But where the Countess could be hiding, nor whom she could find to send for her, Eugenia had not the faintest idea. For these past two weeks she had been so entirely shut away from the outside world. Except for her one visit to the German colonel she had never left the little “House with the Blue Front Door” since the night she first brought her patient into it. Nor had Eugenia received a single line from any one of the other three Red Cross girls to afford her the faintest idea of what could have become of them. But she did not worry so much as she might have done at a time when she was less occupied. Besides, naturally she believed that the three girls were with the French field hospital at some point back of the line of the French army’s retreat.
Toward dawn Eugenia knew that the hour of greatest danger to her patient would arrive. For it is an acknowledged scientific fact that life is at its lowest ebb with the rising and the setting of the sun.
Therefore, just before this time Eugenia left her patient’s bedside and went into the room adjoining, which she used for her own needs. There she washed her face and hands in cold water and, letting down her heavy hair, plaited it in two braids. She was very tired and yet must prepare herself to meet the coming hour with all the strength and wisdom she could muster.
Even as she made her toilet she was aware of the feverish muttering of the young officer. His stupor had passed several days before, but since his nurse could not decide whether his weak restlessness and almost incessant crying out were not worse symptoms. Certainly they were more trying upon her nerves.
“Ma mère, ma mère,” he was repeating his mother’s name over and over again, as if he must see her again before his spirit could leave his body.
Eugenia slipped back and for the hundredth time laid her hand gently on the young fellow’s brow. Somehow he must be quieted, comforted into thinking his mother near him. Then if he never returned to consciousness he would pass out of the world’s alarms with a sense of her presence.
Do you recall that Barbara Meade had discovered a wonderful, healing quality in the touch of Eugenia’s hands? It is true that a few people have this vital, health-giving quality in their hands, which is not true of others.
Anyhow, Eugenia’s patient grew quieter, although he still murmured a broken word now and then. He was strangely pathetic, because, however much he might move his arms and the upper part of his body, his legs remained lifeless. For now and then when he had endeavored to change his position the pain had been so great as to pierce through his stupor.
“Mon fils, mon fils,” Eugenia whispered several times. It was all the French she dared permit herself to speak, and yet the simple words “my son,” even spoken by a New England old maid, carried their magic.
Yet Eugenia was looking little like an old maid as she leaned over the French boy—and he was scarcely more than a boy. She wore the violet wrapper, and as she kneeled her long dark braids of hair lay upon the floor. She too had grown thin and white from her two weeks’ vigil of nursing, cooking, taking entire charge of her patient, herself and the little house. Nevertheless, Eugenia’s face had for some reason softened, perhaps because she was too weary and too selfless in her devotion to her patient to feel superior to any earthly thing. At this moment her eyes were both sad and hopeful, while her lashes looked longer and darker than usual against the pallor of her cheeks.