Sally’s voice shook a little and she looked so particularly soft and childlike that Dan would have given a good deal to have been able to comfort her at the instant.
Nevertheless he did not interrupt, knowing it was best that Sally be allowed to tell her story in her own way.
“For some strange reason the girl we were trying to be kind to took an extraordinary fancy to me. If Vera or Aunt Patricia asked her a question, she seemed terrified, but she sat for hours as we jogged along the road with her hand in mine and her eyes staring tragically toward me.
“By and by she began to be able to talk to me, just a few words at a time. Toward night she was so weak and ill that Aunt Patricia was frightened, so we halted at one of the deserted French villages and found an old doctor, too old to serve at the front, who was doing his bit for France by treating the refugees as they journeyed on to Paris. He told us that our young French girl had received a terrible nervous shock, perhaps a long time before. He also told us that she was extremely ill, dying from exhaustion and perhaps from other things that she had suffered. So that night we delayed our trip and in the night the girl died. She died with her hand in mine and before she died, Dan, she was able to talk and told me what she had endured. Do you wonder that I do not want to talk of it? I suppose I would have told Tante except that she has been ill and I did not wish to make her unhappy. But of course I can never feel just the same, although I suppose after a time I’ll forget a good deal. You are right, Dan, I do not believe I was really fitted for the work here in France, I was too selfish, too self absorbed and worst of all I knew too little of life. Oh Dan, I can never bear to live in a world again where there is another war.
“But please do let us talk of something else now and never mention this subject again.”
Taking out of her pocket book an infinitesimal handkerchief, Sally now dried her eyes and the next moment pointed toward a small house a few yards from the road.
She Was Able To Talk and Tell Me What She Had Endured
“Dan, please go in there and get me some tea and cakes won’t you? I am dreadfully hungry. It is a funny thing about me and always amuses the other Camp Fire girls, but it makes me dreadfully hungry to be unhappy. No, I would rather not go with you, we might stay too long and must be in Versailles again before dark.”
In the interval while Sally waited alone a carriage drove past and in the carriage was a tall man with a serious, kindly face, whom Sally recognized at once. Beside him was an attractive middle aged woman with shining brown eyes and hair.