“My dear fellow,” he said. “A telegram came for you to the barracks. I wasn’t sure how urgent it might be, but knowing you were here, I thought I’d bring it around to you myself. I think it comes from your family’s château, by the look of it.”

“How very kind of you. Won’t you come in?”

“No. I must get back in a moment,” the captain said. But Roland noticed that he didn’t move to go at once.

He opened the telegram.

It was brief. It announced that his father had suffered a seizure that morning. And that he had departed this world soon afterward.

He bowed his head and handed the telegram to the captain, who read it in silence.

“I am so sorry,” the captain said. “If you need to stay here, I’ll take care of everything at the barracks.”

“I hardly know what I should do,” said Roland.

Chapter Thirteen

•  1898  •

Love was not eternal. Human love, at least. Only the love of God was eternal, and ever-present. Marie knew this.

Love might come suddenly, unsought, from a place not looked for, and stay for a while before departing into the distance, to a place where it cannot be reached.

Or so it said in novels, plays and stories.

But life was not like that for Marie Blanchard, or anyone she knew. She would marry someone from a family like her own. He might be a man like her father, or a banker, a lawyer, a doctor, someone from a family with money. He might be one of their neighbors on the boulevard Malesherbes, like the Prousts. Or he might be from one of the big families in Fontainebleau with their fine houses in and around the town, and their big apartments in Paris. He might come from one of the wealthy shipping families in one of France’s ports, or one of the regional insurance families. His family might own a newspaper in the provinces, or even in Paris. He would be a few years older than herself.

They would live surrounded by a network of cousins, and have children and grandchildren. And one day, when she departed this life, Marie would have the satisfaction of knowing that, though she would be gathered into the arms of the Almighty, here on earth she would live on through the ever-broadening family she left behind, and be remembered by them.

It was quite simple. It was what she knew, or thought she knew.

The first thing that she noticed about him at the Sunday lunch was how handsome he was. She was careful not to stare at him. The demure manners of her strict upbringing prevented her from making a fool of herself.

She had not met anyone quite like him before. He came from a different world. That had made her curious about him at once. So she listened, and watched.