It begins fifteen years ago,
just after the Franco-Prussian War. My father was taking a holiday
in eastern France, and he came one day to a village where an
epidemic of typhoid was raging. _Tant mieux_! Something to do; some
help to be given. If you knew my father--but you will understand.
He offered his services to the overworked couple of doctors and was
welcomed. He fought the typhoid day and night--if you knew my
father! Well, there was a bad case in a family named Rossignol: a
boy of twelve. What made it worse was that two elder brothers had
been killed in the war, and the parents sat in despair by the
bedside of their only remaining child. The father was old and very
shaky; the mother much younger, but she had suffered dreadfully from
the death of her two boys--you should hear my father tell it! I
make a hash of it; when _he_ tells it people cry. Madame Rossignol
was the sweetest little woman--you know that kind of Frenchwoman,
don't you? Soft-voiced, tender, intelligent, using the most
delightful phrases; a jewel of a woman. My father settled himself by
the bedside and fought; Madame Rossignol watching him with eyes he
did not dare to meet--until a certain moment. Then--_then_ the
soft voice for once was loud. '_Ii est sauve_!' My father shed
tears; everybody shed tears--except Thibaut himself."
Piers hung on the speaker's lips. No music had ever held him so
rapt.
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