We sat up again together that night, Tardif and I. He would not smoke,
lest the scent of the tobacco should get in through the crevices of the
door, and lessen the girl's chance of sleep; but he held his pipe
between his teeth, taking an imaginary puff now and then, that he might
keep himself wide awake. We talked to one another in whispers.
"Tell me all you know about mam'zelle," I said. He had been chary of his
knowledge before, but his heart seemed open at this moment. Most hearts
are more open at midnight than at any other hour.
"There's not much to tell, doctor," he answered. "Her name is Ollivier,
as I said to you; but she does not think she is any kin to the Olliviers
of Guernsey. She is poor, though she does not look as if she had been
born poor, does she?"
"Not in the least degree," I said. "If she is not a lady of birth, she
is one of the first specimens of Nature's gentlefolks I have ever come
across."
"Ah, there is a difference!" he said, sighing. "I feel it, doctor, in
every word I speak to her, and every step I walk with her eyes upon me.
Why cannot I be like her, or like you? You'll be on a level with her,
and I am down far below her."
I looked at him curiously. The slouching figure--well shaped as it
was--the rough, knotted hands, the unkempt mass of hair about his head
and face, marked him for what he was--a toiler on the sea as well as on
the land. He understood my scrutiny, and colored under it like a girl.
"You are a better fellow than I am, Tardif," I said; "but that has
nothing to do with our talk. I think we ought to communicate with the
young lady's friends, whoever they may be, as soon as there are any
means of communicating with the rest of the world. We should be in a fix
if any thing should happen to her. Have you no clew to her friends?"
"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?"