Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/133

days ago—at Suippes. You've seen his citation? They brought him in to me at Chalons without a warning—and too late. I took off both legs, but gangrene had set in. Ah—if I could have got hold of one of our big surgeons. . . Yes, we're just back from the funeral. . . My mother and my wife . . . they had that comfort. . ."

The two women stood beside him like shrouded statues. Suddenly Mme. Fortin's deep voice came through the crape: "You saw him, Monsieur, that last day . . . the day you came about your own son, I think?"

"I . . . yes . . ." Campton stammered in anguish.

The physician intervened. "And, now, ma bonne mère, you're not to be kept standing. You're to go straight in and take your tisane and go to bed." He kissed his mother and pushed her into his wife's arms.

"Good-bye, my dear. Take care of her."

The women vanished under the porte-cochère, and Fortin turned to the painter.

"Thank you for coming. I can't ask you in—I must go back immediately."

"Back?"

"To my work. Thank God. If it were not for that———"

He jumped into the motor, called out "En route," and was absorbed into the night.