"Good gracious, I didn't know that I should be hurting your feelings like that."
He took her hand and pressed it gently.
"My dearest," he said, "I will tell you all about her, but never forget that since the day that I first saw you, there's never been any other woman in the world for me but you."
"I believe you, my Didier."
Nothing more was said while they remained among the fashionably dressed crowd which assembles between eleven o'clock and midday on the Promenade de la Baie des Anges. But as soon as they were alone on the terrace, which was usually deserted at that time, and which, skirting the Château, leads to the harbor, Didier told Françoise what he knew of Giselle and how he came to know her.
The incident occurred on an occasion when he was home on leave. He was "pulling himself together" from the fatigues of the front in a small flat which he had taken on his arrival in Paris. It was in the Luxembourg quarter, facing the gardens, of which he was very fond, and which served to remind him of the happiest days of his boyhood.
One day as he left his flat he was arrested by a most mournful procession which was descending from the attic above. Some poor devil was being taken to his last resting place. A young girl was walking behind the coffin. She was in tears, and was so weak that obviously she had the greatest difficulty to hold herself upright. She was alone or almost alone. Didier offered her his assistance. She clung to his arm in her distress with an ingenuous confidence that deeply touched him. He took her thus to the cemetery, and brought her back home again.
It was not until they were in the house that she seemed to notice the assistance which a stranger had rendered her.
"Oh, monsieur, it's very good of you," she said, and as they were now indoors she made her escape and went upstairs to her attic.
Captain d'Haumont questioned the porter's wife. He learned that Giselle's father had suffered from an illness—consumption—which was practically incurable. Thus he had not been able to work for two years, and her mother was crippled, so that the young girl could only maintain her unhappy family by the most grinding toil. Scarcely being able to leave them, she was forced to wear herself out with needlework at home, and earned barely enough to keep the wolf from the door.