"There's quite a nice fire," she said, "and I should have thought there
was room for everybody to enjoy it, but it seems there's only enough for
_one_! We'd better try the _salle a manger_, instead, I suppose."
Brian, puzzled, paused at the door, his hand on Sirius's head, Dierdre
standing in front of them both like a ruffled sparrow.
The French officer straightened up in his chair with an astonished look,
but did not rise. It was the woman by the window (Dierdre had not
connected her with the man by the fire) who sprang to her feet.
"Mademoiselle," she said quietly, in a voice of exquisite sweetness,
"my husband would be the first one in the world to move, and give his
place to others, if he had known that he was monopolizing the fire. But
he did not know. It was I who placed him there. Those eyes of his which
look so bright are made of crystal. He lost his sight at the Chemin des
Dames."
As she spoke, choking on the last words, the woman with white hair
crossed the room swiftly, and caught the hand of her husband, which was
stretched out as if groping for hers. He stumbled to his feet, and she
stood defending him like a gentle creature of the woods at bay.
Perhaps at no other moment of her life would Dierdre O'Farrell have been
struck with such poignant repentance. That she, who had just been shown
the secret, inner heart of one blind man, should deliberately wound
another, seemed more than she could bear, and live.
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