Mrs. Kilquhanity could not get the Cure to listen to her, but she was more successful elsewhere. One day she came to get Kilquhanity’s pension, which was sent every three months through M. Garon, the Avocat. After she had handed over the receipt prepared beforehand by Kilquhanity, she replied to M. Garon’s inquiry concerning her husband in these words: “Misther Garon, sir, such a man it is—enough to break the heart of anny woman. And the timper of him—Misther Garon, the timper of him’s that awful, awful! No conshideration, and that ugly-hearted, got whin a soldier b’y! The things he does—my, my, the things he does!” She threw up her hands with an air of distraction.
“Well, and what does he do, Madame?” asked the Avocat simply.
“An’ what he says, too—the awful of it! Ah, the bad sour heart in him! What’s he lyin’ in his bed for now—an’ the New Year comin’ on, whin we ought to be praisin’ God an’ enjoyin’ each other’s company in this blessed wurruld? What’s he lying betune the quilts now fur, but by token of the bad heart in him! It’s a wicked could he has, an’ how did he come by it? I’ll tell ye, Misther Garon. So wild was he, yesterday it was a week, so black mad wid somethin’ I’d said to him and somethin’ that shlipped from me hand at his head, that he turns his back on me, throws opin the dure, shteps out into the shnow, and shtandin’ there alone, he curses the wide wurruld—oh, dear Misther Garon, he cursed the wide wurruld, shtandin’ there in the snow! God forgive the black heart of him, shtandin’ out there cursin’ the wide wurruld!”
The Avocat looked at the Sergeant’s wife musingly, the fingers of his hands tapping together, but he did not speak: he was becoming wiser all in a moment as to the ways of women.
“An’ now he’s in bed, the shtrappin’ blasphemer, fur the could he got shtandin’ there in the snow cursin’ the wide wurruld. Ah, Misther Garon, pity a poor woman that has to live wid the loikes o’ that!”
The Avocat still did not speak. He turned his face away and looked out of the window, where his eyes could see the little house on the hill, which to-day had the Union Jack flying in honour of some battle or victory, dear to Kilquhanity’s heart. It looked peaceful enough, the little house lying there in the waste of snow, banked up with earth, and sheltered on the northwest by a little grove of pines. At last M. Garon rose, and lifting himself up and down on his toes as if about to deliver a legal opinion, he coughed slightly, and then said in a dry little voice:
“Madame, I shall have pleasure in calling on your husband. You have not seen the matter in the true light. Madame, I bid you good-day.”
That night the Avocat, true to his promise, called on Sergeant Kilquhanity. Kilquhanity was alone in the house. His wife had gone to the village for the Little Chemist. She had been roused at last to the serious nature of Kilquhanity’s illness.
M. Garon knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again more loudly, and still no answer. He opened the door and entered into a clean, warm living-room, so hot that the heat came to him in waves, buffeting his face. Dining, sitting, and drawing-room, it was also a sort of winter kitchen; and side by side with relics of Kilquhanity’s soldier-life were clean, bright tins, black saucepans, strings of dried fruit, and well-cured hams. Certainly the place had the air of home; it spoke for the absent termagant.
M. Garon looked round and saw a half-opened door, through which presently came a voice speaking in a laboured whisper. The Avocat knocked gently at the door. “May I come in, Sergeant?” he asked, and entered. There was no light in the room, but the fire in the kitchen stove threw a glow over the bed where the sick man lay. The big hands of the soldier moved restlessly on the quilt.