CHAPTER XIV.

Once clear of the defile, with its perils, the two women hurried onwards, each turn of the hills revealing some well-remembered scene to Madeleine. There, below, was Prali, where she had lived when a girl; those tall poplars by the waters seemed to be unchanged since the days when she had driven her cows into their shadow; and there away to the right was the gleam of water where the thirteen lakes lay in the snowy mountain spurs like dew-drops in the bosom of a rose; and surely no rose could be lovelier than was the snow at that moment, as the sun broke through the level mists that veiled his dawning.

‘It was my father’s home, Rénée,’ the woman murmured wistfully, ‘my home, where I played with my brothers, where I sat spinning at my mother’s side, where Henri Botta came and taught me how to love him. Long ago--ah, yes, so long ago! There is the church, look, Rénée; there was a bell in the wooden tower that used to ring for prayer. The papists say often that we Vaudois do not pray; had they lived in Prali they had learned better things of us. Rénée, child, tell me canst thou see the tower? thine eyes are clearer than mine, canst thou see it, the little red tower with its painted bell-cage? It was Henri, my brave Henri, that reared it, it was that building-task that brought him to Prali. Ah, how long ago!’

‘And I shall never see him on earth again!’ she went on more to herself than to Rénée.

‘I shall never hear his voice, as when evening brought him home to me at Prali and at Rora; but he is in higher hands than ours, ah, yes. And I know that in the land of light I shall see him and hear him, when these turmoils and troubles are past. Only a little while more, a very short while, and our Master will call me too.’

‘It must not be that I am left behind,’ said Rénée, with a girl’s swift thought of self. ‘Thou art all I have, mother, and we must die together.’

The woman turned slowly from regarding the distance, and let her eyes rest upon the sweet sad face so near her own. ‘That is as the Master wills,’ she answered softly. ‘He loves thee better than I do.’

‘Yes,’ answered Rénée, a smile breaking over the sorrow of her mouth. ‘Yes, I know it now.’

It was true; in the thick darkness the Day-star had arisen for her, the faint and far-off glimmer of God’s great light of truth. Earthly trial and torture bites sharply, and such griefs as had beaten on Rénée Janavel and on her people may well demand human courage and break human hearts; but the truth was true for them, as it is true for all time, that God’s love is stronger than pain, that in the midst of sorrow His comfort can be sweet, and that even ‘men’s fierceness shall turn to His praise.’

They were far from the crest of the Giuliano Pass by this time, and they could hear no sign of pursuit. They turned aside to rest awhile on a grassy slope which broke the hill-side with its long terrace, a lovely stretch of sward, where flowers gleamed amongst the grass, and the bees were flying heavily above the patches of wild-thyme. The shadow of a birch-tree crossed it, making a trembling play of light and shade in the strong sunshine; and below this clear space of grass and flowers there came a tossed and tangled brake, full of creeping plants and broken stones, and tussocks of moss, and the stately spires of some alpine larkspur crowded thick with bloom.

Here they sat, silent for the most part, for their hearts were too full for much speech, but between them lay a sacred sympathy that scarcely needed words.

Madeleine’s yearning eyes were still seeking out familiar landmarks, her memory was busy with the past; but her fingers were closed tightly over her foster-child’s hand, and the sense of Rénée’s presence lay in the background of her thoughts as the blue sky lay behind those birchen boughs. And the girl’s head drooped and her eyes were downcast, but her soul was steady and stilled. God’s ways might be mysterious and His lessons hard, but the ways and the lessons were those of her Father, and she could trust His love.

Then, suddenly, over the peace and the stillness there fell a horror of alarm.

Down below them, coming by the poplar rows and the river-bank, were armed men. They could see the regular ranks, and catch the gleam of steel. _Soldiers!_ And to these hunted women of the valleys that word meant terror and the danger of death.

Should they hide themselves amongst the stones and trees? Should they fly to the right or left?

‘Ah,’ Rénée’s hand clutched her mother’s convulsively as the cry left her lips, ‘they are all about us; see!’

Dark forms were climbing the hill-side on either hand. Below them was that marching troop. Behind them was the guard of the Giuliano Pass. Was there then any hope in flight?

They shrank back into the shadow of the birch, a flickering and slight shadow at best, but any movement might betray them if they crossed the bare slope; sunlight so strong as that which bathed the grass would reveal them only too sharply. Madeleine hid her face in her hands, and lifted her heart in prayer. Rénée watched the approaching figures with wide-open defiant eyes, her beautiful head held back like a stag at bay; she threw her black cloak over the white coif and kerchief of her foster-mother, and flung her own scarlet capucin into the shadow; it came naturally to her to protect her mother--Madeleine, but even as she covered and sheltered her the thought came flashing through her brain that it was now for the last time. Surely the end had come.

There could be no escape. The troops were advancing rapidly, led by those who apparently knew every feature of the ground. The scouts were close upon them now, the sound of their feet crashing through the underwood could be distinctly heard, even the hoarse tones of their voices and the clank of their accoutrements. Madeleine cowered yet lower, and a whispered word of prayer came like a groan from her lips.

And then, starting forwards with a jerk as of a bow released from its tension, Rénée snatched her hands from her mother’s hold, and held them out with a ringing cry.

‘Gaspard!’ she called, ‘Gaspard!’

The hill above her echoed it, the dear, long-unuttered word; and Madeleine, bewildered, repeated it in her turn, as if speaking in a dream. ‘Gaspard! Gaspard!’

And there were hurrying steps bounding over the brake, and a voice loud and strong calling across the distance. And then....

But neither Rénée nor Madeleine could remember very clearly what happened then. They knew that, instead of danger, help had come, instead of death a newer and dearer life, instead of the faces of their foes the sight of their best-beloved.

And there on the hill-slopes where he had first beheld her Henri Botta met his wife again. Safe after perils unspeakable; together after bitterest separation. Was it strange that for the moment they forgot that there was still trouble and trial in God’s fair world, and that while the golden sunshine lay bright upon the grass they should, for those brief minutes at least, forget that the Vaudois had yet to win the valleys?

‘Rénée,’ whispered Gaspard, holding the girl’s hands in both his own, and looking down into her frank eyes as he spoke, ‘Rénée, I trusted thee to the

care of our Father above, and He has preserved thee alive.’

‘But I,’ and her answering voice sunk and broke, ‘but I have been faithless--unworthy. I have doubted. I have despaired.’

The tramp of the main body of Arnaud’s army was close upon them. Gaspard remembered his place, which was on the advance guard.

‘I must go,’ he said hurriedly. ‘At our noonday halt I shall find thee. My father and mother and thee--keep together, keep with the troops. Farewell for a short while, dear one; and may God grant us each a braver faith, and then a larger heart of thankfulness!’