“She is not going to die!” he cried.  “No, no, doctor.  God must hear my prayers for her.  I have never ceased to lift up my voice to Him in my heart since I found her on the shingle.  She will not die!”

“I am not so sure,” I said; “but in any case we should write to her friends.  Has she written to any one since she came here?”

“Not to a soul,” he answered, eagerly.  “She told me she has no friends nearer than Australia.  That is a great way off.”

“And has she had no letters?” I asked.

“Not one,” he replied.  “She has neither written nor received a single letter.”

“But how did you come across her?” I inquired.  “She did not fall from the skies, I suppose.  How was it she came to live in this out-of-the-world place with you?”

Tardif smoked his imaginary pipe with great perseverance for some minutes, his face overcast with thought.  But presently it cleared, and he turned to me with a frank smile.

“I’ll tell you all about it, Dr. Martin,” he said.  “You know the Seigneur was in London last autumn, and there was a little difficulty in the Court of Chefs Plaids here, about an ordonnance we could not agree over, and I went across to London to see the Seigneur for myself.  It was in coming back I met with Mam’zelle Ollivier.  I was paying my fare at Waterloo station—­the omnibus-fare, I mean—­and I was turning away, when I heard the man speak grumblingly.  I thought it was at me, and I looked back, and there she stood before him, looking scared and frightened at his rough words.  Doctor, I never could bear to see any soft, tender, young thing in trouble.  If it’s nothing but a little bird that has fallen out of its warm nest, or a lamb slipped down among the cliffs, I feel as if I could risk my life to put them back again in some safe place.  Yes, and I have done it scores of times, when I dared not let my poor mother know.  Well, there stood mam’zelle, pale and trembling, with the tears ready to fall in her eyes; just such a soft, poor, tender soul as my little wife used to be.  You remember my little wife, Dr. Martin?”

I only nodded as he looked at me.

“Just such another,” he went on; “only this one was a lady, and less able to take care of herself.  Her trouble was nothing but the omnibus-fare, and she had no change, nothing but an Australian sovereign; so I paid it for her.  I kept pretty near her about the station while she was buying her ticket, for I overheard two young men, who were roaming up and down, say as they looked at her, ’Pas de gants, et des souliers de velours!’ That was true; she had no gloves on her hands, and her little feet had nothing on but some velvet slippers, all wet and muddy with the dirty streets.  So I walked up to her, as if I had been her servant, you understand, and put her into a carriage, and stood at the door of it, keeping off any young men who wished to get in—­for she was such a pretty young thing—­till the train was ready to start, and then I got into the nearest second-class carriage there was to her.”