“Yes; I think so, too,” said Valérie—she had moved a little table to the bedside, and was arranging the basins of water and the cloths upon it.
“Of course!” agreed the little old lady simply. “Monsieur le Curé knows best.”
“Yes,” said Valérie, speaking in hushed tones, as she cast an anxious look at the white, blood-stained face upon the bed, “and I think it is a mercy that Father Aubert knows something about medicine, for otherwise the doctor might be too late. I will help you, Monsieur le Curé—everything is ready.”
He knew nothing about medicine—there was nothing he knew less about! What fiend had prompted him to make such a claim!
“I am afraid, mademoiselle,” he said soberly, “that my knowledge is far too inadequate for such a case as this.”
“We will be able to do something at least, father”—there was a brave, troubled smile in her eyes as she lifted them for an instant to his; and then, bending forward, with deft fingers she removed the torn piece of shirt from the wounded man's head.
And then, between them, while the mother watched and wrung out the cloths, they dressed the wound, a ghastly, unsightly thing across the side of the man's skull—only it was Valerie, not he, who was efficient. And strangely, as once before, but a little while before, when out there in front of the house, it was Valerie, and not the man, and not the wound, and not the peril in which he stood that was dominant, swaying him for the moment. There was a wondrous tenderness in her hands as she worked with the bandages, and sometimes her hands touched his; and sometimes, close together, as they leaned over the bed together, her hair, dark, luxuriant, brushed his cheek; and the low-collared blouse disclosed a bare and perfect throat that was white like ivory; and the half parted lips were tender like the touch of her fingers; and in her face at sight of the gruesome wound, bringing an added whiteness, was dismay, and struggling with dismay was a wistful earnestness and resolution that was born of her woman's sympathy; and she seemed to steal upon and pervade his senses as though she were some dream-created vision, for she was not reality at all since his subconsciousness told him that in actual reality no one existed at all except that moaning thing upon the bed—that moaning thing upon the bed and himself—himself, who seemed to be swinging by a precarious hold, from which even then his fingers were slipping away, over some bottomless abyss that yawned below him. “Valérie! Valérie!” He was repeating her name to himself, as though calling to her for aid from the edge of that black gulf, and——
“Fool!” jeered that inner voice. “Have you never seen a pretty girl before? She'd be the first to turn upon you, if she knew!”
“You lie!” retorted another self.
“Where's Three-Ace Artie gone?” inquired the voice with cold contempt.