Part 125

Her voice broke childishly, and she bent her head and took possession of his arm, holding to it tightly and in silence.

Surprised and moved by her emotion, he found nothing to say for a moment--did not seem to know quite how to respond to the impulsive gratitude so sincerely exaggerated, so prettily expressed.

Finally he said:

"Philippa, I have nothing to teach you--much to learn from you. Whoever you are, you need no patronage from anybody, no allowances, no concessions, no excuses. For I never knew a cleaner, braver, sweeter character than is yours, Philippa--nor a soul more modest, more simple and sincere. What does it matter how you come by it--whether God gave it, or whether what you are has been evolved by race--by generations of gentle breeding?

"We don't know; and I, for one, don't care--except for any satisfaction or consolation it might afford you to know who you really are.

"But, for me, I have learned enough to satisfy myself. And I have never known a lovelier character than is yours, Philippa; nor a nobler one."

She continued walking beside him, clinging very tightly to one of his arms, her head lowered under its velvet bonnet.

When she looked up at last, her eyes were wet with tears; she smiled and, loosening her clasp, stretched out her hand for his handkerchief.

"The second time I have borrowed from you," she managed to say. "Do you remember--in the boat?"

He laughed, greatly relieved that the tense constraint was broken--that the tension of his own emotion was relaxed. For he had become intensely serious with the girl--how serious and how deeply in earnest he now began to realize. And whether his own ardent tribute to her had awakened him, while offering it, to all that he was praising, or whether he had already discovered by cooler research all that he now found admirable in her, he did not know.

They came to a hedge; she returned his handkerchief, placed her hand in his, mounted the stile with lithe grace, and he climbed up beside her.

Below them ran the Ausone road, grey with hanging dust; and through the floating cloud tramped the fugitives from the north--old men, old women, girls, little children, struggling onward under their burdens, trudging doggedly, silently southward.

Philippa uttered an exclamation of pity as a man passed wheeling a crippled child in a wheelbarrow, guiding it carefully along beside a herd of cattle which seemed very difficult to manage.

For a few minutes they stood there, watching the sad procession defiling at their feet, then Warner jumped down to the high, grassy bank, lifted Philippa to the ground--which was not necessary, although he seemed to think so, and the girl thanked him very sweetly--and then they went forward along the hedge of aubepine until, around the curve of the road just ahead, he caught sight of the school.

"We can enter by the rear and keep out of that crowd," he said to Philippa. "You don't know Sister Eila, do you?"

"No."

"Nor Sister Felicite?"

"No, Jim. Are they nuns?"

"Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul. Here is the garden gate. We can go through the kitchen."

But before they had traversed the little vegetable garden, Sister Eila came to the kitchen door.

Warner said:

"Sister Eila, I am so glad that you are to know my friend, Mademoiselle Philippa Wildresse, who, as I am, is a guest of Madame de Moidrey at the Chateau."

Sister Eila came forward, her clear eyes on Philippa, took the girl's offered hand in both of hers, stood silent for a moment, then turned to Warner.

"It was most kind of you to bring her, Mr. Warner. I hope that we shall become friends--" turning to Philippa--"if you also wish it."

Philippa's grey eyes looked steadily at Sister Eila.

"Yes, I do," she said in a low voice.

Sister Felicite appeared from the schoolroom, greeting and presentation were made, and then the elder Sister took Philippa away to the schoolroom where recitations were in progress; and Sister Eila led Warner through the kitchen, up the uncarpeted stairs, and into a room where, on an iron bed, a man lay.

He was young, fair-haired, and very pallid under his bandage, and the eyes he turned on Warner as he entered were the eyes of a sick man.