“Pay me!” said the woman, angrily. “What would my good man say if I took money for doing that?”
“Your husband?”
“Yes; he had to leave me to go and fight.”
Phil drew a deep breath, for the woman’s words seemed to go through him. She spoke in French, and he expected that she would look upon them directly as enemies and drive them from the door. The next minute he felt that the time had come, for she turned to him and said:
“But you do not speak like one of us, little one. You are not French?”
Phil drew himself up, and his face looked white and then flushed deeply red, as he gazed bravely in the woman’s face, the Doctor watching him the while with his forehead wrinkled, as if he had grown ten years older as he stood.
“What will my pupil say?” he muttered to himself.
It was bravely spoken.
“No, I am English,” he said.
“Ah!” said the woman, softly. “Why are you here? Who are your people—your father?”