grumbled and fretted, saying that the kitchen was no place for him; why did they not take him away to the hospital at once? since there fortunately was a hospital at Remilly, near the church, in the old schoolhouse; and there was a big room in it, with everything nice and comfortable.
'To the hospital!' Maurice hotly replied, 'and have the Prussians pack him off to Germany as soon as he is well, for you know they treat all the wounded as prisoners of war. Do you take me for a fool, uncle? I did not bring him here to give him up.'
Things were beginning to look dubious, the uncle was threatening to pitch them out upon the road, when someone mentioned Henriette's name.
'What about Henriette?' inquired the young man.
And he learned that his sister had been an inmate of the house at Remilly for the last two days; her affliction had weighed so heavily on her that life at Sedan, where her existence had hitherto been a happy one, was become a burden greater than she could bear. Chancing to meet with Doctor Dalichamp of Raucourt, with whom she was acquainted, her conversation with him had been the means of bringing her to take up her abode with Father Fouchard, in whose house she had a little bedroom, in order to devote herself entirely to the care of the sufferers in the neighboring hospital. That alone, she said, would serve to quiet her bitter memories. She paid her board and was the means of introducing many small comforts into the life of the farmhouse, which caused Father Fouchard to regard her with an eye of favor. The weather was always fine with him, provided he was making money.
'Ah! so my sister is here,' said Maurice. 'That must have been what M. Delaherche wished to tell me, with his gestures that I could not understand. Very well; if she is here, that settles it; we shall remain.'
Notwithstanding his fatigue he started off at once in quest of her at the ambulance, where she had been on duty during the preceding night, while the uncle cursed his luck that kept him from being off with the carriole to sell his mutton among the neighboring villages, so long as the confounded business that he had got mixed up in remained unfinished.
When Maurice returned with Henriette they caught the old man making a critical examination of the horse, that Prosper had led away to the stable. The animal seemed to please him; he was knocked up, but showed signs of strength and endurance. The young man laughed and told his uncle he might have him as a gift if he fancied him, while Henriette, taking her relative aside, assured him Jean should be no expense to him; that she would take charge of him and nurse him, and he might have the little room behind the cow-stables, where no Prussian would ever think to look for him. And Father Fouchard, still wearing a very sulky face and but half convinced that there was anything to be made out of the affair, finally closed the discussion by jumping into his carriole and driving off, leaving her at liberty to act as she pleased.
It took Henriette but a few minutes, with the assistance of Silvine and Prosper, to put the room in order; then she had Jean brought in and they laid him on a cool, clean bed, he giving no sign of life during the operation save to mutter some unintelligible words. He opened his eyes and looked about him, but seemed not to be conscious of anyone's presence in the room. Maurice, who was just beginning to be aware how utterly prostrated he was by his fatigue, was drinking a glass of wine and eating a bit of cold meat, left over from the yesterday's dinner, when Doctor Dalichamp came in, as was his daily custom previous to visiting the hospital, and the young man, in his anxiety for his friend, mustered up his strength to follow him, together with his sister, to the bedside of the patient.
The doctor was a short, thick-set man, with a big round head, on which the hair, as well as the fringe of beard about his face, had long since begun to be tinged with gray. The skin of his ruddy, mottled face was tough and indurated as a peasant's, spending as he did most of his time in the open air, always on the go to relieve the sufferings of his fellow-creatures; while the large, bright eyes, the massive nose, indicative of obstinacy, and the benignant if somewhat sensual mouth bore witness to the lifelong charities and good works of the honest country doctor; a little brusque at times, not a man of genius, but whom many years of practice in his profession had made an excellent healer.
When he had examined Jean, still in a comatose state, he murmured:
'I am very much afraid that amputation will be necessary.'
The words produced a painful impression on Maurice and Henriette. Presently, however, he added:
'Perhaps we may be able to save the leg, but it will require the utmost care and attention, and will take a very long time. For the moment his physical and mental depression is such that the only thing to do is to let him sleep. To-morrow we shall know more.'
Then, having applied a dressing to the wound, he turned to Maurice, whom he had known in bygone days, when he was a boy.
'And you, my good fellow, would be better off in bed than sitting there.'
The young man continued to gaze before him into vacancy, as if he had not heard. In the confused hallucination that was due to his fatigue he developed a kind of delirium, a supersensitive nervous excitation that embraced all he had suffered in mind and body since the beginning of the campaign. The spectacle of his friend's wretched state, his own condition, scarce less pitiful, defeated, his hands tied, good for nothing, the reflection that all those heroic efforts had culminated in such disaster, all combined to incite him to frantic rebellion against destiny. At last he spoke.
'It is not ended; no, no! we have not seen the end, and I must go away. Since
Pale and trembling, Henriette threw her arms about him and caught him to her bosom.
'What words are those you speak? enfeebled as you are, after all the suffering you have endured! but think not I shall let you go; you shall stay here with me! Have you not paid the debt you owe your country? and should you not think of me, too, whom you would leave to loneliness? of me, who have nothing now in all the wide world save you?'
Their tears flowed and were mingled. They held each other in a wild tumultuous embrace, with that fond affection which, in twins, often seems as if it antedated existence. But for all that his exaltation did not subside, but assumed a higher pitch.
'I tell you I must go. Should I not go I feel I should die of grief and shame. You can have no idea how my blood boils and seethes in my veins at the thought of remaining here in idleness. I tell you that this business is not going to end thus, that we must be avenged. On whom, on what? Ah! that I cannot tell; but avenged we must and shall be for such misfortune, in order that we may yet have courage to live on!'
Doctor Dalichamp, who had been watching the scene with intense interest, cautioned Henriette by signal to make no reply. Maurice would doubtless be more rational after he should have slept; and sleep he did, all that day and all the succeeding night, for more than twenty hours, and never stirred hand or foot. When he awoke next morning, however, he was as inflexible as ever in his determination to go away. The fever had subsided; he was gloomy and restless, in haste to withdraw himself from influences that he feared might weaken his patriotic fervor. His sister, with many tears, made up her mind that he must be allowed to have his way, and Doctor Dalichamp, when he came to make his morning visit, promised to do what he could to facilitate the young man's escape by turning over to him the papers of a hospital attendant who had died recently at Raucourt. It was arranged that Maurice should don the gray blouse with the red cross of Geneva on its sleeve and pass through Belgium, thence to make his way as best he might to Paris, access to which was as yet uninterrupted.
He did not leave the house that day, keeping himself out of sight and waiting for night to come. He scarcely opened his mouth, although he did make an attempt to enlist the new farm-hand in his enterprise.
'Say, Prosper, don't you feel as if you would like to go back and have one more look at the Prussians?'
The ex-chasseur d'Afrique, who was eating a cheese sandwich, stopped and held his knife suspended in the air.
'It don't strike me that it is worth while, from what we were allowed to see of them before. Why should you wish me to go back there, when the only use our generals can find for the cavalry is to send it in after the battle is ended and let it be cut to pieces? No, faith, I'm sick of the business, giving us such dirty work as that to do!' There was silence between them for a moment; then he went on, doubtless to quiet the reproaches of his conscience as a soldier: 'And then the work is too heavy here just now; the plowing is just commencing, and then there'll be the fall sowing to be looked after. We must think of the farm work, mustn't we? for fighting is well enough in its way, but what would become of us if we should cease to till the ground? You see how it is; I can't leave my work. Not that I am particularly in love with Father Fouchard, for I doubt very strongly if I shall ever see the color of his money, but
