ust of travel, we set off to visit our son, walking
with timorous haste along the grand old avenue where the school was
situated. A little casement window to the left of the wide entrance-door
showed a red cross. We looked at it silently, wondering.

[Illustration: The Red Cross in the Window]

In response to our ring the portal opened mysteriously at touch of the
unseen concierge, and we entered. A conference with Monsieur le
Directeur, kindly, voluble, tactfully complimentary regarding our
halting French, followed. The interview over, we crossed the courtyard
our hearts beating quickly. At the top of a little flight of worn stone
steps was the door of the school hospital, and under the ivy-twined
trellis stood a sweet-faced Franciscan Soeur, waiting to welcome us.

[Illustration: Enter M. Le Docteur]

Passing through a tiny outer room--an odd combination of dispensary,
kitchen, and drawing-room with a red-tiled floor--we reached the
sick-chamber, and saw the Boy. A young compatriot, also a victim of the
disease, occupied another bed, but for the first moments we were
oblivious of his presence. Raising his fever-flushed face from the
pillows, the Boy eagerly stretched out his burning hands.

"I heard your voices," his hoarse voice murmured contentedly, "and I
knew _you_ couldn't be ghosts." Poor child! in the semidarkness of the
lonely night-hours phantom voices had haunted him. We of the morning
were real.

The good Soeur buzzed a mild frenzy of "Il ne faut pas toucher" about
our ears, but, all unheeding, we clasped the hot hands and crooned over
him. After the dreary months of separation, love overruled wisdom. Mere
prudence was not strong enough to keep us apart.

Chief amongst the chaos of thoughts that had assailed us on the
reception of the bad news, was the necessity of engaging an English
medical man. But at the first sight of the French doctor, as, clad in a
long overall of white cotton, he entered the sick-room, our insular
prejudice vanished, ousted by complete confidence; a confidence that our
future experience of his professional skill and personal kindliness only
strengthened.

It was with sore hearts that, the prescribed _cinq minutes_ ended, we
descended the little outside stair. Still, we had seen the Boy; and
though we could not nurse him, we were not forbidden to visit him. So we
were thankful too.

CHAPTER II

OGAMS

[Illustration: Perpetual Motion]

Our hotel was distinctive