“Think,” I say, “find a way.  Give it to him yourself, from some one or other.”

But Leglise is too much afraid of wounding Legrand’s susceptibilities.  He ruminates on the matter till evening.

The little parcel is at the head of Legrand’s bed.  Leglise calls my attention to it with his chin, and whispers: 

“I found some one to give it to him.  He doesn’t know who sent it.  He has made all sorts of guesses; it is very amusing!” Oh, Leglise, can it be that there is still something amusing, and that it is to be kind?  Isn’t this alone enough to make it worth while to live?

So now we have a great secret between us.  All the morning, as I come and go in the ward, he looks at me meaningly, and smiles to himself.  Legrand gravely offers me a cigarette; Leglise finds it hard not to burst out laughing.  But he keeps his counsel.

The orderlies have put him on a neighbouring bed while they make his.  He stays there very quietly, his bandaged stumps in view, and sings a little song, like a child’s cradle-song.  Then, all of a sudden, he begins to cry, sobbing aloud.

I put my arm round him and ask anxiously:  “Why?  What is the matter?”

Then he answers in a broken voice:  “I am crying with joy and thankfulness.”

Oh!  I did not expect so much.  But I am very happy, much comforted.  I kiss him, he kisses me, and I think I cried a little too.

I have wrapped him in a flannel dressing-gown, and I carry him in my arms.  I go down the steps to the park very carefully, like a mother carrying her new-born babe for the first time, and I call out:  “An arm-chair!  An arm-chair.”

He clings to my neck as I walk, and says in some confusion: 

“I shall tire you.”

No indeed!  I am too well pleased.  I would not let any one take my place.  The arm-chair has been set under the trees, near a grove.  I deposit Leglise among the cushions.  They bring him a kepi.  He breathes the scent of green things, of the newly mown lawns, of the warm gravel.  He looks at the facade of the mansion, and says: 

“I had not even seen the place where I very nearly died.”

All the wounded who are walking about come and visit him; they almost seem to be paying him homage.  He talks to them with a cordial authority.  Is he not the chief among them, in virtue of his sufferings and his sacrifice?

Some one in the ward was talking this morning of love and marriage, and a home.

I glanced at Leglise now and then; he seemed to be dreaming and he murmured: 

“Oh, for me, now...”

Then I told him something I knew:  I know young girls who have sworn to marry only a mutilated man.  Well, we must believe in the vows of these young girls.  France is a country richer in warmth of heart than in any other virtue.  It is a blessed duty to give happiness to those who have sacrificed so much.  And a thousand hearts, the generous hearts of women, applaud me at this moment.