Cher Monsieur from Jeanne—Jeanne who had called him “Dog-gie” in accents that had rendered adorable the once execrated syllables. Cher Monsieur!
And the following, in formal French—it might have been a convent exercise in composition—is what she said:
“The military authorities have remitted into my possession the package which you so heroically rescued from the well of the farm of La Folette. It contains all that my father was able to save of his fortune, and on consultation with Maître Pépineau here, it appears that I have sufficient to live modestly for the rest of my life. For the marvellous devotion of you, monsieur, an English gentleman, to the poor interests of an obscure young French girl, I can never be sufficiently grateful. There will never be a prayer of mine, until I die, in which you will not be mentioned. To me it will be always a symbolic act of your chivalrous England in the aid of my beloved France. That you have been wounded in this noble and selfless enterprise, is to me a subject both of pride and terrifying dismay. I am moved to the depths of my being. But I have been assured, and your telegram confirms the assurance, that your wound is not dangerous. If you had been killed while rendering me this wonderful service, or incapacitated so that you could no longer strike a blow for your country and mine, I should never have forgiven myself. I should have felt that I had robbed France of a heroic defender. I pray God that you may soon recover, and in fighting once more against our common enemy, you may win the glory that no English soldier can deserve more than you. Forgive me if I express badly the emotions which overwhelm me. It is impossible that we shall meet again. One of the few English novels I have tried to read, à coups de dictionnaire, was Ships that Pass in the Night. In spite of the great thing that you have done for me, it is inevitable that we should be such passing vessels. It is life. If, as I shall ceaselessly pray, you survive this terrible war, you will follow your destiny as an Englishman of high position, and I that which God marks out for me.
“I ask you to accept again the expression of my imperishable gratitude. Adieu.
“Jeanne Bossière.”
The more often Doggie read this perfectly phrased epistle, the greater waxed his puzzledom. The gratitude was all there; more than enough. It was gratitude and nothing else. He had longed for a human story telling just how the thing had happened, just how Jeanne had felt. He had wanted her to say: “Get well soon and come back, and I’ll tell you all about it.” But instead of that she dwelt on the difference of their social status, loftily announced that they would never meet again and that they would follow different destinies, and bade him the adieu which in French is the final leave-taking. All of which to Doggie, the unsophisticated, would have seemed ridiculous, had it not been so tragic. He couldn’t reconcile the beautiful letter, written in faultless handwriting and impeccable French, with the rain-swept girl on the escarpment. What did she mean? What had come over her?
But the ways of Jeannes are not the ways of Doggies. How was he to know of the boastings of Phineas McPhail, and the hopelessness with which they filled Jeanne’s heart? How was he to know that she had sat up most of the night in her little room over the gateway, drafting and redrafting this precious composition, until, having reduced it to soul-devastating correctitude, and, with aching eyes and head, made a fair and faultless copy, she had once more cried herself into miserable slumber?
At once Doggie called for pad and pencil, and began to write:
“My dear Jeanne,—
“I don’t understand. What fly has stung you? (Quelle mouche vous a piquée?) Of course we shall meet again. Do you suppose I am going to let you go out of my life?”
(He sucked his pencil. Jeanne must be spoken to severely.)
“What rubbish are you talking about my social position? My father was an English parson (pasteur anglais) and yours a French lawyer. If I have a little money of my own, so have you. And we are not ships and we have not passed in the night. And that we should not meet again is not Life. It is absurdity. We are going to meet as soon as wounds and war will let me, and I am not your ‘Cher Monsieur,’ but your ‘Cher Dog-gie,’ and——”
“Here is a letter for you, brought by hand,” said the nurse, bustling to his bedside.