There was something like comfort in the place. A carpet was spread upon the stone floor, and a couple of pallets in the inner room accommodated the mistress and the maid. On one of these they laid François, breathing heavily. Jean stripped off François’ shoes, and Diane, producing a pair of scissors, cut away the clothing from his leg below the knee. A horrid wound was spurting blood. Marie ran and fetched some water from a barrel in the corner, and Diane unceremoniously, in the presence of Jean, divested herself of her white cambric petticoat, a thing of filmy ruffles and lace, and tore it into strips to bind up François’ wounds. Again, with her deft scissors she cut away a part of his coat and shirt. Old Marie washed the wound in his shoulder, and Jean, with his rude surgery, bound it up with a part of Diane’s petticoat. When this was over, François opened his eyes, and looking about him whispered in a weak voice, and with a weak grin:
“I think I must be out of my head still, because I see the face of Diane. Give me something to drink.”
Old Marie gave him water which he drank as men do out of whose veins much blood has run, and who are parched with that terrible thirst. Diane, going to a wine rack where there were many long-necked bottles lying head downward, picked up one and gouged out the cork with her scissors.
Then she poured out in a tin cup some bubbling champagne.
“Is this good for him, do you think?” she asked Jean.
“In the name of God, I do not know,” replied Jean, shaking his head.
“But I know,” responded the patient in a somewhat stronger voice. “Good champagne will put life into the ribs of death.”
Diane kneeled down by François and tremblingly gave him the champagne, which he drank, smacking his lips meanwhile.
“I feel like another man,” he said, “and that other man wants another swig at the champagne.”
But Diane shook her head.