'Pardon, monsieur!'
The exclamations were simultaneous. Looking up, we two men recognised each other.
'Ah, my dear doctor!' I exclaimed.
'Sapristi, my dear lieutenant! What are you doing in St. Malo?'
Having properly accounted for my presence in the old Breton town, and made known to Dr. Nadaud how glad I was to see him again, we two went off together to lunch at the Hôtel de Bretagne, where I had left my luggage.
Having refreshed ourselves with a light French déjeuner, the doctor and his former patient strolled out of the long dining-room into the central courtyard of the hotel, which the sun had not yet made too warm, and there, installing ourselves at a little round table, we smoked and sipped our coffee.
'I will tell you all I know,' said the doctor, in reply to a question from me. 'It seemed almost a breach of confidence to tell you Sister Gabrielle's story while she lived, for I knew that she had come away out of the world on purpose to work unknown and to bury all that remained of Jeanne D'Alcourt. When she first came, she seemed not at all pleased to see me, no doubt because my presence reminded her of Caen and of the scenes that she had turned her back upon for ever.
'Well,' continued Dr. Nadaud, 'the D'Alcourts had lived for generations in a fine old house on the Boulevard de l'Est, and it was there that Jeanne was born. Next door lived my sister and her husband, M. Leconte, the chief notary of the town, and a man well considered by all classes of his townsmen. It is the old story of affections knotted together in the skipping-rope, and proving to be as unending as the circle of the hoop. My sister had a girl and a boy. The three children played together, walked out with their nurses together, and were hardly ever separated until the time came for Raoul to go to Paris to school. The boy was fourteen when they parted, Jeanne was only eleven, but the two children's love had so grown with their growth, that, before the day of parting came, they had made a solemn little compact never to forget each other.
'Eight years passed, during which Jeanne and Raoul saw little of each other.
'The first time the boy came home, he seemed to Jeanne no longer a boy, and the shyness which sprang up between them then deepened with each succeeding year.