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Monsieur Laurentie called in Jean and Pierre, and they knelt before us in silence, broken only by sobs. In the room there were children's voices talking about their toys, and calling to one another in shrill, feverish accents. How many deaths such as this was I to witness? "Monsieur le Curé!" murmured the failing voice of the little child. "What is it, my little one?" he said, stooping over him.
Besides, if we began to dig they'd all know, and want to go shares. I shouldn't mind going shares with Monsieur Laurentie, but I would not go shares with Pierre.
The boys at home used to think me quite as good as them, and better. I asked Monsieur Laurentie if I ought to be baptized over again, and he only smiled, and said I must be as good a little girl as I could be, and it did not much matter. But Pierre, and all the rest, think I'm not as good as them, and I don't like it." I could not help laughing, like Monsieur Laurentie, at Minima's distress.
Of course when we've made our fortunes we'll come back, and we'll build Monsieur Laurentie a palace of marble, and put Turkey carpets on all the floors, and have fountains and statues, and all sorts of things, and give him a cook to cook splendid dinners. But we wouldn't stay here always if we were very, very rich; would you, Aunt Nelly?" "Has anybody told you that I am rich?"
Now Monsieur Laurentie could leave his patient, and sit under the sheltering eaves in the cool of the morning or evening, while his people could satisfy themselves from a distance that he was still in health. The physician whom Jean fetched from Noireau spoke vaguely of Richard's case.
No wonder if Monsieur Laurentie should have sunk under it, and the long strain upon his energies, which would have overtaxed a younger and stronger man. I had passed the invisible line which his will had drawn about the place, and had half crossed the court, when I heard footsteps close behind me, and a large, brown, rough hand suddenly caught mine.
I had not seen Monsieur Laurentie since his first greeting of me in the early morning. A panic fear seized upon me. Suppose he should have been stricken suddenly by this deadly malady! I called softly at first, then loudly, but no answer came to comfort me. If this old man, worn out and exhausted, had actually given his life for Richard's, what would become of me? what would become of all of us?
When I returned to the sick-ward, I found Monsieur Laurentie pacing slowly up and down the long room, with Jean's little son in his arms, to whom he was singing in a low, soft voice, scarcely louder than a whisper. His eyes, when they met mine, were glistening with tears, and he shook his head mournfully. I went on to look at Minima.
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