“Oh, but Victor,” Lucie turned to him, “I am glad to see you, and I am so grieved to see that you have been wounded. Tell me when and how.”
“That will keep,” returned he. “All I want is the assurance that you are glad to see me, even though I am not all here.”
They all went in to learn of the many, many things which had befallen each one since their parting.
“And where have you been, darling mother, all this time?” was Lucie’s first question.
“In a town which was held by the Germans till very recently. I was caught there on my way from home, and there I have been ever since.”
“Were you badly treated?”
“Sometimes better, sometimes worse; it depended on who was in command. I was obliged to work, at times, beyond my strength. I was fortunate not to be deported, as so many others were, but I think my claims to being American born spared me that.”
“Good!” exclaimed her brother.
“I sent you a message,” Madame Du Bois went on, “but I never knew whether it reached you. An old man in the town determined to try to escape. I knew of his intention, and sent the message which I knew would not incriminate him in any way if he were captured.”
“It did reach us,” Lucie told her, “and has been the one gleam of comfort that my father and I have had. You know, perhaps, mamma, about my father, and that dear grandfather has left us.”