“You are very understanding, Mademoiselle Jeanne. But it does a selfish man like me good to be saddened by a story like yours. I have not had much opportunity in my life of feeling for another’s suffering. And since the war—I am abruti.”
“You? Do you think if I had not found you just the reverse, I should have told you all this?”
“You have paid me a great compliment, Mademoiselle Jeanne.” Then, after awhile, he asked, “From the market-square of the little town you found means to come here?”
“Alas, no!” she said, putting her work in her lap again. “I made my way, with my handcart—it was easy—to our original destination, a little farm belonging to the eldest brother of my father. The Farm of La Folette. He lived there alone, a widower, with his farm-servants. He had no children. We thought we were safe. Alas! news came that the Germans were always advancing. We had time to fly. All the farm-hands fled, except Père Grigou, who loved him. But my uncle was obstinate. To a Frenchman, the soil he possesses is his flesh and his blood. He would die rather than leave it. And my uncle had the murder of my father and mother on his brain. He told Père Grigou to take me away, but I stayed with him. It was Père Grigou who forced us to hide. That lasted two days. There was a well in the farm, and one night Père Grigou tied up my money and my mother’s jewellery and my father’s papers, enfin, all the precious things we had, in a packet of waterproof and sank it with a long string down the well, so that the Germans could not find it. It was foolish, but he insisted. One day my uncle and Père Grigou went out of the little copse where we had been hiding, in order to reconnoitre, for he thought the Germans might be going away; and my uncle, who would not listen to me, took his gun. Presently I heard a shot—and then another. You can guess what it meant. And soon Père Grigou came, white and shaking with terror. ‘Il en a tué un, et on l’a tué!’”
“My God!” said Doggie again.
“It was terrible,” she said. “But they were in their right.”
“And then?”
“We lay hidden until it was dark—how they did not find us I don’t know—and then we escaped across country. I thought of coming here to my Aunt Morin, which is not far from La Folette, but I reflected that soon the Boches would be here also. And we went on. We got to a high road—and once more I was among troops and refugees. I met some kind folks in a carriage, a Monsieur and Madame Tarride, and they took me in. And so I got to Paris, where I had the hospitality of a friend of the Convent who was married.”
“And Père Grigou?”
“He insisted on going back to bury my uncle. Nothing could move him. He had not parted from him all his life. They were foster-brothers. Where he is now, who knows?” She paused, looked again at her ghosts, and continued: “That is all, Monsieur Trevor. The Germans passed through here and repassed on their retreat, and, as soon as it was safe, I came to help my aunt, who was souffrante, and had lost her son. Also because I could not live on charity on my friend, for, voyez-vous, I was without a sou—all my money having been hidden in the well by Père Grigou.”