He opened a drawer of the one table in the tiny matchboard room and, unfolding a cloth, handed to Paul the row of medals which he had taken from Paul’s tunic when he had searched the house of Si Ahmed Driss in Fez.
Paul sat gazing at the medals for a long while with his head bowed.
“I have got another to add to these, you know—the medaille militaire,” he said, with a laugh, and his voice broke. “I shall turn woman if I hold them any longer,” he cried, and, rising, he put them back in the drawer. Gerard de Montignac turned to a window which looked out across the plain of the Chaiouïa. He pointed towards the northwest and said:
“Years ago, Paul, you saved me from mutilation and death over there. I forgot that in Mulai Idris, and you didn’t remind me.”
“I, too, had forgotten it,” said Paul. He looked about the cabin, he drew a long breath as though he could hardly believe the fact that he was there. Then he said abruptly:
“I must send a telegram to Marseilles!”
Gerard de Montignac stared at him.
“Marseilles?”
“Yes, Marguerite has been living there all this time.”
“But you were in hospital there, and no one visited you, I know. The nurse told me.”