"Not yet?" he asked, offering the inevitable cigarette.
"Not yet," answered Louis, and even as he spoke he stepped forward
and stopped the bearers. He brushed aside the matted hair and
beard.
"Is that your friend?" asked the officer.
"Yes."
It was Charles at last.
"The doctor says these have been dead two months," volunteered the
first bearer, over his shoulder.
"I am glad you have found him," said the officer, signing to the men
to go on with their burden. "It is better to know--is it not?"
"Yes," answered Louis slowly. "It is better to know."
And something in his voice made the Russian officer turn and watch
him as he went away.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE BARGAIN.
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
"Oh yes," Barlasch was saying, "it is easier to die--it is that that
you are thinking--it is easier to die."
Desiree did not answer. She was sitting in the little kitchen at
the back of the house in the Frauengasse. For they had no firing
now, and were burning the furniture. Her father had been buried a
week. The siege was drawn closer than ever. There was nothing to
eat, nothing to do, no one to talk to. For Sebastian's political
friends did not dare to come near his house. Desiree was alone in
this hopeless world with Barlasch, who was on duty now in one of the
trenches near the river.
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