned, but the writing was the writing
of Charles Darragon, and Desiree knew what he had
sacrificed—what he could never recover.
There were two or three more letters addressed to
“Dear C.,” bearing no signature, and yet
written by Charles. Desiree read them carefully
with a sort of numb attention which photographed them
permanently on her memory like writing that is carved
in stone upon a wall. There must be some explanation
in one of them. Who had sent them to her?
Was Charles dead?
At last she came to a sealed envelope addressed to
herself by Charles. Some other hand had copied
the address from it in identical terms on the piece
of white leather. She opened and read it.
It was the letter written to her by Charles on the
bank of the Kalugha river on the eve of Borodino,
and left unfinished by him. He must be dead.
She prayed that he might be.
She was alone in the room, having come down early,
as was her wont, to prepare breakfast. She heard
Lisa talking with some one at the door—a
messenger, no doubt, to say that Charles was dead.
One letter still remained unread. It was in
a different writing— the writing on the
white leather.
“Madame,” it read, “The enclosed
papers were found on the field by one of my orderlies.
One of them being addressed to you, furnishes a clue
to their owner, who must have dropped them in the hurry
of the advance. Should Captain Charles Darragon
be your husband, I have the pleasure to inform you
that he was seen alive and well at the end of the
day.” The writer assured Desiree of his
respectful consideration, and wrote “Surgeon”
after his name.
Desiree had read the explanation too late.
Truth, though it crush
me.
The door of the room stood open, and the sound of
a step in the passage made Desiree glance up, as she
hastily put together the papers found on the battlefield
of Borodino.
Louis d’Arragon was coming into the room, and
for an instant, before his expression changed, she
saw all the fatigue that he must have endured during
the night; all that he must have risked. His
face was usually still and quiet; a combination of
that contemplative calm which characterises seafaring
faces, and the clean-cut immobility of a racial type
developed by hereditary duties of self-restraint
and command.
He knew that there had been a battle, and, seeing
the papers on the table, his eyes asked her the inevitable
question which his lips were slow to put into words.
In reply Desiree shook her head. She looked
at the papers in quick thought. Then she withdrew
from them the letter written to her by Charles—and
put the others together.
“You told me to send for you,” she said
in a quiet, tired voice, “if I wanted you.
You have saved me the trouble.”
