She was attracted to him from the first; from that evening on the Dordogne when they celebrated the victory on the Marne, and she was a witness of his intense emotion. . . . They sat at the same table and became good friends during the voyage. Captain Lalouette introduced Didier to M. de la Boulays; and Françoise's father, who was himself an ardent patriot, was struck by the generous enthusiasm with which a man like d'Haumont, who was no longer a young man, left important business affairs to return to France and take his place in the fighting line. True, such instances were not rare, but what was remarkable in his case was the almost boyish delight with which he spoke of battles that were to come, and the mystic joy, as it were, with which he envisaged death.
"I would give all that I possess to die like that," he said.
It was known that d'Haumont was a very rich man.
Françoise concealed her agitation when the steamer reached its destination and they had to part.
"Good-bye forever," Didier said.
His departure was so abrupt that she had no opportunity of asking him for an explanation of this enigmatic remark.
M. de la Boulays was the owner of a country house near the boundary of the zone occupied by the army. He straightway devoted a considerable part of the house and the buildings on his estate to the service of the Red Cross. In this temporary hospital Françoise nursed the wounded with untiring care and devotion.
For two years she heard nothing of Didier d'Haumont. A day came, however, when she saw his name in a newspaper. In spite of the great reticence with which heroic exploits in the war were treated, it was related that Lieutenant Didier d'Haumont and his company had held throughout the night against two German regiments a position of supreme importance, which the reserves were unable to reach until dawn. He was brought back, severely wounded, with the seven survivors of the struggle. The day on which she read to her father the news of this great feat a general commanding one of the armies, whose name had become famous after the battle of the Yser, was dining with them. He knew Didier d'Haumont, for he had been his colonel, and was able to speak of his rash bravery in the battles for Flanders. Moreover, his attention had been specially called to him by the War Office where d'Haumont had friends, among others a Jewish banker attached to the Ministry, by whose intermediary, if gossip could be believed, Didier d'Haumont had deposited at the exchequer, as a gift, nearly two million francs worth of gold dust, his entire fortune.
Mlle. de la Boulays left the room when she heard these last words, not wishing her father to see how greatly this talk about d'Haumont affected and even unnerved her. The newspaper which told the story of his exploit reported also that the lieutenant, after hovering between life and death for some days, was now out of danger.
Some months drifted by. And one evening during a great offensive a captain who had been considerably knocked about by a shell was brought into the operating-room.