“It looks like a regular workshop. Oh, Michelle, I’m so glad you thought of it!” exclaimed Lucy, looking around the hall with admiring eyes. Almost every convalescent soldier had a lump of clay or some willow splits in his fingers, of which he was trying to fashion something pretty or useful, generally without much success. A few of the poilus and Germans were expert basket weavers, and one potter was among them. The rest knew enough to get along with help. As for the Americans, they caused more amusement than had been heard among the men in a long time. Not one of them could weave the willow splits into a symmetrical shape, and only one succeeded in making of the clay anything more than a dumpy jug. This was a little red-headed westerner, who formed his lump into a dozen animals in as many minutes, to the great interest of the Frenchmen about him, ending the exhibition with a figure of a cowboy on horseback, waving a lasso made of a willow sliver.

It was not the quality of the work that made the two girls proud and delighted at the result of their hard labor. It was the atmosphere of interested occupation and rivalry, so different from the listless melancholy that takes possession of a roomful of idle men. The work was trifling and almost useless, but it was far better than nothing, and Lucy felt well repaid for her hot walks and the heavy loads carried in her aching arms.

It was two days since her visit to the prison, and she had spent the intervals from work in vain attempts to scheme out a means of getting her precious paper to the Allied lines. One idea she communicated to Michelle, rather expecting to be laughed at.

“Do you think we could tame one of the pigeons that fly around the hospital roof, Michelle? It could take the message so easily.”

“But this is their home,” Michelle objected. “You must have a bird who longs to return across the lines—who is a stranger here. There were many like that guarded here last month by the French État-major. I do not know where they are now.”

“What an easy way that would be, and what a safe one,” Lucy thought this morning as she went back and forth among the convalescents, giving encouragement since she could not give advice, and seeing that each man had material to work with.

“Oh, how too bad we must give so much to the Boches!” whispered Michelle, as Lucy picked up a handful of splits for Paul Schwartz to finish his neat basket.

“But we have to,” said Lucy, resignedly. It was the sight of the German soldiers working away at the materials furnished by the hard efforts of the two little aides which had caused the German surgeon in charge to give Lucy a brisk nod of approval in passing. She felt more angry than gratified at this condescending reward for her trouble, but she knew his good will was necessary if they were to continue helping the French and Americans.

“I cannot stay long with you this afternoon,” said Michelle a few minutes later, when all the patients were again supplied with occupation. “Poor Maman does not get up to-day. She has a bad cold from coming in the rain from the hospital.”

“I’m so sorry, Michelle. Could I do anything to help? I suppose the French doctors can give you what she needs?”

“Yes. But one thing I would like to ask of you. I am not sure if you can do it.” The French girl gave her friend an appealing look as she said, with a more natural childishness than she had shown Lucy before, “I am very lonely while Maman is ill. If you could come and pass the night with me—I would be grateful.”

“To-night, Michelle? Of course I will! I know how I can manage it. I’ll go home with Elizabeth—no one objects to that—and she can leave me at your house. It will be late, though. She can’t leave here before ten.”

“Oh, how glad I shall be of your company!” Michelle exclaimed, her face instantly brightening. Then her lip curved to a mocking smile as she added, “What could we do without that chÈre Boche, Elizabeth?”

“Laugh at her all you like,” said Lucy, unruffled. “I know her better than you.”

“I do not laugh at her,” Michelle protested. “But to be friend with her seems strange. Never I thought to trust in one of that country again.”

“Oh, Michelle, that’s not quite fair,” Lucy began, but her arguments died away on her lips. She had no right to lecture Michelle, who had seen the worst and would be more than human if the name of German were not hateful to her. “You’ll know before long that Elizabeth can be trusted,” she contented herself with saying.

“Oh, yes, sans doute,” answered Michelle, unconvinced, but anxious to make amends for her frankness. “You will come to-night then, Lucy? I will wait for you.”

The eagerness in her eyes made Lucy respond quickly, “I certainly will. I may be late, but that can’t be helped. I’m never sure when Elizabeth can get off.”

“Then au revoir, and thank you,” smiled Michelle, stopping on her way down the hall to carry a handful of wet clay to the American cowboy artist. He in turn presented her with a clay buffalo, quite lifelike with its lowered head and threatening horns. “Only mind you don’t break off the horns,” he cautioned.

“I’d ’a’ given that little Mamzel a fair treat if I hadn’t been skeered to try it,” he confided to Lucy, after Michelle’s departure. “I wanted to make her a little Boche soldier—square head, pig eyes and all—with one of our boys getting a good swipe at him with a bayonet. I’ll do it yet.”

“Hush!” said Lucy, laughing, but glancing apprehensively around. “You mustn’t talk about Boches so loud, Tyler.”

At the end of another hour she went off duty in the hall to help Elizabeth bring in the nurses’ supper. At the first opportunity she explained the promise made Michelle.

“You’ll take me with you, won’t you, Elizabeth?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, yes, Miss Lucy, I think so. In the morning I stop to bring you back after I get the basket full from the little farm. Only,” Elizabeth added, looking earnestly into Lucy’s face, “promise me you don’t by yourself to the old prison go.”

“I promise—if you’ll take me there soon again,” said Lucy, thinking sadly that the little stock of provisions she had left Captain Beattie must be already gone. “I hope you can leave early, Elizabeth,” she said, returning to the evening’s plan. “If you can’t Miss Pearse will make such a fuss.”

She was happy at the chance of doing Michelle a service, as well as at the prospect of seeing her friend for longer than a hurried hour. Elizabeth was more sympathetic this time, too, than when Lucy had proposed the other expedition. Elizabeth did not encourage patriotism or daring on Lucy’s part, and, if she had had her way, would have kept her in safe seclusion.

She did her best to get through her long day’s work early, and it was not yet ten o’clock when she left Lucy at the side door of Michelle’s house. Lucy was instantly admitted, and her hostess gave her a warm welcome.

“I thought perhaps you do not come, and I feel so sorry,” said Michelle, smiling with pleasure as she took Lucy’s cape from her shoulders. “Maman is asleep, and Clemence working in the kitchen, because she stayed with Maman to-day while I was at the hospital. You know we give the breakfast every morning to the German sentinel on this street.”

“You do!” cried Lucy, indignantly.

“Yes, we must. Come and sit here by the candle,” said Michelle, leading the way into the little parlor, “and show me what gave you the English capitaine. You said that I should see it.”

“Of course. I’m going to leave it here with you, anyway. It’s the first chance I’ve had.”

Michelle glanced keenly toward the windows, across which calico curtains were drawn, as Lucy raised the hem of her dress and, ripping a few stitches, drew out a folded slip of paper. The two girls sat down at the table on which the flickering candle burned, and Lucy spread the paper out before them.

“I’ve hardly done more than peek at it myself,” she remarked. “You’ve made me so cautious, Michelle, I don’t do anything without stopping to think if it is safe.”

“I am glad of that,” said Michelle, soberly. “It is better you should be too careful than to forget once that the Boches are always listening. Oh, see; he has drawn it like a picture, that the danger may not be so great for you.”

Lucy remembered the Englishman’s brief explanation as she bent over the little sketch, and repeated it to Michelle. The drawing was cleverly but roughly made with quick strokes of the pen, and, to her eye at least, would have suggested nothing suspicious. Beneath it were scrawled the words, “Changing the Guard.” The six groups of German soldiers, leaning lazily on their guns as they awaited their orders to relieve the various out-posts, might have been seen any day from Captain Beattie’s prison window. As for the curving line of the road as he had drawn it, only an observing eye would notice that the road behind the prison had really far less width and fewer windings. The flower-beds sketched in beyond completed the zigzag outline. Lucy saw it all now, with a rush of comprehension. The carefully measured lines behind the lounging figures of the guard were the bastions of the great fortified ridge at Argenton. The soldiers were the hidden batteries whose locations had been the object of such deadly and ineffectual search.

“Oh, Michelle,” she sighed, filled with eager and helpless longing, “I’d do anything—anything—to get this over to our lines.”

“And I, too,” exclaimed the French girl with flashing eyes. “But what can we do? We can only wait.”

Lucy frowned in bitter rebellion as she folded the paper once more and slipped it carefully into her pocket.

“I must return to Maman,” said Michelle, picking up the candle. “Perhaps she is awake again.”

Lucy followed her friend up the narrow, dingy stairs, and, as she did so, her exasperation began to give place to a pleasanter and more helpful feeling. She looked forward to spending the night in the de la Tours’ little house. Though they were in enemy hands this house still kept some of the elements of home. Its neat, simple interior, and the united affection of the three who made up the family—for Clemence was one of them by virtue of hardships long shared in common—meant much to Lucy after her days in the crowded hospital and nights in the half-furnished house across the street.

Madame de la Tour was lying awake, but she declared that her sleep had made her feel much better. “There is no need to remain up for me, mes enfants,” she said decidedly. “But I am glad you came, ma petite,” she added, taking Lucy affectionately by the hand. “My Michelle is very happy to have your company.”

“I wanted to come. It’s lovely to be in a real house—in somebody’s home again,” said Lucy warmly, her eyes filled with sympathy and pity as she looked at the fragile little figure in the bed—an old French peasant bed, with clumsy wooden side boards.

“Then try to have a good night’s sleep,” urged Madame de la Tour, fixing her bright eyes on Lucy’s face. “Your checks are grown thinner than I like to see them.”

Lucy was glad to go to bed in these surroundings and made no objection when Michelle led the way with a candle to the little chamber next her own. Old Clemence slept just now on a sofa by her mistress’s side. Already, down below, they could hear her noisily bolting doors and doing her best to secure the broken windows by fastening the shutters. The two girls talked a while together, for their sleepiness was not quite proof against the many things each wanted to hear about the other. But presently Michelle stole out to see that her mother wanted nothing, and coming back took up Lucy’s candle and wished her good-night.

“I must wake you very early in the morning, you know. How good it will be to have you here for breakfast,” she said with friendly satisfaction as she went away.

For the first time in many nights Lucy slept deep and dreamlessly as though she were safe at home again. She could not believe the night was over when, at the first peep of dawn, she woke to find Michelle standing at her bedside, her pretty black hair tumbled about her shoulders and her eyes still heavy with sleep.

“I am very sorry I must call you from the bed so early,” she apologized. “But I must help Clemence to-day, before I go to the hospital. It is for that we take the breakfast as soon as it grows light.”

“All right,” said Lucy, yawning and stretching herself awake before she added, “I have to be ready early, anyway, for Elizabeth will stop for me at seven o’clock. I’ll help you, too, Michelle. What do you have to do?”

“Not so much,” Michelle responded, sitting down for a moment at the foot of Lucy’s bed to comb her hair free from its curling tangles. “I make a little coffee for Maman, while Clemence is preparing breakfast for the sentinel. He eats well, ma foi!”

“Oh, to think of having to feed him!” exclaimed Lucy, tossing about in her indignation. “Sometimes when I first wake in the morning I can’t believe we really are in the German lines. It seems too awful to be true.”

“It is much better now than when the Boches make their first capture of the town,” said Michelle, the brightness dying out of her face with the words. “Then there were many more here—a regiment. They were proud with victory and cared for no one’s prayers. They went into the houses, stealing all they found. Maman and I for two days hid in the hospital. When the officers made again a little order in the town we returned to poor Clemence—for she would not leave the house, rather, she tell us, she will stay and fight the Boches who enter. But for all her scolding they take away the little food we have, and Maman and I must go and beg for bread from the sergeant at the Commissariat. For wood, also, we must beg, for the soldiers take all we have, and it was February—very cold—with snow upon the ground.”

As Michelle spoke her quiet voice became filled with trembling indignation. She let fall her hair upon her shoulders and pressed her hands together, while her blue eyes shone with the bitter resentment reawakened. She had told Lucy but a tenth part of the suffering and humiliation of those days which, far from being safely past, might be repeated at any moment. Lucy’s indignant sympathy was for an instant too strong for words, and the next Michelle had regained her self-control. Rising from the bed she exclaimed with a kind of scornful impatience at herself:

“It is no good to think of those bad times! Enough that is bad we have still with us.” She turned to smile faintly back at Lucy as she said more cheerfully, “We must have a pleasant breakfast together, so you will like to come and give me your company again.”

Lucy dressed very thoughtfully, her mind filled with the glimpse Michelle had given her of that terrible past which had been even harder to endure than the uncertain present. Now Lucy better understood the look that had arrested her attention at first sight of Michelle’s face. Lucy had thought that she herself was bearing much, and with passable courage. But how much smaller her trials seemed when compared with Michelle’s long years of suffering and anxiety, borne with no other companion than her frail little mother.

When she finished dressing and ran down-stairs Michelle was already in the dining-room, engaged in setting the table with a breakfast of hot pea soup and two slices of coarse black bread. Lucy knew it was the best the house afforded, and she felt reluctant to eat of the precious little store. But evidently her company was worth far more to Michelle than a few mouthfuls of food. The French girl had cheered up from her melancholy, and greeting Lucy with a bright smile, made place for her at the bare wooden table.

“Oh, Lucy,” she exclaimed, “if only you had come to see me four years ago, what a nice breakfast I should have given you!” This was the first reference Michelle had ever made to her beautiful old home which was now a ruin. “But perhaps,” she added thoughtfully, “you never would have come to France without this war.”

“But after the war I’ll come again, Michelle,” said Lucy eagerly. “I don’t think a friendship begun like ours can ever be forgotten. France and America will never seem so far apart as they did. We won’t think of France any more as a foreign country.”

She looked across the table at her friend for response to her sincere enthusiasm, for Michelle had fallen suddenly silent. Lucy followed her eyes in astonishment, to where they were fixed on the little door which led from the back of the room down to the cellar. As she looked closely at it, trying to discover the cause of Michelle’s motionless attention, she saw that it was not quite shut. Before she had time to think further, she saw the door pushed open, and a German soldier entered the room.

The spoon in Lucy’s hand dropped on the table. A bewildered fear took possession of her. The soldier was a tall, stalwart blond, with dusty and mud-stained uniform, as though fresh from active duty. As he stood there against the door he had closed behind him he panted a little, and his face, seen in the shadowy light, though young, looked haggard and lined with weariness. This picture formed itself in an instant on her mind. The next she heard a trembling cry from Michelle’s lips. The soldier pushed off his little round cap and held out his arms. “Michelle!” he said.

“Armand!” Michelle answered, in a voice that was half a sob. With one bound she had crossed the floor and thrown her arms about the soldier’s neck, while over his tired face broke a smile as sweet and radiant as her own. “Oh, Armand, cheri, why did you come? Mon Dieu, why did you come!” was all she could say in the first moment of her joy and terror.

“I had to come, to learn that you were safe,” he said unsteadily.

Lucy’s heart had given one leap, and now it began racing furiously, as her paralyzing fright changed to different emotions. Fear for Michelle’s brother, in the deadly peril in which he had placed himself, and a thrill of admiration at his daring exploit, were mingled with the wild delight of knowing that Captain Beattie’s paper was safely in her pocket ready to be confided to the Frenchman’s keeping.

While these thoughts chased each other through her mind, Michelle turned from her brother, with blue eyes shining in her white, frightened face, to say tremblingly in English, “Oh, Lucy, it is Armand! My friend, cher Armand, Mademoiselle Lucy Gordon, who knows all we hope and fear. A brother she has, too, with the Americans.”

Captain de la Tour stretched a friendly hand to Lucy, with a courteous bow which seemed strange to her from a man in German uniform. He spoke English without Michelle’s difficulty.

“Gordon? Is your brother Lieutenant Gordon, the aviator? Then, Mademoiselle, we are not strangers. I have brought him news of how things are in ChÂteau-Plessis. For once since the capture I crossed the lines, but could not manage to reach this house.”

“We have something to give you—something that will help the Allies,” stammered Lucy, almost choking over the words in her realization of success at last in sight.

“Truly? But first of all I must see Maman. She is up-stairs, Michelle? Ill, you say? In bed?” He ran to the stairs, while Michelle, half mad with anxiety, called Clemence from the kitchen and in a few hasty words bade her watch the street and the entrance to the garden.

“I’ll watch from the other side,” Lucy offered, but Michelle objected:

“You can see better from above. All should be well, and if not, we have no way to forbid that they come in. He will stay only a few minutes. The guard is not changed before two hours more, so not till then will the sentinel come for breakfast. If only it did not grow light so soon!”

Up-stairs, Armand was kneeling by his mother’s bed, questioning her about her welfare with feverish eagerness.

“I had no peace not knowing that you were safe,” he said in answer to his mother’s reproaches, made in an agony of fear. “How could you think I would not come?”

Lucy stood by the front window breathing fast, her face flushed and burning in the cool morning air. Outside, the sentry was lazily pacing. He passed the house perhaps once in fifteen minutes, but this time he had turned toward it with a curious glance that set Lucy in a frenzy of uncertainty. He had not the look of suspecting that an enemy spy was in the neighborhood, but the house seemed to interest him. Perhaps, Lucy thought, with a rush of hope as he passed on, he was only longing for the hour of relief and the sausages and potatoes awaiting him.

She turned back to the room, where Armand was telling of his entrance into the town, interrupted by a hundred questions from his mother and Michelle. There were such endless things to be asked and answered on both sides, and Lucy herself would have given much for a few words with him. She was listening to his rapid talk, following the French with an effort, when a loud knock sounding on the front door echoed through the house.

Captain de la Tour sprang to his feet, his body alert and his blue eyes flashing. Michelle, seizing his hand, with ashy cheeks and quivering lips, entreated him, “Hide, Armand! Come quickly—in my room!”

The young Frenchman gave a quick shake of the head. “If they suspect me all concealment is useless. You forget I am well disguised. Do as I say and nothing more. Go down, Michelle, and do not deny a German soldier is here.”

He listened intently as Michelle silently obeyed him. His mother, white and motionless, waited likewise for signs of what was taking place below. Clemence had admitted some one, and now they heard her voice protesting, and a man’s voice, short and surly, in reply. Then Michelle interposed, calm and conciliating. Steps crossed the floor of the hall toward the stairway. There was no time for any plan, Lucy thought wildly. But in the moment that Clemence preceded the intruder up the stairs, Captain de la Tour had drawn from his gray tunic a note-book and pencil, and, standing by his mother’s bedside, began jotting down notes with a steady hand. Clemence, red-faced and terrified, ran into the room, her hands wound frenziedly about her apron. After her came the German sentry, a frown on his heavy face and curiosity lighting up his eyes. At sight of the occupants of the room he made the suggestion of a bow, but he offered no apology for his intrusion as, fingering his gun, he stared at Armand’s tall, commanding figure.

“Hello, mate,” said Armand in German, looking quietly up from his note-book, as Michelle followed the soldier into the room.

Lucy could not restrain a gasp of amazement at the scene before her. She knew Michelle’s wonderful self-control, and did not so much marvel at her hastily assumed look of angry annoyance, unmixed with the least sign of her mortal anxiety. But to see delicate little Madame de la Tour lying back on her pillows with an expression of cold exasperation, her eyes, glancing from Armand to the sentry, saying plainly that one German soldier had been quite enough without another forcing himself upon her, was such a wonderful change from her helpless terror of a moment past that Lucy could hardly believe her eyes. Even the German sentry looked uncomfortable before the little French lady’s calm and silent dignity. He shuffled his feet awkwardly as he answered, with a nod at Armand:

“Hello! You a stranger? What’s your business here?”

“Because I’m a stranger to you doesn’t mean I’m one to the whole town,” returned Armand, with a twitch at the corner of his mouth, as though hiding a smile at his own wit. Then, in a more friendly tone, he added, “However, I’ve no objection to telling you my business. I’m detailed from the third regiment up the line to help here in the supply depot. They’re making a new list of the population. The food’s not holding out.”

“I know that well enough,” grumbled the sentry, his inquisitive look changing to one of gloomy dissatisfaction. “Much good you can do about it.”

“Now suppose you tell me what you are doing here?” suggested Armand, with a return of his faintly mocking tone.

The sentry leaned on his gun a little sheepishly as he answered, “I’m supposed to keep an eye on who goes in and out along this street.” He did not care to confess the real motive for his precipitate entrance. Seeing a fellow soldier enter the garden path and disappear in the shrubbery, he had been seized with a greedy suspicion that the newcomer had designs on his breakfast. A chance shortening of his usual beat had given him this glimpse of Armand, and he had shortened it once more to enter the house after Lucy had watched him pass.

To change the subject he inquired amicably, “The third, did you say you belonged to? That’s in the trenches now, isn’t it? How did you get off?”

“Two days only,” said Armand, without enthusiasm. “I’m on sick leave. Light work, they call this.” He closed his note-book and slipped it back inside his tunic.

“Well, are you ready to go?” asked the sentry, restored to good humor. “I’d like some company as far as the end of my beat. I suppose you’re not going nearer the meadows than this? There’s no one living there.”

“No, I’m starting back now,” said Armand. He turned toward the bed where Madame de la Tour lay, and giving a slight, stiff bow murmured, “Good-morning, ladies.”

The sentry, moved by force of example, made a faint bow likewise, and followed his companion to the stairs. Motionless and silent, Armand’s mother and sister watched him go. They heard him engaged in friendly conversation with the German in the hall below, where Armand paused to get his cap from the dining-room. The next minute the door slammed behind the sentry’s heavy hand and their footsteps sounded on the stone flags outside.

Lucy and Michelle with one accord rushed to the window. Armand and the sentry were walking slowly down the street. With another few steps a projecting wall hid them from sight. Michelle was shaking from head to foot, and the hand that touched Lucy’s was icy cold. But she overcame herself enough to return with Clemence to her mother’s side and give poor Madame de la Tour the comfort of her presence at that moment. Lucy had not their awful anguish of fear to endure. It was not her brother who walked the streets of ChÂteau-Plessis in imminent danger of recognition and certain death. But she was almost as wretched as they in the bitterness of her disappointment. She felt an unreasoning confidence that Captain de la Tour would manage to reach the Allied lines in safety. His nerve and coolness were powerful weapons among the dull-witted German soldiery. But he would return without the slip of paper which she had dared so much to obtain, and which might have brought safety and freedom to them all.

“Twice I’ve failed,” she thought, as with choking throat and eyes blurred with tears she sank miserably down on the little window-seat. “Oh, it seems as though any one could have done better than I!”

Before the occupants of the room had collected their stunned and bewildered thoughts, a second knock sounded on the front door, this time a gentler one.

“That’s Elizabeth,” exclaimed Lucy, starting to her feet, and winking the tears from her eyes. At the same moment an idea occurred to her at sight of Michelle’s white face, and Madame de la Tour’s pitiful struggle for hope and courage. “Michelle, I’ll ask Elizabeth to find out about your brother. To learn where he goes and if he gets safely away. She can go among the soldiers and ask them any questions without being suspected.”

“No, no! I beg you!” cried Michelle, suddenly restored to speech and movement. “Never could I trust her with Armand’s secret!” Her blue eyes had lighted up with that never-forgotten dread and terror of every German.

Lucy opened her lips to say frankly that her doubts were absurd, and that now, if ever, was a time when Elizabeth could be of service and could relieve the agony of Madame de la Tour’s mind. But unwilling to argue the subject before Michelle’s mother, she drew her friend toward the stairway instead, saying, “Come down with me while I let Elizabeth in. I want to speak to you.”

Michelle agreed, but as they descended the stairs she forestalled Lucy by repeating earnestly, “You must not tell the German woman of my brother! Enough enemies he has already.” Her voice broke as she ended, the deadly fear at her heart overwhelming her once more.

Lucy had reached the lower floor and stood staring into the dining-room, uncertain what to say or do. For Elizabeth, receiving no answer to her knocks, had become anxious for Lucy and had entered the house, left unlocked since Armand’s departure. She stood there within a few feet of them, and the day was bright enough for Lucy to see by her face that she had heard Michelle’s words.

Michelle gave a gasp herself, but Elizabeth did not wait for either one to speak.

“You need not fear me, Mademoiselle,” she said quietly, and Lucy thought she had never seen in that little figure so much proud dignity. “I am not among the enemies of your brudder, since for France I suppose he fights. When I tell Miss Lucy I am pro-ally, it is that I am changed in heart and soul—not only in my tongue. Better you trust me and that we together work, for else it is little good that I can do.”

For a moment Michelle was silent, for the struggle in her mind was too intense for words. But at the end of that short pause she spoke, and the hatred and suspicion had left her voice. Grief and anxiety alone remained as she said falteringly, “I will trust you, Elizabeth. You must forgive me that I could not before. I think I do so truly now.”

“Only time will show you that I am true,” replied Elizabeth, still with a little hurt accent in her voice, as though she felt Michelle’s conversation was not yet complete. “It is not for love of France that I have turned against my country. It is for love of Germany.”

“Michelle,” said Lucy, breaking in, fearful the new alliance would not withstand an argument, and wildly anxious to make use of Elizabeth’s help, “I’m going now, and—I’ll do all I can. You trust me, too.” She put her arms around Michelle’s neck, with all the warmth of her sympathy and understanding, and looked into her face. In her eyes she read unwilling consent, and no further objection came from her lips. “I’m going to tell her,” Lucy whispered, absolving herself from her promise. “I’ll come again as soon as I possibly can.”

The next moment she and Elizabeth were outside in the street, walking silently back in the direction of the hospital. Lucy gave a keen glance about her, and seeing only ruined desolation on both sides, quickly began telling Elizabeth the story of Armand’s coming, and of the miserable ill-luck that had prevented the delivery of Captain Beattie’s message. “Elizabeth, what Michelle didn’t want to tell you was that her brother is making his way out of the town now. Can’t you discover for us whether he gets safely out? They are in such awful uncertainty.”

“I will try, Miss Lucy,” Elizabeth promised. “Tell me how he looks, and to what regiment he pretends that he belongs.”

Lucy gave all the details she was able, and, as she spoke, the realization of her failure came over her again in a bitter flood of disappointment. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she groaned, feeling a desperate need of her old nurse’s comforting affection, “to think I should have such a chance and miss it! A chance we can never hope will come again.”

Elizabeth could not see Lucy unhappy and remain unmoved. Her dark eyes tenderly softened as she said, with a vain attempt at the consolation beyond her power to give, “Ach, dear Miss Lucy, be not so sad! Long ago when I was a child, there comes to our house a so kind old man, the friend of my father. When any of us children wished long for something he would say: ‘Remember the proverb: Many times your cake may to coal turn, but the last time come fair from the oven.’”

“I don’t want to hear your old German proverbs!” were the words that rose angrily to Lucy’s tongue. But she kept them back. Instead, after a little silence, she said very thoughtfully, a resolution, as yet vague and uncertain, waking to life behind her words, “I think the best proverb is one that an American made up: If you want a thing done, do it yourself.”