ould have kissed him when he talked of sending me
to St. Malo. He came in one morning, and, in his brusque way, said, as
he probed the wound for bits of shattered bone:

'We shall be able to pack you off in a few days. You would like to get
transferred to St. Malo, would you not? You come from that part of the
country, don't you? The air will suit you.'

He was a brute, but he had awfully good cigars, and used to make me
smoke one when he was going to have an extra 'go' at my wound. I
suppose he hoped the goodness might prove infectious. I used to call
him strings of bad names while he was digging away at his work on my
arm. Somehow it relieved me, and, truth to tell, he took it all in good
part.

In a few days, then, I saw the last of him and he of me, and glad
enough was I to find myself in the clean, quiet, nun-tended hospital in
the dear old Breton town. There I had a room to myself, as each officer
had, and to lie there in that sweet sunny room and hear no groans but
my own was almost like being in heaven. The daily cleanings of the
wound, still pretty painful, were recommenced under the hands of
another surgeon, who proved to be a very good fellow. He and I struck
up quite a friendship after a while.

Well, life was, if not exactly rosy, at any rate once more worth
living. The brightness and calm were very sweet after the horrors of
the Versailles hospital, and a serenity filled the air, like an echo of
organ tones brought in by the nuns from chapel.

The nun who attended to me was an angel. I was there in St. Malo three
months. Before one month had passed I had grown to love her as I should
have loved my sister if she had lived. I loved the sound of her voice
and the touch of her deft, gentle hands. I would have gone through the
surgeon's probings without a groan if she might have re-bandaged the
arm afterwards. But Dr. Nadaud always did that himself. Sister
Gabrielle--that was what they called her--would come directly he had
done with me, and would try the bandages to make sure they were not
hurting, arrange the pillows afresh, and smooth out the wrinkles in the
counterpane and my brow at the same time, sympathizing with me all the
while in the sweetest fashion possible. Her voice was a great part of
her charm, very low, and yet the clearest voice in the world. She had a
way of looking at one all the time, too, with a gaze that was almost
like a mother's caress, and that wrapped one around with a delicious