"Mademoiselle must not dream of it," answered the old woman with decision. "As it is, I believe Monsieur Deshoulieres would say I was doing wrong in coming up here. But he positively forbade me to let mademoiselle pass through those streets." Amid all his labours he had thought of her. "Do you love Monsieur Deshoulieres better by this time?" asked the girl, suddenly. There was a minute's silence. "Monsieur is admirable at present," said Nannon at last, stubbornly. "Admirable. But then it is his _metier_, mademoiselle must understand. It has absolutely nothing to do with those other matters we have talked about. For the sick he devotes himself like a saint. I do not know how he can do all he does. If it were not for mademoiselle I believe I should go to him and ask to be allowed to nurse. One can do that though one is old and stupid. And they want nurses so terribly, the poor things." "How I wish I might be one." "Mademoiselle! You!" "Yes, I. Do you think nobody can have any good idea but you?" "Mademoiselle jests." "On such a subject!" Therese answered, gravely. "But mademoiselle might catch the fever." "One would suppose you were talking to Monsieur Roulleau," said the girl, with impatience. "What makes my life of greater value than the lives of those good women who risk theirs now? Bah, Nannon! I did not expect you to take the fever-fright." "It is not for myself. I am no longer in my youth; the fever, or whatever it may please the good God to send, will be all one to me soon," answered the old woman, unconsciously pathetic. "But with mademoiselle it is different. She is young and inexperienced, and does not know what she is asking. It is all too sad for her." "Is it very dreadful at the hospital?" "Not so bad as in the houses where the poor things are all together, one lying dead on the floor and another unconscious by the side; and then there is the weeping and the wailing which they manage to shut out of the hospital." Therese shuddered. "Oh, Nannon, if it would but rain!"