The Garden of Swords by Max Pemberton

She ran upstairs and closed the door of her bedroom behind her. For a little while he dare not intrude upon her, but stood at the foot of the stairs fearing, if he went up, to find her dying or dead in the room. A thousand thoughts, striking the whole gamut of a man's emotions, held him to the place. War and the glory of war, death and the risk of death; France and the call she had sent to him; love and sorrow and the moment of farewell -- each was the outcome in its turn of that slip of yellow paper, upon which those two fatal words "Report yourself" were written. That which was even cowardice kept him for an instant from the darkened room upstairs and from its secret. She suffered there. He would have given half the years of his life could he have gone to her and taken her in his arms and said, "I will not go -- my home is here."

A great silence fell upon the house. Little Guillaumette, who had seen her mistress's face, had run away to the kitchen and was crying her heart out there. An old wooden timepiece, which had ticked for the soldiers who, fought at Jena, struck the hour upon a crazy bell, and told them it was eight o'clock. Without, there was no sound but that of the leaves rustling and the murmur of the night. The man cast off the spell which the silence had put upon him, and called for Guillaumette when the clock struck.