“Lucy, will you do something for me?” asked Miss Pearse, as they mounted the hospital steps early in the morning, two days later. “Miss Willis and BrÊlet are going to the German supply depot after some things we need. I wish you would go with them and see if you can’t bring back more soap and matches. We want them terribly, and we always have to wait for them at a separate door from the food depot. It’s impossible to spare any one else from here,” she added, turning toward Lucy a decidedly reproachful look, “or I’d keep you working in the hospital. Goodness knows what you’ll do, once I let you out.”

Lucy, not having any defense ready, said nothing. But she did not look particularly repentant. Miss Pearse had come face to face with her outside the hospital when she returned the morning after Bob’s visit. Astonished at catching sight of her charge, whom she thought still in bed and asleep, she had insisted on a complete explanation. Lucy had received a scolding, but underneath all of her severity, Miss Pearse could not hide the sympathetic heart that beat in warm response to Lucy’s hope and anxiety. Her lecture had weakly broken down into a fire of questions about Bob’s daring flight, which left Lucy feeling less remorseful than Miss Pearse intended.

Now, after waiting a moment while their passes were inspected by a deliberate German sentry, she followed the nurse into the hospital, saying, “Of course I’ll go, Miss Pearse. Right after breakfast? Just let me tell Father good-morning first.”

Colonel Gordon was sitting up in bed, for his convalescence had now really begun, and his thin face, from which the tan had almost faded, was tinged with the first suggestion of returning health. His eyes, though, held a sombre look in their gray depths, and at sight of Lucy it did not leave them, even when he smiled cheerfully and held out a welcoming hand.

Lucy had told her father everything about Bob’s visit and the news that he had brought, and in the thrilling story Colonel Gordon’s fear for his son’s safety had been almost outweighed by admiration of his pluck and skill. His face had lighted up as he listened, and Lucy had repeated the details of Bob’s message and landing twice over. It meant much to the wounded officer to feel that, if he himself must remain a helpless prisoner of war, his son at least was doing a brave part alone.

Lucy had not told him a word about her visit to Captain Beattie’s prison. She had not accomplished what she hoped, and she dreaded lest her father’s fears for her safety might lead him to make her promise not to go there again. Just now she felt she could not give up the one chance that might mean so much. And had she not given a promise, too, that she would do what she could to make the young Englishman’s lot more bearable?

This morning she told her father of her intended trip across the town for the supplies doled out by the German conquerors. Colonel Gordon lay watching his daughter with anxious eyes as she sat beside him, thankful to see that her cheeks had not yet lost their color, in spite of all she had endured, nor her hazel eyes their brightness.

“I’m all right, Father, so long as I have work to do,” said Lucy, reading his troubled thoughts. “It was sitting idle and worrying that I couldn’t stand. Now that you are getting well, and we know the worst about the town, I can grin and bear it.”

“A weight is off my mind since I know Bob has told your mother we are safe,” said Colonel Gordon. “As for grinning and bearing it, our troops won’t be satisfied to do that, thank heaven. They’ll push through again somehow—they must! I don’t know what I’d do if I thought I was a prisoner for the rest of the war.”

Lucy was silent, but again she resolved to tell her father nothing of the secret Captain Beattie held, until she had revisited the prison and accomplished at least a part of what she sought.

“I must go to breakfast now, Father,” she said, after a moment. “I’ll come in to see you again just as soon as I get back from my morning’s work.”

Lucy needed no urging to do all in her power to help inside the hospital. To her natural eagerness to be of service to the Allies’ cause was added a keen desire to show the Germans in command that she was useful. She had a secret dread that they might think her in the way and forbid her to remain where she longed to stay, close by her father’s side.

The streets were glowing in hot sunshine when she started out with Miss Willis and BrÊlet, an hour later. Since the night before, the guns had been almost silent, and every soul among the Allies in the town wondered how things were going on the battle-front, but steadfastly refused to ask their conquerors, certain they would hear of nothing else than a German victory. But even the Germans could not claim much of an advance, for the firing of the past night showed their line to be still held at about four miles west of ChÂteau-Plessis.

The German food supply depot was about a mile north from the American hospital. It was inconveniently placed for both hospitals and for the few hundred inhabitants remaining in the town, but naturally the Germans gave no thought to this. Every one wishing to buy or beg food was obliged to go in person, showing the registry card which had been furnished each inhabitant soon after the town’s capture. This systematic arrangement promised well, but in reality many a tired and over-worked French citizen had a long, hot walk to the supply depot for nothing. The food was scanty, and only the worst portions of it were reserved for the townspeople. In addition to this, the long wait necessary to secure anything kept those away who had a few vegetables left growing in their little gardens.

The old men and boys of ChÂteau-Plessis had been put to work clearing the streets of broken stone and rubbish, for there was no more than a company of soldiers in the town, and these contented themselves with mounting guard and exercising a general supervision. But the civilian workers received no more food than if they had been idle, and, hungry and dejected, worked grudgingly at their task, fearful lest they should be in some way aiding the German advance. Lucy watched these unwilling workers, as the three passed close to a little group of them, on their way across the town. Somehow they seemed even more pitiful to her than soldier prisoners. The soldier has at least had a chance to strike his enemy, and he is at a time of life when blows are given and endured. But these old men, weather-worn and bent with labor, had earned a quiet home in the little town where most of them were born. The boys, from twelve to about sixteen years old, glanced up with shamefaced and defiant looks. They had had no chance at self-defense, and Lucy guessed with a quick throb of sympathy how their young, loyal hearts must suffer in obeying the conqueror’s commands.

“Suppose it were America, and the Germans were ordering us to work for them,” she thought, and her cheeks flushed with anger at the triumphant foe who caused such misery. Then she shook her head impatiently at herself, as the house used for the food depot came into sight. “I’ll have to feel a little more polite than this, if I’m to get any soap and matches out of them,” she decided.

“There’s not much of a crowd to-day, thank goodness,” remarked Miss Willis, looking at the scattered handful of people standing about the building. “But I suppose there are enough more indoors to keep us waiting half the morning.”

“Well, I’ll go to the other side and try my luck,” said Lucy, making for the left-hand door and taking her place in line, with the written request from the hospital in her hand. Presently her turn came to step inside the door and hand her paper to the sergeant at the desk. He read it, pursing his lips doubtfully, glanced at a written list beside him, and finally told Lucy to come back in half an hour. He shouted it, under the odd impression that people who could not understand German would get his meaning somehow if he spoke loud enough. Lucy nodded, wanting to laugh at his hot, bothered-looking face, and went out in search of Miss Willis and BrÊlet.

The people of the hospital, owing in great part to the German wounded sheltered there, were in a much easier position than the rest of the population in regard to food. The German authorities allowed them hand-carts to convey the somewhat variable supplies allotted to them. To-day the chief part of the food had already been sent over, but some necessary things were missing, and these Miss Willis had volunteered to bring back. The chances looked uncertain, however. The German non-com in charge as a matter of course appeared doubtful about granting her request. Perhaps—after a while——When Lucy entered the room things had advanced no further than this. Seeing every prospect of a long wait she glanced about her to see who else was in the same plight. Twenty-five or thirty people were standing wearily waiting on the sergeant’s pleasure. Some of them had sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall.

Among these last was a slight delicate-looking woman whom Lucy noticed because she seemed so sadly out of place seated on the dusty floor in the midst of the noisy and perspiring crowd. She was plainly dressed in black with a widow’s cap over her soft, dark hair, but something about her face and bearing set her apart from the peasants and townspeople around her. Beside her stood an old woman who was evidently a servant, with an empty basket on her arm and an angry scowl on her forehead as she watched the German soldiers leisurely dealing out supplies to the waiting crowd. But it was the third member of the little group to whom Lucy’s attention quickly shifted. This was a girl about her own age, who stood leaning against the wall by her mother’s side, a kind of scornful patience on her face. Her blue eyes, which looked as though not long ago they had been full of childish gaiety, now held a defiant resolution in their depths. Her hair was so black it reminded Lucy of Julia Houston’s, except that Julia’s hair was straight, and this girl’s fell in soft waves over her thin shoulders.

Lucy could not take her eyes away from that pretty, sensitive face, so pathetic in its look of having been roughly wakened from the happy childhood that French girls know until well into their teens. In another moment the object of her gaze looked around and caught sight of her. Lucy did not hesitate. She had longed for the companionship of a girl her own age since she had found time to think in these last few days, and she had seen this girl once before in crossing the town with BrÊlet and Elizabeth, and had heard from BrÊlet something of her history. She made a difficult way across the crowded room to her side and, overcoming a sudden shyness as the stranger’s eyes met hers, she said in French with a friendly smile, “You won’t mind if I speak to you? I’d like so much to have another girl to talk to.”

For a second her listener looked puzzled, for Lucy’s French was much worse than her German. Then her face lighted comprehendingly, and a bright smile chased away all the scornful sadness from her look.

“I shall be glad!” she exclaimed, her pretty voice sounding pleasantly on Lucy’s ears after the shouts of the German soldiers calling off the names upon their lists. Then, hesitating for a second, the girl said in careful, foreign-sounding English, “If you prefer, we can talk in English. I speak enough that you can understand me, though I make some mistakes at every moment.”

“Oh, yes,” cried Lucy, enormously relieved at the loosening of her tongue. “I can understand you perfectly, and you tell me if I talk too fast.”

“Then let us sit on the floor,” the French girl suggested, dropping down as she spoke against the wall.

Lucy quickly followed suit, and when they were seated side by side on the rickety floor, which shook and creaked under many footsteps, her companion continued, “I know a little of you already. Clemence, our servant, has told me how you came here to see your father.” A look of such keen sympathy shone in the blue eyes fixed on hers that Lucy for a moment could not speak, and the French girl added, “You are American, no? Tell me your name.”

“Lucy Gordon. And I know part of yours. You are Mademoiselle de la Tour, but what is your first name?”

“Michelle. It was the poilu who was with you when you saw me in the street who has told you that. He knows well this town. He was—how you call it? Jardinier of my uncle, very near here, before the war.”

BrÊlet had in fact told Lucy more of Michelle de la Tour than her name. He had described the first German advance early in the war, which had driven the widow and her little daughter from their beautiful country-place to find refuge in the town. Since then things had gone from bad to worse with this family, once so honored and fortunate. Madame de la Tour’s only son was fighting for his country, while his mother and sister were left, poor and needy, in German hands.

Lucy wondered what stories of privation and sacrifice Michelle’s lips could tell. But she also guessed that she would hear little of them. Impelled by an instinctive confidence and liking which made her feel more warmly toward this girl than five minutes’ acquaintance warranted, she began telling her a little of her own history. Of her coming from England, of her father’s recovery in the midst of the German advance, of her mother’s vain attempts to reach them, and lastly she spoke of Bob. Not, of course, of his visit since the town’s capture, for Lucy had learned prudence enough in the last week. She did not say a word that could have brought danger to any friend of the Allies, however unlikely it was that her English would be understood. Michelle heard her with an eager intentness, and Lucy’s friendly interest seemed reflected in her listener’s eyes, which in their changing brightness expressed her thoughts far better than her halting English. At last she turned to where her mother sat, and reached out an eager hand to her.

“Maman! I have a friend—a little Americaine. Mees, here is my mother.”

Lucy crawled over and held out a dusty hand to Madame de la Tour, who gave her in return a firm, lingering clasp of her delicate fingers. Michelle’s mother had her daughter’s radiant smile, and it hid for an instant even the heavy lines of weariness and anxiety in her pale face.

“I am very glad if you will be company to my little girl,” she said, in better English than Michelle’s. At the same time her dark eyes searched Lucy’s face, as though the terrible years of doubt, dread and suspicion had made her slow to accept any friendship, even one so innocent as this little American’s. But Lucy’s frank, honest glance seemed to convince her. She patted her hand and smiled again, as though the ever-lurking dangers were forgotten for the moment in motherly pity for the lonely child before her.

“Michelle,” she said quickly, “you must ask la petite to come and visit us. Very sad it must be for her always in the hospital.”

“Will you come, Mees?” asked Michelle, eagerly.

“Yes, but please call me Lucy,” was the prompt reply, to which Michelle agreed with a nod and a smile, saying:

“You, too, call me Michelle. So it is much pleasanter.”

“Where do you live?” was on the tip of Lucy’s tongue, but at that moment she saw BrÊlet making energetic signals to her across the room. With a sudden conscience-stricken remembrance of her supplies next door, she sprang up and bade her new friends a hasty good-bye.

“I hope to see you very soon again,” she found time to say, before she squeezed her way through the increasing crowd.

“All right, BrÊlet, just wait a minute until I get my things. Is Miss Willis ready to go?” she asked the poilu, who stood by the door, his full basket slung over his shoulder.

“Yes, I will come with Mademoiselle,” he said, following Lucy outside to the other door, where a scanty supply of the articles she wanted were handed from the desk after a further wait of a quarter of an hour.

All during the hot walk home Lucy thought of Michelle and wondered how soon she should be able to see her again. That afternoon as soon as she sat down to work on the torn linen with Elizabeth, she asked her old nurse how she could manage to visit her new friend. “You see, I suppose she works in the French hospital with her mother, so I don’t know how we can do any work together. Will the Germans let me go to her house?” she asked doubtfully.

“The Germans here not so many are that they will bother to see what you do, unless you the town try to leave,” was Elizabeth’s answer. “When I in the morning to the cottage in the meadows go, you may come with me and stop at the house of your friend.”

“Oh, do you know where she lives?” cried Lucy, overjoyed.

“Surely do I. Near by to where stood the sentry when we passed him the other night.”

Lucy left off working toward sundown to go and sit with her father, and in him she had an interested listener to Elizabeth’s plan for visiting Michelle.

“I’m so glad you’ve found a friend, little daughter,” he said, with sober satisfaction. “It must be so almighty hard and lonesome for you here. But remember, you’re never to cross the town even that far without Elizabeth or some one else from the hospital.”

Lucy nodded, thinking rather guiltily of her determination to visit Captain Beattie on the first night that Elizabeth was off duty.

Just now, though, she had only one thought in her head. It is no small thing to find a companion one’s own age after many days spent among grownups. And this girl had appealed to Lucy from the first glimpse she caught of her in the street a week ago. Lucy was not given to rushing headlong into friendships, but she did follow her impulses frankly, and on the whole did not often have reason to regret it.

By the following morning Elizabeth had forgotten all about Lucy’s inquiries of the day before, and looked up in surprise when she came early into the dining-room greeting her with, “Well, Elizabeth, when may we start?”

Lucy had risen at daybreak, obtained Miss Pearse’s consent to her plan, and arranged breakfast trays for the convalescents an hour under the nurse’s direction. Then she had sat with her father a while, for it was early in the day that he felt most rested and ready for conversation. Now she felt that it was time her wish was gratified, and sighed regretfully when Elizabeth answered:

“So soon as I can I will go, Miss Lucy. But first I have some work to do, and the Sergeant must sign us the permissions for to-day.”

“Oh, all right,” agreed Lucy, somewhat pacified at sight of the breakfast Elizabeth was placing on the table.

It was a beautiful early summer morning, with white clouds piled against the soft blue sky, and the sun just warm enough to make the shade feel pleasant. After the unusual heat of the past few days it was exhilarating to both mind and body. Lucy felt filled to the brim with life and energy. In spite of herself her spirits soared with hope and confidence in better things to come. Somehow she believed to-day, when she and Elizabeth set out from the hospital half an hour later, that ChÂteau-Plessis must soon be restored to its rightful owners. It seemed as though this nightmare of German conquest were but a passing thing and could be bravely borne with that assurance.

There was nothing whatever to suggest a change for the better in reality as they crossed the town. The guns were still silent, except for scattered shots, the German sentries still kept guard over the desolate streets, and the gangs of unhappy old men and boys labored at the piles of dÉbris in sullen submission. Still Lucy’s spirits refused to be much dampened. In her mind she debated schemes for carrying food to Captain Beattie, resolving to tell Michelle all about the prisoner at the first opportunity.

“Look, Miss Lucy,” said Elizabeth, presently, as they neared the southeastern part of the town. “There is the house of Madame de la Tour.” She pointed down the street to a little brick house with a gabled roof. “It is one that she owns before, but now she goes there to live, because it is not much by the shells hurt.”

In a minute they stopped in front of the door and Lucy asked eagerly, “May I go in and see them now? Will you come back for me?” She glanced along the street, which was deserted except for a shuffling old woman making her weary way toward the food depot, and looked back at Elizabeth, who answered thoughtfully:

“I will be only an hour gone, but no longer can I wait to take you back. I have plenty work to do in the hospital to-day. Anyway, you will have with your friend a little visit. But first I wait to see if she is here.”

Lucy ran up the short flight of steps and was just about to knock on the door when it opened and Michelle herself stood on the threshold, smiling a welcome.

“I have seen you by the window,” she explained, “so I came to open.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you are at home,” said Lucy, delighted. “All right, Elizabeth! Don’t forget to come back for me.”

She followed Michelle into the house, which was a bare, homely little place, oddly furnished with a few splendid pieces brought from the old home, eked out with simple stools and tables got from near at hand. But it was neat and homelike, and that meant much to Lucy, after her days spent in the midst of the hospital’s terrible activity.

Madame de la Tour had already gone to the French hospital, and Michelle was putting the house in order while the old servant was busy in the kitchen.

“Sit down upon this chair,” she said to Lucy, bringing an old, carved armchair close to the open window. The windows had been open ever since the glass was shattered by the shell-fire, but now that summer had come, the boards which helped keep out the winter cold were put aside.

Michelle pulled up a second chair for herself, and taking some knitting on her lap, exclaimed with a look of pleasant anticipation, “Now we are comfortable, no? It is so long since I have company. I feel almost strange to see a friend.”

“There is so much I want to talk about, I can’t think where to begin,” said Lucy frankly. But as she spoke she remembered her need of making another visit to the old prison, and realized also that such chance of speaking in safe privacy with Michelle might not come soon again. She did not have very long, either, for Elizabeth walked fast.

“Michelle, I want first to tell you about my brother’s coming here the other night,” she began quickly.

“Your brother—he come here?” gasped Michelle, her English failing her in her amazement.

“Yes,” Lucy nodded. She plunged into her story and repeated the whole incident of Bob’s coming and of her own visit to Captain Beattie’s prison. By the time she finished Michelle’s eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed with pink, and the knitting lay unheeded in her hands. When Lucy stopped for breath she burst into such enthusiastic praise and comment that Lucy was almost overcome.

“Goodness, I didn’t do anything,” she said hastily, for she had not told the story with any idea of winning applause for herself. “The reasons I want you to know about it are, first, because I hope you will let me bring things for Captain Beattie here, and stop for them on my way to the prison. Secondly, because we are friends, and I wanted to tell you about Bob.”

Michelle’s face was a study; the strangest mixture of warm sympathy and a kind of puzzled doubt. Lucy looked at her wonderingly, for she answered with evident sincerity, “Very gladly will I help you to take things to the poor Englishman. I will go with you if I may—I long so to help a little bit! Oh, Lucy, only to make pass that news of Argenton across the German lines!”

Lucy’s heart eagerly responded to this wish, but a queer discomfort at the baffling look in Michelle’s eyes kept her a moment silent. Suddenly she realized that while she had told this almost stranger her dearest secrets, Michelle, on the other hand, had not opened her lips on the subject of her brother, or of her hopes for the success of the Allies. Lucy was too candid and impulsive to bear this state of things unquestioningly. She looked into Michelle’s troubled face and asked, “Why won’t you tell me anything about yourself and your family, Michelle? I’ve trusted you in speaking of Bob’s coming. Don’t you trust me?”

The French girl started, hesitated, looked again into Lucy’s wondering eyes, and burst into a flood of speech.

“Oh, Lucy, I know you are with us—like all America! But some Americans are not enough on guard against our enemies. For what you are a friend with that German woman, who has the husband in the fight against us?”

“Of course! What a donkey I am!” exclaimed Lucy, relieved beyond words as things were thus made plain to her. “I forgot all about Elizabeth, Michelle, or I should have guessed what you might think from seeing me always with her. You see, Elizabeth was our old nurse in America—and I’ve known her since I was four years old. But that would not be enough to make us real friends now. She is just as pro-ally as we are. She does not wish to see the Kaiser win.”

As Michelle still looked utterly unconvinced, Lucy went back to tell of Elizabeth’s rescue of Bob from German hands the year before. She did not stop until Michelle knew of Bob’s confidence in the German woman’s sincerity, of the message dropped from the airplane, and of Elizabeth’s repudiation of her country’s war aims and her promise to help in all Lucy’s efforts.

Michelle sat silent and astonished, her blue eyes fixed upon Lucy’s face.

“Does she hate Germany?” she asked at last.

“Oh, no, but she hates the Junkers ruling her. It is for Germany’s own sake that she is pro-ally. Do you see what I mean? Besides, she loves America, where she lived so long. It was the lies that they told her about America that first taught her the truth.”

Michelle reflected for a long moment. Then she said slowly, “Lucy, I know your brother would not be deceived, and I believe what you tell me. But it is hard to think the wife of a Boche soldier to be pro-ally.”

“Karl isn’t a soldier—he’s too old. He’s only a cook. He was our cook for nearly ten years at home. Anyway, Michelle, you know that I’m all right, and you will soon see that Elizabeth is too. I know how you feel, for I wouldn’t have believed her myself, though I’ve known and trusted her so long, if she had not brought the message from Bob.”

Michelle nodded quickly. “Lucy, I go to tell you now about my brother. But all the same, though I believe you, promise me you will not tell the old nurse a word of what I say.”

“I promise,” said Lucy, wondering.

An ever-present fear, the look that Madame de la Tour’s glance had held when she first saw Lucy’s face, lighted Michelle’s clear eyes as she bent forward and whispered:

“My brother Armand is a spy for the French army. Once already after the first German victory he made his way into the town.”

“How could he!” breathed Lucy with fast beating heart, sudden glorious possibilities awaking in her thoughts.

“I tell you how,” said Michelle, her voice trembling with pride and emotion at her brother’s gallant exploit. Changed from Michelle’s slow and halting English, the story of Armand de la Tour’s entrance into the captured town was this:

During an attempted night-raid made by a dozen Germans on the French trenches before ChÂteau-Plessis, one of the Germans fell, mortally wounded, in no-man’s-land, close to the French lines. Armand, wearing the uniform of a German soldier, leaped out and took the fallen man’s place in the darkness. The German attacking party, with Armand among them, regained their own trenches, the Germans surprised at the sudden pause in the rifle fire from the French side. Dawn found the spy inside the town, having made a perilous way in on pretense of special duty. Once under the shelter of his mother’s roof, he obtained the information he came for and at nightfall returned to the German trenches. Having arranged with his friends on the French side a preconcerted time and place, he went over the top in a pretended attack and reached his own lines in safety.

This feat had led directly to the capture of the town by the French and American troops—the action in which Lucy’s father had been wounded.

There was no chance, so far as the Allies knew, of learning anything in ChÂteau-Plessis now, but Michelle and her mother knew that anxiety on their behalf would lead Armand to run great risks to enter the town again, and they dreaded lest he attempt it.

“If he should, Michelle,” cried Lucy, thrilled at this story of unselfish heroism, “he could take back word from Captain Beattie of what they long to know.”

“That is why I make haste to tell you,” said Michelle, nodding. “Better you get the English Capitaine to write you what he knows, and you bring it here; for though Armand wear the German uniform, he dare not show himself about the streets. Look,” she added, pointing through the window, “there is the German woman come for you. Poor thing, she has the heavy basket.”

Lucy was not sure whether Michelle really believed in Elizabeth or not, but more than satisfied in any case with her morning’s visit, she got up, nodding to Elizabeth that she was coming. Michelle, rising too, slipped an arm through Lucy’s with shy friendliness as they went out toward the door.