In the courtyard of his little farmhouse, which was situated at the
extremity of the pass of Harancourt, overlooking the village, Father
Fouchard was stowing away in his carriole the carcasses of two sheep
that he had slaughtered the day before. The sight of his nephew,
coming to him at that hour and in that sorry plight, caused him such
perturbation of spirit that, after the first explanatory words, he
roughly cried:

"You want me to take you in, you and your friend? and then settle
matters with the Prussians afterward, I suppose. I'm much obliged to
you, but no! I might as well die right straight off and have done with
it."

He did not go so far, however, as to prohibit Maurice and Prosper from
taking Jean from the horse and laying him on the great table in the
kitchen. Silvine ran and got the bolster from her bed and slipped it
beneath the head of the wounded man, who was still unconscious. But it
irritated the old fellow to see the man lying on his table; he grumbled
and fretted, saying that the kitchen was no place for him; why did they
not take him away to the hospital at once? since there fortunately was a
hospital at Remilly, near the church, in the old schoolhouse; and there
was a big room in it, with everything nice and comfortable.

"To the hospital!" Maurice hotly replied, "and have the Prussians pack
him off to Germany as soon as he is well, for you know they treat all
the wounded as prisoners of war. Do you take me for a fool, uncle? I did
not bring him here to give him up."

Things were beginning to look dubious, the uncle was threatening to
pitch them out upon the road, when someone mentioned Henriette's name.

"What about Henriette?" inquired the young man.

And he learned that his sister had been an inmate of the house at
Remilly for the last two days; her affliction had weighed so heavily on
her that life at Sedan, where her existence had hitherto been a happy
one, was become a burden greater than she could bear. Chancing to meet
with Doctor Dalichamp of Raucourt, with whom she was acquainted, her
conversation with him had been the means of bringing her to take up her
abode with Father Fouchard, in whose house she had a little bedroom,
in order to devote herself entirely to the care of the sufferers in the
neighboring hospital. That alone, she said, would serve to quiet her
bitter memories. She paid her board and was the means of introducing
many small comforts into the life of the farmhouse, w