But presently she returned with the nurse whom Lucie had first seen and who brought a bowl of soup which Lucie received gratefully, and which she felt inclined to eat to the very last drop for it was hot and comforting. But she left a few spoonfuls saying to the nurse, “I may give this to Pom Pom?”
“Eat it all, my dear,” replied the nurse smiling. “We can find something else for a little dog who is so faithful.”
Pom Pom provided for, the next thing was to consult Victor about various matters. There were the things left in the cow shed which Paulette declared she could not live without. How were they to recover these? and where would they be liable to find Mons. Du Bois? Lucie put these questions anxiously.
Victor thus appealed to felt himself more than ever thrust into the rôle of protector and gave up then and there his last hope of getting home on this furlough. He could not desert Lucie. It would never do to start her out upon a journey with Paulette who was in no condition to travel on foot, and there did not appear any one to whose care he might intrust a young girl and a wounded woman. He pondered over the situation, Lucie watching him anxiously.
“Listen,” he said at last, smiling down at the troubled girl, his kind brown eyes alight with sympathy, “I think we can work our way out of this difficulty. Trust it all to me. At present you are quite safe here. I will go back for those things, if needs be, but first I will inquire about this lost grandfather who, no doubt, is as concerned about you as you about him. I will see if I can discover something of him. Let us see, he was traveling in a wagon with one you know. Is this right?”
“Yes, he was with Gustave Foucher, a tradesman in our town and whom we all know well as a kind, good man. Gustave has his family with him, and some household goods, yet he was willing to take grandfather, too. The wagon is drawn by two stout black horses.”
“Good, we will then see what we can learn of this Gustave Foucher, and then I will report to you, then it will be time enough to attend to those baskets in the cow shed.”
“Oh, Victor, how good you are,” cried Lucie, gratefully.
“La la, who is good? Not any one really. I do this because it amuses, it entertains; it is out of the day’s routine, an adventure, as one might say. Pom Pom had better stay with you while I pursue my investigations.”
He went off to follow up his course of action, leaving Lucie to reënter the church where Paulette was busying herself in waiting on those more helpless than herself. It was a gruesome place, Lucie thought, with its row of cots in which lay groaning sufferers, some too severely hurt to hope for recovery, and some who would never again be whole. This was war, her first intimate acquaintance with its horrors. In such a place perhaps her father lay at this moment. She prayed that he might be spared and that her mother was at his side, as she knelt for a moment before an untouched altar. When she arose to her feet she saw Paulette trying to make more comfortable a patient close by.