to the last speaker, and moved them timidly
towards Irene. She smiled, meeting his look with a sort of merry
satisfaction.

"Mr. Otway is occupied with serious thoughts," was her good-humoured
remark.

"I should much like to hear the story of Thibaut," said Piers, bending
forward a little.

"Would you? You shall--Thibaut Rossignol; delightful name, isn't it?
And one of the most delightful of men, though only a servant, and the
son of a village shopkeeper. It begins fifteen years ago, just after
the Franco-Prussian War. My father was taking a holiday in eastern
France, and he came one day to a village where an epidemic of typhoid
was raging. _Tant mieux_! Something to do; some help to be given. If
you knew my father--but you will understand. He offered his services to
the overworked couple of doctors and was welcomed. He fought the
typhoid day and night--if you knew my father! Well, there was a bad
case in a family named Rossignol: a boy of twelve. What made it worse
was that two elder brothers had been killed in the war, and the parents
sat in despair by the bedside of their only remaining child. The father
was old and very shaky; the mother much younger, but she had suffered
dreadfully from the death of her two boys--you should hear my father
tell it! I make a hash of it; when _he_ tells it people cry. Madame
Rossignol was the sweetest little woman--you know that kind of
Frenchwoman, don't you? Soft-voiced, tender, intelligent, using the
most delightful phrases; a jewel of a woman. My father settled himself
by the bedside and fought; Madame Rossignol watching him with eyes he
did not dare to meet--until a certain moment. Then--_then_ the soft
voice for once was loud. '_Ii est sauve_!' My father shed tears;
everybody shed tears--except Thibaut himself."

Piers hung on the speaker's lips. No music had ever held him so rapt.
When she ceased he gazed at her.

"No, of course, that's not all," Irene proceeded, with the mischievous
smile again; and she spoke much as she might have done to an eagerly
listening child. "Six years pass by. My father is again in the east of
France, and he goes to the old village. He is received with enthusiasm;
his name has become a proverb. Rossignol _pere_, alas, is dead, long
since. Dear Madame Rossignol lives, but my father sees at a glance that
she will not live long. The excitement of meeting him was almost too
much for her--pale, sweet little woman. Thibaut was keeping shop with
her