The mother struggled for composure.
"He is crippled?"
"He is blind, Madame," said Horace.
She staggered back a step and steadied herself with a hand on the table.
"My boy! My boy! Blind!" she cried.
No one moved. The distant guns beat their menace more insistently into the room.
"M. Maubin told me to say," added Horace, in a low voice, "that he bid you remember that your son was Belgium's first boy hero."
"Where is he?" broke in the father.
"At Embourg, Monsieur, at the house of Dr. Mallorbes."