"She's down in Montreux with the man who said he was my father. They're at the police office. You see, Flip, that's what he's been doing. I mean, it's his profession. He went around finding out about people who didn't know who they were and then he pretended he was related to them and got money from whoever had become their new families. Aunt Colette said he was ill and not right in his mind. He admitted that he wasn't my father but it wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't because when I saw you lying there all in a little heap inside the chateau in the dark and I thought you were dead, I remembered. I remembered who I was, Flip." Flip lay very quietly on the bed. She didn't dare move, partly because it hurt her head to move, but mostly because it was another of those times when she knew it would be best for Paul if she was very still and very silent. Paul put his head down so that his cheek pressed against Flip's feet and a lock of his dark hair fell across his forehead. "I'll try to be clear, Flip," he said, "but I want to say it as quickly as possible because it's a hard thing to say. My father was a writer. We lived in an old chateau--something like _our_ chateau, Flip--that had always been in our family. During the war my father worked with the maquis. He was the editor of one of the most important of the underground newspapers. I had an older sister, she was fifteen, then, and she helped. So did my mother. Sometimes they let me run errands. Everybody helped who could possibly be used and sometimes I could do things without arousing suspicion that an older person couldn't do." He paused for a moment, and then went on. "One evening I was coming home after dark. I went in through one of the French windows. The room was dark and I stumbled over something. It was my sister. She was lying there just the same way you were lying in the chateau last night when I thought you were dead. I saw you lying there and you _were_ my sister and it wasn't last night at all but the night my sister was shot. It was shortly after that that all of my father's work was uncovered and we were sent to a concentration camp.... I think if you don't mind very much I'll have to let Aunt Colette tell you the rest." Again Flip wanted to say something that would give Paul comfort, but she knew that she was unable to. She lay there and felt the pressure of his cheek against her feet, until he lifted his head and stared up at her and his eyes were the grey of the lake and seemed to hold in their depths as much knowledge and suffering as the lake must have seen. He stared up at her and now Flip knew that she must say something. She pushed herself up very slowly on one elbow, raised herself up and beyond the pain that clamped about her head, and reached down and gently touched Paul's dark hair. She suddenly felt much older, and unconsciously, she echoed Madame Perceval's words. "It's all right, Paul. Everything's going to be all right." 2