"I suppose the restaurants are still open?"
"The common ones are closed, but you can-still get a dinner at some of the best places, although you will have to pay very heavily for it."
"I don't mind that, Doctor; and besides I am very anxious to be at work again. It will be no more tiring standing at an easel than it is doing what I can to help here."
"That is true enough, providing you do not do too much of it. Up to a certain extent it will be a good thing for you, but mind, I distinctly forbid you to attempt any such folly as to try to walk from the Quartier Latin up to Passy. Let me see," he added, thoughtfully. "Yes, I think it can be managed. I will send you home by the ambulance that will be here to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. You are to keep yourself quiet all day, and I will get Madame de Millefleurs to send her carriage round for you at eleven o'clock next day, to take you round by Passy. She has told me many times that it is always at the disposal of any of my patients to whom it would be useful. I will see her some time to-morrow and arrange about it."
"Thank you, indeed, Doctor. I need not say how grateful I am to you for all the kindness I have received here."
"We have done the best we could for you," the doctor said, "and I am sure there is not one of those who have provided funds for this ambulance but feels well rewarded by the knowledge that it has been the means of saving many lives. I think we may say that we have not lost one whom it was humanly possible to save, while in the French hospitals they have lost hundreds from over-crowding, want of ventilation, and proper sanitary arrangements. The mortality there has been fearful, and the percentage of deaths after amputations positively disgraceful."
René came late that afternoon to pay a visit to Cuthbert, and was delighted to find that he was to be out next morning.
"I have kept your rooms in order," he said, "and will have a big fire lighted in them before you arrive. They will give you breakfast before you leave, I hope."
"They will do that, René, but I shall manage very well if there is still anything left of that store of mine in the big cupboard."
"You may be sure that there is," René replied. "I am always most particular in locking up the doors when I come away, and I have not used the key you gave me of the cupboard. I was positively afraid to. I am virtuous, I hope, but there are limits to one's power to resist temptation. I know you told me to take anything I liked but if I had once began I could never have stopped."