“It was an accident,” said Paul.
“An accident?”
She ran to her medicine-chest, and making him sit beside her, unfastened the bandage. “An accident?” she repeated. It looked to her as if he had been stabbed. A knife had been driven right through the flesh of his forearm. Paul did not reply to her exclamations and she did not press her questions. She washed and dressed the wound and bound it up again.
“It must hurt terribly,” she said, her forehead knitted in distress.
“It is easier now,” he answered. “The knife was clean.”
“You are sure of that, Paul?”
“Quite.”
She made a sling of his arm and sent him away. She dressed quickly, wondering how that wound had been inflicted and why he wished not to explain it. Surely he had not gone out whilst she slept? Surely there had been no attack upon the house? No! But she was plunged now into a world of mystery and fear, and she wrung her hands in an impotent despair.
They took their breakfast in a room upon the first floor, Paul asking questions as to how far the house was provisioned, and Marguerite answering almost at random, whilst the cries of the women rang shrill overhead.
“Oh, yes, there is food,” she answered.