Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/44

36 ‘If I were dead in this cause, you would hear them call you the widow of a hero.’

"‘And now.’ the woman flashed up, ‘they will say I am the wife of a They will say you were afraid.’

"The man turned on her sadly. ‘Oh, you woman,’ he said, ‘you should have been the wife of a soldier—the mother of men-children; you would have loved them, worshipped them, and harnessed on their armour and sent them forth to die.’

"He turned from her and ran to the stables; he flung a halter on the black horse, and, leaping upon its back, galloped off in the direction of the other bridge. The black horse covered the ground as it had never done before, but as they sped by the side of the river the man heard a faint voice shouting from the water. He looked and saw a drowning man hanging to a beam of wood, his white, wet face glowing in the gathering gloom. The pallid lips opened again.

"‘The bridge!’ they said—‘the bridge is down!’

"Yes! had he not known it all the time? The bridge was down, and he had run away