“Listen to me,” he said, as calmly as he could.  “Will you promise to run for a surgeon if I let you go?”

With real affliction he heard her declare that she would do nothing of the kind.  On the contrary, her sobbed out intention was to remain in the garden, and fight tooth and nail for the protection of the vanquished man.  This was shocking.

“My dear child!” he cried in despair, “is it possible that you think me capable of murdering a wounded adversary?  Is it. . . .  Be quiet, you little wild cat, you!”

They struggled.  A thick, drowsy voice said behind him, “What are you after with that girl?”

Lieut.  Feraud had raised himself on his good arm.  He was looking sleepily at his other arm, at the mess of blood on his uniform, at a small red pool on the ground, at his sabre lying a foot away on the path.  Then he laid himself down gently again to think it all out, as far as a thundering headache would permit of mental operations.

Lieut.  D’Hubert released the girl who crouched at once by the side of the other lieutenant.  The shades of night were falling on the little trim garden with this touching group, whence proceeded low murmurs of sorrow and compassion, with other feeble sounds of a different character, as if an imperfectly awake invalid were trying to swear.  Lieut.  D’Hubert went away.

He passed through the silent house, and congratulated himself upon the dusk concealing his gory hands and scratched face from the passers-by.  But this story could by no means be concealed.  He dreaded the discredit and ridicule above everything, and was painfully aware of sneaking through the back streets in the manner of a murderer.  Presently the sounds of a flute coming out of the open window of a lighted upstairs room in a modest house interrupted his dismal reflections.  It was being played with a persevering virtuosity, and through the fioritures of the tune one could hear the regular thumping of the foot beating time on the floor.

Lieut.  D’Hubert shouted a name, which was that of an army surgeon whom he knew fairly well.  The sounds of the flute ceased, and the musician appeared at the window, his instrument still in his hand, peering into the street.

“Who calls?  You, D’Hubert?  What brings you this way?”

He did not like to be disturbed at the hour when he was playing the flute.  He was a man whose hair had turned grey already in the thankless task of tying up wounds on battlefields where others reaped advancement and glory.

“I want you to go at once and see Feraud.  You know Lieut.  Feraud?  He lives down the second street.  It’s but a step from here.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Wounded.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure!” cried D’Hubert.  “I come from there.”

“That’s amusing,” said the elderly surgeon.  Amusing was his favourite word; but the expression of his face when he pronounced it never corresponded.  He was a stolid man.  “Come in,” he added.  “I’ll get ready in a moment.”