"When we have visited the others, I will come back and remain," said Madame Le Maître.
So they rode on down the hill and along the shingled beach that edged a lagoon. Here the sea lapped softly and they were sheltered from the wind. Here, too, they saw the other islands lying in the crescent they composed, and they saw the waves of the bay break on the sand-bank that was the other arm of the lagoon. Still Caius did not tell about his adventure of the night before. The lady looked preoccupied, as if she was thinking about the Angel of Death that was hovering over the cottage they had left.
The next house was a large one, and here two children were ill. They were well cared for, for two of the young girls whom he had seen in Madame Le Maître's house were there for the time to nurse them.
They took one of these damsels with them when they went on. She was willing to walk, but Caius set her upon his horse and led it; in this way they made quicker progress. Up a hill they went, and over fields, and in a small house upon a windy slope they found the mother of a family lying very ill. Here, after Caius had said all that there was to say, and Madame Le Maître, with skilful hands, had done all that she could do in a short time, they left the young girl.
At the next and last house of their round, where the day before one child had been ill, they now found three tossing and crying with pain and fever. When it was time for them to go, Caius saw his companion silently wring her hands at the thought of leaving them, for the mother, worn out and very ignorant, was the only nurse. It did not seem that it could be helped. Caius went out to his horse, and Madame Le Maître to hers, but he saw her stand beside it as if too absent in mind to spring to its back; her face was looking up into the blue above.
"You are greatly troubled," said Caius.
"Oh yes," her voice was low, but it came like the sound of a cry. "I do not know what to do. All these months I have begged and entreated the people to keep away from those houses where there was illness. It was their only hope. And now that they begin to understand that, I cannot bring the healthy to nurse the sick, even if they were willing to come. They will take no precautions as we do. It is not safe; I have tried it."
She did not look at Caius, she was looking at the blue that hung over the sea which lay beneath them, but the weariness of a long long effort was in her tone.
"Could we not manage to bring them all to one house that would serve as a hospital?"
"Now that you have come, perhaps we can," she said, "but at present——" She looked helplessly at the door of the house they had left.