“If you wish to come with me to the doctor of the hospital,” he says, “you have no time to lose.”
To the doctor! Good heavens! and how account to him for my absence from the hospital? I dare not breathe a word; I follow my protector, asking myself how it will all end. We arrive; the doctor looks at me with a stupefied air. I do not give him time to open his mouth, and I deliver with prodigious volubility a string of jeremiads over my sad position.
Monsieur de Fréchêdé in his turn takes up the argument, and asks him, in my favor, to give me a convalescent’s leave of absence for two months.
“Monsieur is, in fact, sick enough,” says the doctor, “to be entitled to two months’ rest; if my colleagues and if the General look at it as I do your protégé will be able in a few days to return to Paris.”
“That’s good,” replies Monsieur de Fréchêdé. “I thank you, doctor; I will speak to the General myself to-night.”
We are in the street; I heave a great sigh of relief; I press the hand of that excellent man who shows so kindly an interest in me. I run to find Francis again. We have but just time to get back; we arrive at the gate of the hospital; Francis rings; I salute the sister. She stops me: “Did you not tell me this morning that you were going to the commissariat?”
“Quite right, sister.”
“Very well! the General has just left here. Go and see the director and Sister Angèle; they are waiting for you; you will explain to them, no doubt, the object of your visits to the commissariat.”
We remount, all crestfallen, the dormitory stairs. Sister Angèle is there, who waits for us, and who says:
“Never could I have believed such a thing! You have been all over the city, yesterday and to-day, and Heaven knows what kind of life you have been leading!”