Then Madame Le Maitre told him of one case, and of
another, in which the family bereavement seemed particularly sad. The
stories she told had great detail, but they were not tedious. Caius
listened, and forgot that her voice was musical or that her hood and
cloak were ugly; he only thought of the actors in the short sad idylls
of the island that she put before him.
When they entered the first house, he discovered that she herself had
been in the habit of visiting each of the sick every day as nurse, and,
as far as her simple skill could go, as doctor too. In this house it was
a little child that lay ill, and as soon as Caius saw it he ceased to
hope for its recovery. They used the new remedies that he had brought
with him, and when he looked round for someone who could continue to
apply them, he found that the mother was already dead, and the father
took no charge of the child--he was not there. A half-grown boy of about
fifteen was its only nurse, and he was not deft or wise, although love,
or a rude sense of conscience, had kept him from deserting his post.
"When we have visited the others, I will come back and remain," said
Madame Le Maitre.
So they rode on down the hill and along the shingled beach that edged a
lagoon. Here the sea lapped softly and they were sheltered from the
wind. Here, too, they saw the other islands lying in the crescent they
composed, and they saw the waves of the bay break on the sand-bank that
was the other arm of the lagoon.
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