"By the way, is Berkeley gone?"
"Left yesterday."
"What for?--where to?"
"I was not interested to inquire."
"Ah! you never liked him! Odd enough to leave without reason or
apology?"
"He had his reasons, doubtless."
"And made his apology to you?"
"Oh, yes!"
Her brother looked at her earnestly; there was a care upon her face new
to him.
"Are you well, my darling?" he asked her. "Has the sun been too hot, or
la bise too cold for you?"
She rose, and gathered her cashmeres about her, and smiled somewhat
wearily her adieu to him.
"Both, perhaps. I am tired. Good-night."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE GIFT OF THE CROSS.
One of the most brilliant of Algerian autumnal days shone over the great
camp in the south. The war was almost at an end for a time; the Arabs
were defeated and driven desertwards; hostilities irksome, harassing,
and annoying, like all guerrilla warfare, would long continue; but peace
was virtually established, and Zaraila had been the chief glory that had
been added by the campaign to the flag of Imperial France. The kites
and the vultures had left the bare bones by thousands to bleach upon the
sands, and the hillocks of brown earth rose in crowds where those, more
cared for in death, had been hastily thrust beneath the brown crust
of the earth. The dead had received their portion of reward--in the
jackal's teeth, in the crow's beak, in the worm's caress. And the
living received theirs in this glorious, rose-flecked, glittering autumn
morning, when the breath of winter made the air crisp and cool, but the
ardent noon still lighted with its furnace glow the hillside and the
plain.
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