dieu. Bon voyage, mon lieutenant, bon voyage!'

Another hand-grasp, and I made my way to the cab, feeling a strange,
intoxicated sensation at being once more on my legs in the open air
after such a long stretch between the blankets. Away we rattled down
the steep stone-paved street, past the queer old high houses that, as
the window-shutters were swung back, seemed to open their eyes and wake
up with a spirited relish for another day's bustle and work. Very
different to the lazy drawing up of a roller-blind in England is the
swinging open of a pair of French _persiennes_. Whiffs of new bread and
freshly-ground coffee floated out from the open doorways of the bakers
and the earliest risers of St. Malo, and presently the pungent,
invigorating odour of the sea made itself smelt in spite of the mixed
odours of the street. It was new life to be out in the open again, and
I was going to see my mother; but I could not forget Sister Gabrielle.

* * * * *

Several years passed before I saw again the old steep streets of St.
Malo. These years brought great changes to me. My right arm being no
longer capable of using the sword, I retired from the army, took to
journalism, and eventually accepted an engagement in London. In the
English capital I made my home, marrying and settling down to a
quasi-English life, which possessed great interest for me from the
first.

One summer (six years after the war) I began to make a yearly journey
to a town on the borders of Brittany, and always landed at St. Malo to
take train for my destination. Trains ran there only twice a day, and
so there was generally time enough to climb the dirty, picturesque
street to the hospital and see sweet Sister Gabrielle, whose face would
light up at sight of her old patient, and whose voice had still the
same sympathetic charm. When the now English-looking traveller
presented himself, it was always the Mother-Superior who came to him in
the bare, cool room reserved for visitors. And then Sister Gabrielle
would arrive, with a sweet, grave smile playing about her beautiful
mouth, and there would be long talks about all that I had been doing,
of the pleasant, free life in England, etc., etc.

* * * * *

One hot August morning, just seven years after I had left the hospital
with my arm in a sling, I pulled at the big clanging bell and asked to
see Sister Gabrielle. I was ushered