Thus she remained as if under a spell, ignoring the uproar that had
arisen all about her, in the fields, in the château garden and along the
tow-path. When at last she moved, it was to sit up and place her feet
upon the ground where they struck some hard object that made a clicking,
metallic sound as it grated against the stone. Reaching down, her
fingers closed over the cold metal of a lugar pistol. In the confusion
and the shouting it had slipped from its holster. The stranger had
forgotten it. Slowly she raised the weapon and held it up in the glow of
the burning farm. For a long time she regarded the pistol as if it held
some sinister fascination and presently, leaning upon the back of her
chair, she rose slowly and concealed it in the folds of her cloak. When
she had gained a full sense of her balance, she moved off from the
terrace through the black trees in the direction of the iron bridge.
The firing had increased. There were cries in French and in guttural
German, and from the shrubbery along the garden wall the low moan of a
wounded soldier. With the long cloak trailing across the dewy grass she
continued to move in an unswerving line to the garden gate. As she
passed through it a stray bullet, striking the wall beside her, chipped
the ancient mortar into her face and her thick, disordered hair. Outside
on the towpath she walked until she stood on the little knoll above the
iron bridge.
In the center of the structure could be discerned the figures of three
men silhouetted against the flames of the burning farm. Two were
kneeling at work on some object which absorbed all their attention. The
third stood upright shielding his eyes from the glow, keeping watch and
urging them to hurry. He was slim and very neat, and carried himself
with a singular air of scorn. Unmistakably he was the visitor, the
stranger upon the terrace. At the far end of the bridge, three horses,
held in check by the rider of a fourth horse, curvetted and neighed in
terror at the leaping flames.
All this Lily saw from the eminence of the low knoll. And when she had
watched it for some time she raised her arm, holding the lugar pistol,
and slowly took careful aim. The cloak slipped from her shoulders into
the grass. Once she fired and then again and again. The slim, neat man
stumbled suddenly, struck his head against an iron girder of the bridge
and slipped struggling into the river. There was a faint splash and he
disappeared. Of the other two men, one fell upon his face, struggled up
again and, aided by his companion, crawled painfully toward the
terrified horses. The flames roared wildly. The horses leapt and
curvetted for a moment and then disappeared with their riders, followed
by the horse whose rider lay at the bottom of the Marne.
On the low knoll the pistol dropped from Lily’s hand and slipped quietly
into the river. A party of three French infantrymen coming suddenly out
of the sedges along the river discovered her lying in the thick wet
grass. Bending over her they talked volubly for a time and at last
carried her back through the gate into the lodge. They could wring from
her no sort of rational speech. She kept talking in the strangest
manner, repeating over and over again, “It is simply a matter of chance
... like roulette ... but one of a million chances ... but one ... but
one.... Still one chance is too many.”
Inside the lodge, one of the soldiers struck a sulphur match and
discovered in the bed by the window the body of an old woman. He
summoned his companions and they too leaned over the body. Beyond all
doubt the old woman was dead.