Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/92

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA live. If I die, it will be in the thought of you, and they will kill no prouder man than Sophie's lover. To have won your love(ah, by to-morrow night, yes!) and to die for France—would it be ill done for a short life? By my faith, no! I'll make my bow to my ancestors without shame. 'I, too, have done my part, messieurs!' say I, as I sit down with my fore-fathers. Sophie, adieu! You won't forget? I don't think you can quite forget. Your picture rides with me, your star shines ahead.

He was not wrong. They fought next day. The letter is endorsed "8th August," presumably the date of its receipt. That day came also the news of the disaster. On the nth the casualty list revealed Casimir de Savres's name. A few lines from a brother officer a day later gave scanty details. In the great charge of French cavalry which marked the closing stages of the battle he had been the first man hit of all his regiment—shot through the heart—and through the picture of Sophy which lay over his heart.

No word comes from Sophy herself. And Madame Zerkovitch is brief: "She showed me the picture. The bullet passed exactly through where that mark on her cheek is. It was fearful; I shuddered; I hoped she didn't see. She seemed quite stunned. But she insisted on coming with me to Kravonia, where I had now determined to go at once. I did not want her to come. I thought no good would come of it. But what could I do? She would not return to England; she could not stay alone in Paris. I was the only friend she had in the world. She asked no more than to travel with me. 'When once I am there, I can look after myself,' she said."

The pair—a little fragment of a great throng, 74