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Write to me as soon as you receive this. There will be an inn at Ville-en-bois; direct to me there. Take courage, monsieur. Your devoted TARDIF." "I must go!" I exclaimed, starting to my feet, about to rush out of the house. "Where?" cried Jack, catching my arm between both his hands, and holding me fast. "To Olivia," I answered; "that villain, that scoundrel has hunted her out in Normandy.
"I don't know what to do," I said, despondently; "you see Tardif, I have not a single friend I could go to in England. I shall have to stay here in Ville-en-bois." "No," he answered; "Dr. Martin has some plan for you, I know, though he did not tell me what it is. He said you would have a home offered to you, such as you would accept gladly. I think it is in Guernsey."
Will you, then, go with us to Ville-en-bois, and to-morrow we will send you on to Granville?" He spoke very slowly and distinctly, with a clear, cordial voice, which filled me with confidence. I could hardly distinguish his features, but his hair was silvery white, and shone in the gloom, as he still stood bareheaded before me, though the rain was falling fast. "Take care of us, monsieur?"
"Madame," he said, returning to me, "I am Francis Laurentie, the curé of Ville-en-bois. It is quite a small village about a league from here, and we are on the road to it; but the route to Granville is two leagues behind us, and it is still farther to the first village. There is not time to return with you this evening.
``He came singing through the orchards into the village, he said. ``A quaint old place with queer gables, called Ville-en-Bois. ``Do you know where we are? said the other. ``No, said the platoon commander. ``I thought not, he said. ``Hadn't you better take a look at the map?
He folded his own thin, brown hand over it caressingly, and looked down at me, with something like tears glistening in his eyes. "Is it all settled?" he asked, "is monsieur come to rob me of my English daughter? She will go away now to her own island, and forget Ville-en-bois and her poor old French father!" "Never! never!" I answered vehemently, "I shall not forget you as long as I live.
"But I tell you it is impossible," she retorted; "I have an Englishman here, very rich, a milor, and he will not hear of any person from Ville-en-bois resting in the house. Go away to the Lion d'or, my good friend, where there are no English. They are as afraid of the fever as of the devil."
Then we were to turn our backs and begin our retreat, before any person came out of the infected house. I set out with Pierre, a solemn-looking boy of about twelve years of age, who cast upon me sidelong glances of silent scrutiny. We passed down the village street, with its closely-packed houses forming a very nest for fever, until we reached the road by which I had first entered Ville-en-bois.
Yet while I told Monsieur Laurentie seriously that I should go alone to Ville-en-bois in the autumn, I did not altogether believe it. We often speak in half-falsehoods, even to ourselves. Dr.
On our way home from Switzerland, in the early autumn, we went down from Paris to Falaise, and through Noireau to Ville-en-bois. From Falaise every part of the road was full of associations to me.
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