The old woman smiled as she interrupted, “I was to tell you that Monsieur yonder is better. That is what Mademoiselle wished to know, is it not?”
Doris sank back upon her pillow in a silence which gave the full measure of her joy. Cyril would recover. She had been sure of it. She had told them last night. God was good.
The news gave her strength, and the coffee and eggs that were brought revived her rapidly. Her nerves still trembled in memory of what they had passed through, but when she was bathed and dressed in clean linen garments, much too large for her, a surgeon brought her medicine, and what was better than medicine, news that Cyril was conscious and was asking for her.
But they would not let her go to him. Tomorrow perhaps. Meanwhile the doctor would be glad to take a message. Doris colored gently. The message that she would have liked to send was not to be transmitted by this means.
“Tell him,” she said at last quietly, “that I am well—and that I will see him when I have permission to do so.”
The officer smiled, gave some directions to the old woman and went out.
It was not until late in the afternoon, when dressed in her own garments, which had been carefully cleansed and brushed by her nurse, that she was admitted to the office of the Field Marshal. She was shown into his room and he greeted her with unmistakable cordiality, offering her the chair next his own and congratulating her warmly upon the success of her achievement and Cyril’s.
“You know,” he asked quietly, “the contents of these documents?”
“Yes. Their importance made it necessary that I should.”