"And what about him?" I asked, nodding towards the wounded man.
"He must wait. Can he eat?"
"I have dropped brandy down his throat two or three times, and he seems to swallow it."
"We will give him some more, and decide afterwards. Mon Dieu! But I wish Philip was here."
"Would you tell him?"
"Surely! But not your mother, Phil," he said anxiously, and I knew again how truly he loved her. "She must not know. She must never know."
"What about Aunt Jeanne?" I asked.
He shook his head. "The fewer that know the better." So we dropped some more brandy and water into the wounded man's mouth, and gathered our few belongings, and crept down the tunnel after Uncle George.
Oh, the blessedness of the sweet salt sunlit air, as we stood in the water-worn chasm and blinked at the light, while Uncle George carefully closed his door. We took long deep draughts of it, and felt uplifted and almost light-headed.
"It is resurrection," said Carette; and as we climbed out of the cleft and took our way quickly among the great gorse cushions along Eperquerie, the dull sound of firing on Herm came to us on the west wind.