"You are a better fellow than I am, Tardif," I said; "but that has nothing to do with our talk. I think we ought to communicate with the young lady's friends, whoever they may be, as soon as there are any means of communicating with the rest of the world. We should be in a fix if any thing should happen to her. Have you no clew to her friends?"
"She is not going to die!" he cried. "No, no, doctor. God must hear my prayers for her. I have never ceased to lift up my voice to Him in my heart since I found her on the shingle. She will not die!"
"I am not so sure," I said; "but in any case we should write to her friends. Has she written to any one since she came here?"
"Not to a soul," he answered, eagerly. "She told me she has no friends nearer than Australia. That is a great way off."
"And has she had no letters?" I asked.
"Not one," he replied. "She has neither written nor received a single letter."
"But how did you come across her?" I inquired. "She did not fall from the skies, I suppose. How was it she came to live in this out-of-the-world place with you?"
Tardif smoked his imaginary pipe with great perseverance for some minutes, his face overcast with thought. But presently it cleared, and he turned to me with a frank smile.
"I'll tell you all about it, Dr. Martin," he said. "You know the Seigneur was in London last autumn, and there was a little difficulty in the Court of Chefs Plaids here, about an ordonnance we could not agree over, and I went across to London to see the Seigneur for myself. It was in coming back I met with Mam'zelle Ollivier. I was paying my fare at Waterloo station—the omnibus-fare, I mean—and I was turning away, when I heard the man speak grumblingly. I thought it was at me, and I looked back, and there she stood before him, looking scared and frightened at his rough words. Doctor, I never could bear to see any soft, tender, young thing in trouble. If it's nothing but a little bird that has fallen out of its warm nest, or a lamb slipped down among the cliffs, I feel as if I could risk my life to put them back again in some safe place. Yes, and I have done it scores of times, when I dared not let my poor mother know. Well, there stood mam'zelle, pale and trembling, with the tears ready to fall in her eyes; just such a soft, poor, tender soul as my little wife used to be. You remember my little wife, Dr. Martin?"
I only nodded as he looked at me.