“You must see a physician about your arm as soon as possible. You never have explained to me why you are hiding here. But in any case you cannot remain when you are ill and hungry and cold and require a great deal of attention. You must go into one of the villages to a hospital. While you were away I have been thinking what to do. You look to me too ill to walk very far and, as I am living not more than half a mile away, I will go back to our farm and tell my friends about you. Later I think I can arrange to come back for you in a motor and then we will drive you to one of the hospitals. I don’t know as much about the French hospitals as my friends do, but of course everybody is anxious to do whatever is possible for the Allied soldiers.”
Sally placed a certain amount of stress on the expression “Allied soldiers,” but never for an instant believing in the possibility that her patient could belong to an enemy nationality.
“If you tell anyone you have discovered me here in hiding, it will be the last of me,” the soldier declared.
By this time Sally was beginning to be troubled. Why did the young man look and speak so strangely? He seemed confused and worried and either unable to explain his actions, or else unwilling. Yet somehow one had the impression that he was a gentleman and there need be no fear of any lack of personal courtesy.
It was possible from his appearance to believe that he might be suffering from a mental breakdown. Sally recalled that many of the soldiers were affected in this way from shell shock or the long strain of battle.
“I suppose I must tell you something. In any case, I have to trust my fate in your hands and I know there is not one person in a thousand who would spare me. I was a prisoner and escaped from my captors. I don’t know how I discovered this old house. I don’t know how long I have been wandering about the country before I came here, only that I hid myself in the daytime and stumbled around seeking a place of refuge at night. If you report me I suppose I will not be allowed even a soldier’s death. I shall probably be hung.”
Suddenly the soldier laughed, such an unhappy, curious laugh that Sally had but one desire and that was to escape from the château and her strange companion at once and forever. Yet in spite of his vague and uncertain expression, the soldier’s eyes were dark and fine and his features well cut. He was merely thin and haggard and dirty from his recent experiences.
From his uniform it was impossible to guess anything; at least, it was impossible for Sally, who had but scant information with regard to military accoutrements.
But even in the face of his confession she was not considering the soldier’s nationality. He looked so miserable and ill, so like a sick boy, that the maternal spirit which was really strongly rooted in Sally Ashton’s nature awakened. He could scarcely stand as he talked to her.
“Please sit down. I don’t know what you are to do,” she remonstrated. “I don’t know why you ran away or from whom, but no fate could be much worse than starving to death here in this old place alone. Yet certainly I don’t want to give you up to–to anybody,” she concluded lamely, as a matter of fact not knowing to whom one should report a runaway soldier.