Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/248

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A PROVENCE ROSE.
241

so much of life as lies in the capacity to suffer and to love in vain.

So much was left to them: no more.

"Let us compel Death to remember us, since even Death forgets us!" René murmured once in his despair to her.

But Lili had pressed her famished lips to his: "Nay, dear, wait: God will remember us even yet, I think."

It was her faith. And of her faith she was justified at last.

There came a ghastlier season yet, a time of horror insupportable—of ceaseless sound beside which the roar of the mere traffic of the streets would have seemed silence—a stench beside which the sulphur smoke and the gas fumes of a previous time would have been as some sweet fresh wood land air—a famine beside which the daily hunger of the poor was remembered as the abundance of a feast—a cold beside which the chillness of the scant fuel and empty braziers of other winters were recalled as the warmth of summer—a darkness only lit by the red flame of burning houses—a solitude only broken by the companionship of woe and sickness and despair—a suffocation only changed by a rush of air strong with the scent of blood, of pu-

A Leaf in the Storm.
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