snoyers contemplated him, he felt both admiration and jealousy. He
was ashamed to admit the aversion inspired by the wounded man, so sorely
wounded that he was unable to see what was going on around him. His
hatred was a form of cowardice, terrifying in its persistence. How
pensive were Marguerite's eyes if she took them off her patient for a
few seconds! . . . She had never looked at him in that way. He knew all
the amorous gradations of her glance, but her fixed gaze at this injured
man was something entirely different, something that he had never seen
before.

He spoke with the fury of a lover who discovers an infidelity.

"And for this thing you have run away without warning, without a word!
. . . You have abandoned me in order to go in search of him. . . . Tell
me, why did you come? . . . Why did you come?". . .

"I came because it was my duty."

Then she spoke like a mother who takes advantage of a parenthesis
of surprise in an irascible child's temper, in order to counsel
self-control, and explained how it had all happened. She had received
the news of Laurier's wounding just as she and her mother were preparing
to leave Paris. She had not hesitated an instant; her duty was to hasten
to the aid of this man. She had been doing a great deal of thinking in
the last few weeks; the war had made her ponder much on the values in
life. Her eyes had been getting glimpses of new horizons; our destiny is
not mere pleasure and selfish satisfaction; we ought to take our part in
pain and sacrifice.

She had wanted to work for her country, to share the general stress, to
serve as other women did; and since she was disposed to devote herself
to strangers, was it not natural that she should prefer to help this man
whom she had so greatly wronged? . . . There still lived in her memory
the moment in which she had seen him approach the station, completely
alone among so many who had the consolation of loving arms when
departing in search of death. Her pity had become still more acute on
hearing of his misfortune. A shell had exploded near him, killing all
those around him. Of his many wounds, the only serious one was that on
his face. He had completely lost the sight of one eye; and the doctors
were keeping the other bound up hoping to save it. But she was very
doubtful about it; she was almost sure that Laurier would be blind.

Marguerite's voice trembled when saying this as if she were going
to cry, although her eyes were te