"I do not understand you," said she in amazement.
"I would not have you say to yourself," he replied boldly, "that he owed his recovery to me, and I would not have you reproach me for your unhappiness."
"Oh, how can you say so?"
"I would have watched over him and saved him if Desrioux had not come. But he could replace me and I preferred to disappear. It is his business to effect this cure. His large heart and unselfish disposition will in it find their proper work. His love will profit, too, by it, for you will only love him the more for the self-denial he displays, and the self-immolation to which his professional honour and his conscience condemn him."
The camp showed signs of returning to life, and the solitude enjoyed by M. Delange and Madame de Guéran was on the point of being interfered with.
"In a few moments," said the doctor hurriedly, "our conversation will be interrupted. Do let me say a few words to you."
"Do so by all means. You are right; I had forgotten that you had something to say to me. What is the matter, my friend?"
"I am come to ask you to use your influence with M. de Morin to put an end to a persecution which worries me in spite of myself."
"A persecution!" she exclaimed. "Has M. de Morin been persecuting anybody in the caravan? Impossible? He is so good, so just—"
"You misunderstand me; he is not persecuting anybody. But, in consequence of an order he has thought fit to issue, and which, I admit, he had every right to give, a certain being is at this moment suffering—dying, perhaps."