ere ill. They
were well cared for, for two of the young girls whom he had seen in
Madame Le Maitre's house were there for the time to nurse them.

They took one of these damsels with them when they went on. She was
willing to walk, but Caius set her upon his horse and led it; in this
way they made quicker progress. Up a hill they went, and over fields,
and in a small house upon a windy slope they found the mother of a
family lying very ill. Here, after Caius had said all that there was to
say, and Madame Le Maitre, with skilful hands, had done all that she
could do in a short time, they left the young girl.

At the next and last house of their round, where the day before one
child had been ill, they now found three tossing and crying with pain
and fever. When it was time for them to go, Caius saw his companion
silently wring her hands at the thought of leaving them, for the mother,
worn out and very ignorant, was the only nurse. It did not seem that it
could be helped. Caius went out to his horse, and Madame Le Maitre to
hers, but he saw her stand beside it as if too absent in mind to spring
to its back; her face was looking up into the blue above.

"You are greatly troubled," said Caius.

"Oh yes," her voice was low, but it came like the sound of a cry. "I do
not know what to do. All these months I have begged and entreated the
people to keep away from those houses where there was illness. It was
their only hope. And now that they begin to understand that, I cannot
bring the healthy to nurse the sick, even if they were willing to come.
They will take no precautions as we do. It is not safe; I have tried
it."

She did not look at Caius, she was looking at the blue that hung over
the sea which lay beneath them, but the weariness of a long long effort
was in her tone.

"Could we not manage to bring them all to one house that would serve as
a hospital?"

"Now that you have come, perhaps we can," she said, "but at present----"
She looked helplessly at the door of the house they had left.

"At present I will nurse these children," Caius said. "I do not need to
see the others again until evening."

He tied his horse in a shed, and nursed the children until the moon was
bright. Then, when he had left them as well as might be for the night,
he set out to return on his former track by memory. The island was very
peaceful; on field or hill or shore he met no one, except here and there
a plodding fisherman, who gave him