The Girl Philippa

"Halkett spoke of you – your kindness."

"Oh, it was nothing – "

"I know what it was," said Gray quietly. "How much did Halkett tell you?"

"About what?"

"About me."

"Very little, Mr. Gray. I understood that you were to come to Saïs on a motor cycle, carrying with you a very important paper. Halkett waited day after day. He seemed to be under a very great strain. All he said to me was that something serious must have happened to you, because the paper you carried was necessary to supplement the one he carried."

"And Halkett has gone!"

"Yes. But somehow or other he got possession of the paper you had in your charge – or a copy of it."

Gray's youthful face quivered with excitement.

"How did he get it?" he asked.

"A messenger came. Halkett was alone. The messenger pretended to come from you, and he gained Halkett's confidence by giving him the paper you carried, or a copy of it.

"The moment Halkett was off his guard, the fellow knocked him insensible, and would have robbed him of both papers if a young girl – a Miss Wildresse – had not tackled the fellow, and held him off with magnificent pluck until I came in and found what was going on. Then the fellow cleared out – got clean away, I regret to say. That is how the thing happened. I'm very glad to be able to reassure you, Mr. Gray."

"Thanks, awfully. It's been hell not to know. You see, I was hurt; the beggars got me. I've been lying in a cottage down the road a bit – I don't know where. I was badly knocked out – knocked silly, you know – fever and all that… I woke up the other day. Couldn't get the people to stir – tried to make 'em hunt up Halkett. They were just stupid – kind, but stupid. Finally one of their kiddies, who comes to school here, told Sister Eila that there was a sick Anglais in his daddy's cottage – " He looked up at her as he spoke and she smiled. " – And Sister Eila, being all kinds of an angel of mercy, came all the way there to investigate… And she wheeled me back here in a charette! What do you think of that, Mr. Warner?"

"He was in such a state, poor boy!" said Sister Eila. "Just think, Mr. Warner! They had not even washed him when they put on their dreadful poultices – good, kind, ignorant folk that they are! So of course I insisted on bringing him here where Sister Félicité and I could give him proper attention."

Gray smiled tremulously:

"I've been bathed, cleansed, patched, mended, beautifully bandaged, fed, and spoiled! I don't know what you think of the Grey Sisters, but I know what I think."

"There's no difference of opinion in the world concerning them," said Warner, and Sister Eila smiled and blushed and held up an admonitory finger:

"It is I who am being spoiled, gentlemen." Then, very seriously to Warner: "Have you seen the pitiable procession which has been passing along the Ausone road since before dawn? Is it not heartbreaking, Mr. Warner? What is happening in the north, that all these poor people come hurrying southward? I thought the cannonade was from our own forts."

Gray looked up at him curiously.

"I don't yet know what is happening north of Ausone," said Warner quietly. "There were three fires burning last night. I think they were villages in flames. But it was far to the north. The Ausone Fort was not engaged – except when an aëroplane came within range. Then they used their high-angle guns."

There was a silence. Listening, Warner could hear the cannonade distinctly above the shuffle of feet and the childish singsong of recitation in the schoolroom underneath.

Presently, glancing up, he caught Sister Eila's eye, rose, and followed her to the window.

"I don't know what to do," she said. "Sister Félicité is going to try to keep the children here, but a gendarme came day before yesterday, saying that the school might be required for a military hospital, and that the children were to remain at home. I have telephoned to Ausone; I have telegraphed to the rue de Bac; I have done all I could do. But I am directed, from the rue de Bac, to prepare for field service, at the front. And from Ausone they telephone Sister Félicité that she may keep the children until the last moment, but that, when needed, she must turn over our school to the military authorities. And so, Mr. Warner, what am I to do with that poor boy over there? Because, if I go away, Sister Félicité cannot properly attend to him and care for the children, too."

Warner stood thinking for a moment. Then:

"Could you get me permission to use your telephone?" he asked.

"Only for military purposes. It is the rule now."

Warner walked over to Gray:

"You are a British officer, I take it."

"Yes."

"Captain?"

"Yes."

Sister Eila, listening, understood and took Warner to the telephone. For a few moments he heard her soft voice in conversation with the military operator, then she beckoned him and he gave the number he desired and waited.

Presently he got the Château des Oiseaux, and after a few moments Madame de Moidrey came to the telephone.

"Ethra," he said, "would you care to be hospitable to a British officer who has been injured?"

"Certainly! Where is he?"

"At Sister Eila's school. Is there anything left to harness up and send for him?"

"Yes; there is a donkey and a basket wagon. I'll have a groom take it over at once. Is the officer badly hurt?"

"I don't know. I think he merely needs bandaging and feeding. He's the comrade of my friend, Captain Halkett. Gray is his name, and he's a captain or something or other. May I tell him that you will receive him?"

"Of course, Jim. You need not have asked; you could have brought him here immediately."

The military operator cut in:

"A thousand thanks to Madame la Comtesse for her kindness to our allies, the English! Madame, I regret, very much that I must switch off – " click!

Warner smiled and turned to Sister Eila:

"Madame de Moidrey takes him!"

"I am so thankful! I will go up and make him ready."

"What is the matter with him?"

"Think of it! He was coming on his motor cycle full speed toward Saïs through the night, when right ahead he saw a car drawn up beside the road, and four men standing in it with pistols aimed at him. Only one bullet hit him, making a deep furrow over his temple. He remembers losing control of the motor cycle, of being hurled through the air. Then, evidently some time afterward, he found himself struggling under a thin covering of dirt and sticks and lumps of sod – fighting for air, pushing, creeping, crawling out of the hasty and shallow grave where they had flung him beside his ruined motor cycle. He thinks that the frame of the motor cycle kept him from being suffocated by the sod and earth piled over him.

"It was early morning; a peasant was breaking ground in another field not far away, and Mr. Gray managed to crawl near enough to make the man hear. That is all he remembers until he regained consciousness once more in the man's cottage."

"Good heavens, what a ghastly experience!" muttered Warner.

"It is dreadful. If they knew that his heart still beat, it was inhuman of them to do such a thing as that. But perhaps they considered him dead. He may have appeared so. I have had to bandage both arms and both knees where he was hurled over the ground when he fell. He has a fracture of the left wrist which is doing nicely, and two broken ribs are mending without trouble. As for the scar on his temple, it is nearly closed now. I think all will be well with him. Now, I shall go and prepare him for his little journey."

At the foot of the stairs she paused, turned slowly to Warner, and he thought her lovely face had become somewhat pale.