He was a priest; he had faith. He remembered the sublime saying of Ambroise Pare: “I dress the wound: God heals it.”
After a six months’ sojourn in Father Poignot’s secluded farm-house, M. d’Escorval was able to sit up and to walk about a little, with the aid of crutches.
Then he began to be seriously inconvenienced by his cramped quarters in the loft, where prudence compelled him to remain; and it was with transports of joy that he welcomed the idea of taking up his abode at the Borderie with Marie-Anne.
When the day of departure had been decided upon, he counted the minutes as impatiently as a school-boy pining for vacation.
“I am suffocating here,” he said to his wife. “I am suffocating. Time drags so slowly. When will the happy day come?”
It came at last. During the morning all the articles which they had succeeded in procuring during their stay at the farm-house were collected and packed; and when night came, Poignot’s son began the moving.
“Everything is at the Borderie,” said the honest fellow, on returning from his last trip, “and Mademoiselle Lacheneur bids the baron bring a good appetite.”
“I shall have one, never fear!” responded the baron, gayly. “We shall all have one.”
Father Poignot himself was busily engaged in harnessing his best horse to the cart which was to convey M. d’Escorval to his new home.
The worthy man’s heart grew sad at the thought of the departure of these guests, for whose sake he had incurred such danger. He felt that he should miss them, that the house would seem gloomy and deserted after they left it.