It was half-past five on this, the sixth morning of the Herr Doktor's stay at Valoise.

He leapt out of bed and had a cold plunge bath-a most peculiar, un-German habit he had acquired during the months he had boarded with an English family at Munich.

Then, when he was dressed, not before, he put on his spectacles and went across to the window. On the first morning of his stay there, he had been filled with a queer misgiving that perhaps when he looked out the Red Cross barge would have drifted away-disappeared, fairy-wise, in the night. That he now no longer feared, and on this lovely September morning his eyes rested with a feeling of exultant ownership on the now familiar scene before him. The trim, leafy mall just across the paved road, the slowly flowing river gleaming in the bright morning sun, the line of poplars above the opposite bank—and then in the centre, as it were, of the placid landscape, the Red Cross barge ... they were his, for ever—the harvest of his eyes, of his imagination, of his heart.

The Red Cross barge? The man standing at the window of this humble French wine-shop told himself how good it was that now, to-day, that work of mercy before him was the only reminder in Valoise that France was at war. Till the day before there had been a hundred and five spurred and booted reminders, but yesterday afternoon the Uhlans had ridden off eagerly, exultantly, to join their main victorious army—that army which was now engaged in pursuing the defeated English and the retreating French.

The Herr Doktor, on this peaceful, sunny morning, quite forgot that he himself was a constant reminder of the awful struggle, of the losing fight now going on between those the women of Valoise had sent forth—their husbands, sons, and lovers—and his countrymen.

But it was natural he should make this capital omission, for as he stood there, looking out on a still unawakened world, the people of Valoise, well disposed as he felt towards them, formed but a blurred background to the one figure which now possessed all his waking, aye, and all his dreaming thoughts. Not only did he now know, but he exulted in the knowledge that, with his first vision-like sight of Jeanne RouannÈs, had come that 'love-at-once' of which some of his comrades had rhapsodised in the now-so-distant-as-to-be-almost-forgotten pre-war time. Those rhapsodies of long ago had left him unmoved, partly because as a student he had adored, with a selfless, hopeless passion, a famous singer far older than himself, and partly because, with the passing of years, he had seen the springtide romance of youth almost invariably dulled down into what would have been, to such a man as he knew himself to be, unendurably dull domesticity.

Was this new, and at once rapturous and painful, absorption in another human being the outcome of great, noble, war-provoked emotions? If so, how amazing that a Frenchwoman should have compelled the flowering of his soul, the awakening of both spirit and senses to what the union of a man and woman may mean! But well content was he that it should be so. This side of the great war—so futile from the point of view of happy, prosperous France—would soon be at an end. That he had been confidently assured, some three weeks ago, by a member of General von Kluck's own able staff. Within a very short time of the German occupation of Paris—some even believed within a few hours of the capitulation of the city—peace would be signed with France. There would be bitterness among certain sections of the French people—among the Chauvinists, for instance, who still hankered after Alsace. But the Conquerors had behaved so humanely and so wisely during their triumphant rush through Northern France, that this very natural feeling would soon fade away, while the love he, Max Keller, now bore Jeanne RouannÈs was of the eternal, enduring quality which compels its own fulfilment.... Already in his dreams the Herr Doktor saw his house, his childhood's home, at Weimar, beflowered and garlanded to receive a bride.

But these dreams were far more living and tangible to his imagination during those waking hours when they two were apart, than when the Herr Doktor was faced with the reality of his and Mademoiselle RouannÈs' necessarily formal relationship. More than once he had tried to engage her in talk on 'safe' subjects—such subjects, for instance, as that of the Great Revolution—but she had quietly eluded him, and he sometimes had to face the fact that the only common ground on which they met each day was that on which lay the wounded Frenchmen to whom she gave so much anxious care. It was a ground on which the Herr Doktor spent all the time he could. But unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it was ground which was being rapidly cleared, for thanks to his skill, to her care, and no doubt to nature too, 'our wounded,' as he had once ventured to call them to her, were now in full convalescence, almost fit, in fact, to be taken off as prisoners to Germany. When that thought, that knowledge, rose to the Herr Doktor's mind he always thrust it hurriedly away. The despatch of prisoners is purely a military duty, and would in this case be performed by whatever officer on whom it devolved; if no one better offered, then on the Herr Lieutenant, Prince Egon von Witgenstein.

Prince Egon? On this fine September morning, the Herr Doktor suddenly found himself wondering whether it would not be advisable to move his patient into the now empty Tournebride. The knowledge that the Prince would soon be well enough to sit up on deck was not as agreeable to the Herr Doktor as it ought to have been to a conscientious medical attendant. True, Mademoiselle RouannÈs never even asked him how his noble patient was progressing, and once, when old Jacob had alluded to the Uhlan officer, the Herr Doktor had overheard her exclaim, with a strange touch of passion in her voice, 'I forbid you—I forbid you, Jacob, to speak of that Prussian to me!' But Prince Egon did not share her indifference, still less her—was it hatred? He was frankly interested in his fair enemy, and very eager to make her acquaintance. But the Herr Doktor was determined that this so uncalled-for and undesirable-from-every-point-of-view desire of the Prince should not be gratified.

---

There came a knock at the door; it was his petit dÉjeuner, and the woman who brought it in smiled quite pleasantly. It was only the second time she had smiled at her unbidden guest. It was curious how the departure of those burly, good-natured Uhlans had affected the people of Valoise! Within an hour of their going, windows had been unshuttered, doors unbarred, and a stream of women, of children, and of old men the Herr Doktor had not suspected of being in Valoise at all, had flowed into the streets of the town....

He drank his coffee and ate his rolls with an excellent appetite, and then he glanced at his chronometer. It was three minutes to six—time he went across to the barge. For when six struck by the church tower (which, according to his Baedeker, had been built by the English in the now utterly departed days of their valour and military prowess, that is in the thirteenth century) the Herr Doktor invariably met Mademoiselle RouannÈs by accident, either in the road, or, what was pleasanter still, under the trees in the mall. When he saw her coming, gravely he would stop and bow, and she would bend her head in greeting. It would have been natural, and agreeable too, for them to linger a few moments; but that he had soon found she would never do. Singularly reserved always was she in her manner, and in vain did he persist in his attempts to persuade her to engage in general beneficial-to-the-intellect and pleasantly-agreeable-to-the-cultured-mind conversation.

Two cases, as we know, had been beyond human help when he had first undertaken the care of the French wounded, but the third case, greatly owing to his skill and untiring efforts, seemed likely to pull through. Still, even so, the Herr Doktor and Mademoiselle RouannÈs were very anxious about this case, a boy of nineteen, a clever, well-mannered, gentle boy of the peasant class, who had been shot through the lung. What had touched the German surgeon's heart, what had made him especially interested in this young soldier, were a few words which had been uttered by the Red Cross nurse very early in their joint work of mercy. 'Il est le seul soutien de sa vieille grand'mÈre.' Now, curiously enough, he, Max Keller, was also 'the sole support of his old grandmother,' a grand old woman of seventy-nine, now eating her heart out in placid, cultured Weimar, while thanking God her boy was not in the firing line.

---

The Herr Doktor went across the road to the grateful shade of the lime trees. There he waited, his heart beating, his pulse throbbing, for what seemed a long, long time. Every moment he hoped, nay, he expected confidently, to see her hastening towards him, clad in the white dress and wearing the medieval-looking cap, with its red cross in the centre, which now seemed the most becoming head-dress in the world. Hastening towards him? Nay, nay,—hastening towards the Red Cross barge.

But the minutes went slowly by, and Mademoiselle RouannÈs did not come. Suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps she was already on the barge. If so, he had indeed wasted precious moments....

As he hurried along the stone jetty he saw the stout figure of old ThÉrÈse on deck. That meant that her young mistress was below, in the ward.

The Herr Doktor smiled pleasantly at the old woman, and she smiled back, a broad genial smile of good fellowship. What a difference the departure of those few countrymen of his yesterday had made, to be sure!

But when he hurried down to the French ward he at once knew, without being told, that Mademoiselle Jeanne had not yet arrived. Old ThÉrÈse had done her best, but it was a very poor best, to make the men lying there comfortable. Still, they all looked more cheerful than usual, and the boy he now hoped to save, the boy for whom he had a very tender corner in his kindly, sentimental soul, caught hold of his hand as he went by, and asked huskily, 'Is it true that the Prussians are gone? Quel bonheur!'

It struck half-past six, seven, then half-past seven.

The Herr Doktor went up again on to the deck. ThÉrÈse was sitting there sewing. 'And Mademoiselle?' he asked questioningly.

She shook her head. 'Mademoiselle was very unhappy last night. She thinks her father is much worse. I myself can see no difference. But something he said to her frightened her, and so she said she must stop at home to-day, and nurse him.'

He felt absurdly surprised, absurdly annoyed, absurdly taken aback.

Had Mademoiselle RouannÈs a right to leave the ambulance barge? He doubted it—doubted it very much indeed. Of course he himself, being now in command of the barge, could order her to come. He was a Red Cross doctor, and she a Red Cross nurse; he had, therefore, the absolute right to dispose of her time and services. But, sighing, he dismissed the thought. She was quite unlike any German girl he had ever seen. It would not occur to her to be flattered, or even touched, by his imperious wish for her presence.

As he stood there, wondering what he had better do, there flashed into his mind the wording of a short note which it might become his duty to write to her. The note would be written in English, and it would run somewhat in this wise: 'Gracious Miss,'—or perhaps it would be better to put plain 'Miss' in the French way—'If you your father can leave for a short time, I should be glad if to the barge you come would. One of your wounded is not so well.—Yours respectfully, Max Keller.'

There would be nothing offensive, nothing hectoring about such a missive, and he thought, he felt sure, that it would bring her. But he would not write that note yet. He would wait till he had seen his own patient, Prince Egon. Luckily, there was no hurry as to that, and, still secretly hoping she would come, he lingered on, up on deck.

The sun had gone behind a cloud. There was an autumnal chill in the morning air. The waters of the slowly flowing river looked grey and sullen. Suddenly the Herr Doktor felt oddly friendless, and alone. 'This morning felt I so foolishly cheerful, and this the natural reaction is!' he exclaimed to himself.

He turned and walked down to Prince Egon's small quarters. Cautiously he opened the narrow door, but his patient was awake and smiling.

What a contrast this curious little cabin presented, especially to-day, to that containing the French wounded! Here everything was ship-shape, even to a modest degree, luxurious. On an inlaid table, which had been 'commandeered' from an empty villa, were laid out gold-backed brushes, and a number of pretty trifles. Above the table hung a circular mirror, also commandeered, and there was a whiff of some sweet, pungent scent in the air. How different, too, the white and pink yellow-haired youth lying there from the small, dark, and now unshaved Frenchmen on the other side. Old Jacob was kept too busy attending on the Prussian prince to spare any time for his own countrymen.

The Herr Doktor looked at what had partly been his own handiwork—the handiwork of which he had felt proud on the first evening of his arrival at Valoise—with a feeling of dissatisfaction, almost of disgust.

Over a basket-chair was carefully spread out a green-and-gold-silk dressing-gown, in the Weimar surgeon's eyes a garment of almost Oriental splendour.

'If you will allow of it, Herr Doktor, I propose to get up,' said Prince Egon cheerfully. 'I feel wonderfully better to-day! It is extraordinary what good this rest has done me. And then that old Jacob! An almost perfect valet! What good fortune for me that he should be here! He has already made me a delicious omelette this morning.'

'And your Highness was not afraid to eat it?' This was really a little joke on the Herr Doktor's part. But his patient did not so accept it. An extraordinary change came over the recumbent man's fair face; it became livid, discomposed.

'God in heaven!' he cried. 'Do you suspect old Jacob, Herr Doktor?'

And then the older man burst into laughter. 'No, no,' he said soothingly. 'I suspect nothing! Besides your Highness has made it very much worth old Jacob's while to keep you alive.'

'Aye, aye! That's true.' The prince was reassured. 'As I was saying just now, I feel so much better that, if you permit it, I propose to get up. I will wear my dressing-gown, not my uniform, and I will go up on deck. There I will sit and chat with the beautiful English-speaking Mamselle. Jacob tells me that on her mother's side she is of noble birth, and that, although her father is only a physician, she——'

The Herr Doktor put up his hand. 'I must now take your Highness' temperature,' he said a little sharply. 'I doubt much if you are well enough to go upstairs. A chill would be very serious in your Highness's condition. As for the Red Cross Sister, she is not here to-day. Her father is very ill.'

'Not here? But that is absurd!' The young man spoke with a touch of imperious decision. 'You must send for her, my dear Herr Doktor; she must be requisitioned!' He smiled—an insolent smile.

The other shook his head. A sudden passion of dislike, of contempt, for his patient filled his heart. But all he said was—'Impossible! Her father is very ill indeed.'

'Then I will not trouble to get up. I am very well where I am. It is very comfortable here.'

Prince Egon spoke pettishly. He had looked forward to an amusing flirtation with the Mamselle with whose manifold perfections old Jacob sometimes entertained him.

The hours of the morning dragged wearily on. To the Herr Doktor it seemed as if there had never been such a long, such an utterly lacking-in-flavour, day as was this day. For the first time he talked to the convalescent Frenchmen at some length of themselves. Not one of them had been a soldier at the time the war broke out on that fateful 1st of August, and yet it surprised him, and in a sense moved him, to see that every one of them wished to go back and fight. Not one of them seemed conscious that he was now a prisoner, and that, unless peace was made at once, he would soon be in Germany....

2

At twelve o'clock the Herr Doktor walked up to the Tournebride. He had thought it possible that he might meet Mademoiselle RouannÈs in the town—but it was in vain that he lingered on the way, and glanced up each steep byway, and quiet, shady street.

While he was eating an excellent dÉjeuner at a table spread under the trees in the courtyard of the inn, he cleverly led Madame Blanc on to the subject of Dr. RouannÈs. She, too, seemed quite another woman now that the Tournebride was her own again. To-day she was eager for a gossip.

Yes, 'ce bon docteur' was certainly seriously ill. He had looked so well, so vigorous, when he had started, a month ago, for the Frontier. It was there that a shell had exploded in the room where he was actually performing a small operation on a man wounded during the dash into Alsace. As he had been struck in the left leg, it was impossible for him to go on with his work, and he had managed to get home. At first it had been said that he would soon be all right again. But now it was rumoured that he was dying! If that were indeed true, Dr. RouannÈs would be a great loss to Valoise, for he was an excellent doctor, much beloved in the town. His daughter was thought rather proud—very good to 'les pauvres,' but unwilling to frequent the more well-to-do townsfolk. This, no doubt, because her mother was 'une noble.' Madame Blanc smiled as she did not often smile now, as she recalled the marriage of Dr. RouannÈs. He had refused such excellent 'occasions'—such rich marriages when he was young and good-looking! Then, when he was forty-six years of age, and a confirmed bachelor, he had suddenly married Mademoiselle Jeanne de BligniÈre, the younger of the two daughters of the Count de BligniÈre, a poor, proud old gentleman whom he, the doctor, had attended, out of charity no doubt. Curious to relate, this 'mariage Étrange' had been a very happy one, and this though Madame RouannÈs was very, very quiet, gentle, and pious too, in fact rather like 'une bonne Soeur.' She had been ill two years, and Dr. RouannÈs had brought many physicians from Paris to see her. It was said that the chemist's bill alone had been a thousand francs! But the poor lady had died all the same, and she, Madame Blanc, would never forget Monsieur le MÉdecin's tragic, stricken face at the funeral.

It had been thought that he would surely marry again. But no, he had not done so. At first Madame RouannÈs' sister had come to take care of the motherless little girl, but Mademoiselle de BligniÈre had never liked her brother-in-law, so she soon went back to Paris. Then for some time Mademoiselle Jeanne had had 'une anglaise.' It was only last winter, while visiting her aunt in Paris, that she had learnt the Red Cross work.

At last the Herr Doktor finished his delicious dÉjeuner under the yellowing chestnut trees in the great courtyard which now looked so peaceful and so solitary, and he wondered, a little ashamed of the materialism of the unspoken question, if Mademoiselle RouannÈs knew anything of the practical side of French cookery. And after he had had his cup of coffee and smoked his pipe, he took his diary out of his pocket. He had not opened the book for nearly a week.

Quickly he turned over the blank pages—and then a sudden wave of emotion swept over him. To-day was the 2nd of September—Sedan Day! And he had not remembered it! He thought of last year's Sedan Day, spent with some dear old friends of his childhood, and his heart became irradiated with a peculiar, tender radiance. Beautiful, culture-filled Weimar! How he longed to show his dear homeland to his 'Geliebte'! Then a less noble feeling, one of fierce exultation filled him. He visioned the great hosts of the Fatherland, his brothers all, pressing forward through this splendid, opulent land of France. Those great hosts must now be close to the gates of Paris—nay, they were perchance in Paris already, celebrating the great anniversary while preparing to play the rÔle of magnanimous conquerors....

Only yesterday had come news of wonderful doings—and he had scarcely cared to hear them! Tidings of the invading army brought by two officers in charge of an armoured motor-car. Tidings of victory of course; and of one especial victory which they had felt peculiarly pleasant and ermutigend, the defeat and complete encirclement, that is, of the small British Expeditionary Force. The English, so had run the tale, still turned now and again and fought, not without courage, small rearguard actions, but they were not causing any real trouble. Already CompiÈgne was evacuated, and Chantilly was ready for the Kaiser's occupation. It was from the magnificent home of 'Le Grand CondÉ' that the War Lord intended to start for the entry of his victorious army through the Arc de Triomphe, into Paris.

Of course the Herr Doktor had been quite pleased to hear all this glorious news, but though he realised how inspiriting it was to know that within a day and a half's march of Valoise pressed on the relentless march on Paris, he had not really cared. Valoise had suddenly become to him the one place in the world which mattered. The only place where he wished to be—to stay....

He knew that the city of Paris, as apart from the rest of France, was to pay a huge indemnity. Until that indemnity was paid, there was to be an army of occupation, not only in the city, but in the surrounding country. Of this army he, as a non-combatant, could easily obtain permission to form part....

And then as he walked restlessly up and down the courtyard, there suddenly rose on the still, warm air a long-drawn distant roar of sound.

Thunder? The Herr Doktor shook his head, and his heart began to beat a little quicker. He knew what that sound portended, and he also remembered enough to know that the action proceeding must be a long, long way off.

Madame Blanc came out of her kitchen. 'On commence À se battre lÀ-bas.' There was an undertone of hope, of fierce joy—even of boastfulness—in her voice.

He bent his head gravely. The expression on her face irritated him. Till to-day he had thought her an excellent, homely woman. He could no longer think her so, for there was an awful look of vengeful longing in her eyes.

3

And during all that warm, early September afternoon, across the golden haze thrown up by the river, there came from 'lÀ-bas' the rolling, muttering roar that was so like thunder, that now and again the Herr Doktor asked himself whether it might not be thunder after all? But whatever this provenance, these sounds had a strange, electric effect on the French wounded. They became restless and excited. Hitherto they had stayed below; now, without asking the Herr Doktor's permission, two or three pallid faces appeared above the stairway, and there was a look of strained suspense, almost of hope, in the eyes which avoided looking frankly into his face.

There was yet another curious change in all those young, wild-eyed Frenchmen. They talked in low hoarse whispers the one with the other, and once he heard a reference to la nouvelle armÉe, and then again to l'armÉe de Versailles. Of what army, new or old, could they be thinking? Brave but unready France had put every man for whom she had proper arms and accoutrements into the field from the first day.

Prince Egon shared in the subdued excitement. 'It is pleasant to feel that we are no longer away from the whirlpool!' he cried joyfully, and this was his only remark during that intolerably long afternoon.

At six o'clock the sounds of firing ceased as suddenly as they had begun. Four hours' desultory cannonade? It must have been a long-drawn-out rearguard action.

The Herr Doktor was sitting up on deck, a pocket volume of Heine in his hand. He read the verse—

And then he looked up and gazed across the river. Strange, strange indeed, that love should wait till now to blossom in his heart!

There came the sound, the now beloved, familiar sound of Her quick, light footfalls on the jetty, and a moment later Mademoiselle RouannÈs walked on to the barge.

Leaping to his feet, he brought his heels together and bowed. But the ceremonious words of inquiry he was about to utter concerning her father's state were stayed on his lip, and the secret joy which had flooded his whole being on seeing her was suddenly changed to concern, even distress, so unlike did Jeanne RouannÈs appear to his usual vision of her. Her face was flushed, her eyelids reddened by much crying. The look of composure, of dignity, which always aroused his willing admiration, if also his aching sense of her aloofness from himself, was gone, and now there was something appealing, as well as piteous and even helpless, in the face into which he was gazing.

'I have come to ask you,' she said abruptly, and in English, 'if you will give me a little of your small store of morphia or laudanum? My father is now in constant pain—I fear he is far more ill than he will admit is the case. I am very, very anxious about him.' She uttered the words with quick, nervous haste, lowering her voice as she spoke.

Was it possible that she thought there could be any fear of his refusing her request? Apparently there was, for, 'I know you do not like to diminish your store of narcotics. But from what I understand a quite small amount might lessen the pain my father is enduring.'

She had moved away from the middle of the deck, and they were standing, side by side, on the river side of the barge. As she spoke she did not look at the man by her side, instead she stared straight before her, and he saw the tears well up into her tired eyes, and roll down her pale cheeks.

'Would it not possible be,' he asked, 'for me your father to see?'

'No. That is quite impossible. But I thank you for thinking of doing so.'

'But if you tell him that to the Red Cross,—that splendid, so-entirely-neutral and internationally-universal institution—I too belong? Surely would he then consent me to see?'

She shook her head. 'The truth is that—that——' She stopped, and he said 'Yes?' interrogatively, encouragingly. 'The truth is that my poor father had a most unfortunate experience with some German Red Cross doctors!'

'With German doctors,' he repeated, discomfited. 'That very strange is.'

'Yes, it was strange—strange and most unfortunate, as matters now are; for it makes me feel that I do not dare propose your visit to him.'

The Herr Doktor—or so it seemed to the girl standing by his side—fell into an abstracted silence. She respected his mood for a few moments, then she asked timidly, in a voice very different from that which he had ever heard issue from her proud lips before, 'I suppose your medical stores are at the Tournebride?'

He looked round eagerly. 'No,' he said quickly. 'I have them here, in the motor ambulance, and what necessary is, go I at once to procure. But, gracious miss! There has come to me a thought which I find most illuminating, a thought which I you earnestly beg very carefully before you it reject to consider. With my medical stores possess I naturally operation overalls.'

He stopped for a moment, as if anxious to give himself time, then went on hurriedly: 'Would it not possible be for me to put on an overall (it covers entirely my 'feld-grau' uniform) and then an English doctor to represent by the bedside of your honoured father? He surely would not object an English or, better still, a Scotch colleague to see?'

'That,' she said, and drew a long breath, 'is very true.'

And as he gazed at her with an earnest, longing look of the inner meaning of which she was, as he well knew, utterly unconscious, he saw surprise and indecision give way to hope and relief.

'But are you willing to do that?' she asked.'Would it not be very—very disagreeable for you to carry through such a—a——' Her English failed her, and she uttered a word of which he was ignorant, and could only guess the meaning—'to carry through such a supercherie? 'she said.

He answered eagerly, 'There is nothing I would not do'—and then he checked himself, and substituted for what he had been going to say, the words, 'for a French colleague. Absolutely easy will it be,' he went on confidently. 'You will him tell that I very little French know—which indeed the truth is.'

Even as he spoke, her woman's wit was hard at work. 'I will write my father a note,' she said, 'and send it by ThÉrÈse. Then he will not be able to say "No" to me, and I on my side shall not have the pain of speaking a lie to him face to face.'

The Herr Doktor's face relaxed into a smile; women, so he reflected, were the same all the world over—in France as in Germany. He took out of his breast pocket a neat letter-case, of which he had made no use since his arrival in Valoise. Deferentially he handed it to her, and then he had the pleasure of seeing her write a letter on his note-paper. 'Do you think that will do?' she said. And he read over slowly and carefully the short, clear French phrases.

'My dear Father,—An English doctor has joined the Red Cross barge. I much desire that he should see thee. I will bring him with me in an hour. As far as I can judge he is experienced.

'Thy
'Jeanne.'

'Most excellent, honoured miss! And only one little word not absolutely true is!' He ventured a smile. She smiled back with the words, 'But it is a very important word—"English"!' And then she wondered why his face altered and stiffened into such frowning gravity; the English, after all, were no more the Herr Doktor's enemies than were the French.

4

They sped along, two white, ghost-like figures, in the darkness. Every light in the little town was already extinguished, or hidden behind high walls and closely drawn curtains. Valoise only asked to be forgotten, to be obliterated from the map, while the awful tide of war swayed and swept on, within some twenty miles of the town, towards Paris.

Jeanne RouannÈs walked as swiftly and unfalteringly as if it had been broad daylight through the steep byways and up the roughly paved alleys leading to the Haute Ville. But it seemed a long time ere they emerged into a street, lighted by one twinkling lamp which swung suspended over the centre of the highway.

'You are interested in the Revolution?' she said in English. 'Well, thirty people were hung in this street, from where that lamp now swings, a hundred and twenty years ago. That was the meaning of "À la lanterne!"'

'Ach!' exclaimed the Herr Doktor, gazing upwards. 'That truly informative is!' And while he uttered these words he was telling himself—that secret self to whom each of us tells so many amazing, unexpected, tragic and, yes, sometimes such delicious things—that this was the first time she had ever spoken to him, of her own volition, on any subject which lay quite outside her Red Cross work. That she had done so made him feel exultant, absurdly happy. Soon, quite soon, every barrier would surely be down between their two hearts....

She moved on a few steps, and then stopped in front of an aperture sunk far back in the wall which ran to the right of the historic lantern.

'We have arrived,' she said, and turning the handle of the door, she stepped back to allow him to pass through first.

He waited awkwardly for a moment. 'Won't you the way lead?' he asked; and quickly she walked past him into a garden which in the darkness seemed illimitable. Sweet pungent scents rose and mingled from each side of the narrow flagged path, and to his moved and ardent imagination it was as if Nature herself was offering the homage of her incense to the French girl now leading him into the sanctuary of her home.

Suddenly he saw a small low house rise whitely before him; a door opened, and a shaft of yellow light illumined the short, broad figure of the old woman servant, ThÉrÈse, for in her hand she held a lamp with a gay Chinese shade over it.

Mademoiselle RouannÈs called out, 'Here we are, ThÉrÈse!' Then she turned round to her companion. 'If you will kindly wait in my salon for a moment, I will go and tell my father that you are here,' she said in a low voice.

Her white figure melted into the darkness and he followed the servant down a passage, and into what was evidently the only sitting-room of the little house. Then ThÉrÈse shut the door on him, and the Herr Doktor began looking about him with eager curiosity.

The room was not gay and bright as he would have thought to find a young Frenchwoman's salon. Rather was it simple and austere. The few pieces of furniture were of the First Empire period, of mahogany and brass, covered with bright green silk which with time had become dulled in tint, and even frayed. In the middle of the room was a marble-topped round table on which stood a lamp, fellow to that which old ThÉrÈse had held in her hand. On the round table lay several books, and a magazine, the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' to which the Herr Doktor in the now-so-far-away days of peace had been a subscriber.

He bent down and looked at the familiar orange cover. It bore the date of August 1. Idly he looked at the table of contents: no prevision, no suspicion even, of the coming cataclysm! He wondered whether the number of August 15 had been published. He thought it unlikely.

He turned away from the table, and looked up and about him. Above a narrow, straight settee hung two charming eighteenth-century pastels—that of a young man in a blue and silver uniform, and that of a slim, pale girl with powdered hair. She had a wistful and yet a proud little face, and it pleased the Herr Doktor to trace in this portrait a resemblance to Mademoiselle RouannÈs.

At last the door opened, and he felt a slight shock of disappointment at seeing that it was old ThÉrÈse, and not her young mistress, who had come for him. Stepping lightly, he followed her up a shallow staircase, and so to a landing on the first floor.

Jeanne RouannÈs was standing there, waiting for him. She had changed from her white uniform into a black gown, and this change of dress altered her strangely. It made her look younger, slenderer, paler, more beautiful even than before in the Herr Doktor's eyes, for it intensified her peculiar fairness, and deepened the fire in her blue eyes.

Perhaps something in his face showed his surprise, for she said in English, and in a very low voice, 'I never wear my Red Cross dress when I am with my father. It disturbs him—makes him remember——' and then, without finishing her sentence, she pushed open a red-baize door, and beckoned to him to follow her. As he did so, she put her finger to her lips and whispered, 'Wait here a moment——'

From where he stood, just within the door, he could see only one half of the room, and that half bare, save that the walls were lined with books set on mahogany shelves. Standing at right angles across the one corner visible from the door was a writing-table, covered with grey cloth. A high screen to his left hid the rest of the room.

The Herr Doktor's heart began to beat quickly. He told himself that he was about to enter into the very heart of her life—to take an amazing step forward in his intimacy with her....

A word or two was whispered behind the screen, and then she came for him. As together they walked forward into the room, she exclaimed, in French of course, 'Papa, I bring you the kind——'

But the words were cut across by the leonine-looking, grey-haired man sitting up in bed. 'Welcome!' cried Dr. RouannÈs heartily. He stretched out both his hands. 'Welcome, my dear colleague—nay, I should now say, my dear ally! My daughter tells me that you speak French. Unhappily I do not know your splendid language, but, as you see, Jeanne was taught English. For some years after the death of my beloved wife, we had living with us a charming person, our excellent Miss—Miss——'

'Miss Owen,' said Mademoiselle RouannÈs quietly.

'Yes, yes, Miss Owen!' He waited a moment; then he looked up at his daughter. 'My little girl,' he said, and there was a very tender, caressing inflection in his resonant French voice, 'I will now ask you to go downstairs while I confer with our friend.'

With a curiously impulsive gesture she clasped her hands together. 'But no, father!' she exclaimed. 'Remember that I am your nurse! Surely you will let me stay?' She looked beseechingly, not at her father, but at the silent man now standing by her side.

'Mademoiselle your daughter is an excellent nurse,' observed the Herr Doktor awkwardly.

The old man leant back on his pillow, wearily. He had hoped his English colleague would be more expansive, and 'sympathique.' Also, he had thought to see an older man, one who would understand, without any need for explanation, his point of view about his daughter.

'I only wish you to leave the room for five minutes, my child. One word I must say to Monsieur alone.'

She obeyed without further demur, and as the door closed behind her, the Frenchman put out his hot, sinewy, right hand and seized the younger man's.

'Not a word!' he exclaimed in a hurried whisper. 'Not a word, you understand, of the truth for her! Gangrene has set in. There is nothing to be done now—it's too late. Why I consented to see you was, first, to procure for myself the pleasure of meeting an English confrÈre (an honour as well as a very great pleasure, I assure you)—and then with the hope that you were likely to know some—what shall I say?—palliative—ay, that's the word!—to make things less painful for her, as well as for me too, when comes the end.'

The Herr Doktor nodded his head understandingly.

'I tell you this,' went on the other quickly, 'because my daughter, as a matter of fact, knows nothing of illness, nothing of wounds——' He waited a moment. 'Perhaps you have a daughter—a child of your own?'

The Herr Doktor shook his head.

'Ah well, at your age I too was not married! More, like you, perhaps, I intended not to marry. But, some day your heart will play you a trick—wait till then, it's worth it—and you will come to realise how carefully one tries to guard one's children, especially one's daughter, from what is painful and disagreeable. I could not prevent Jeanne from taking charge of this Red Cross barge. She belongs to the Secours aux BlessÉs Militaires, and she has been through the course they give their young girl members. But, naturally, I should not have allowed her to go to a military hospital. A Red Cross barge is different. There are only convalescents there—and old Jacob, whom you will have seen, gave me his word that she should be sheltered from anything unpleasant or—or unsuitable.' He waited a few moments, and then, in a very different voice, added: 'But now, my dear colleague, we will consider my case—otherwise she will be growing impatient.'

He drew down his bed-clothes, and an involuntary exclamation of concern, of surprise, of regret escaped from the Herr Doktor's lips.

'Yes, you see how it is with me? One of those new-fangled injections at the right moment might have stopped the mischief. On the other hand, it might not.' He shrugged his shoulders, and exclaimed, 'Yes, there's nothing to be done! But I want to know if your opinion coincides with mine as to how much time I have left. That is important, for I have arrangements to make. When I am gone, my daughter will have to find her way to Paris, to her aunt, Mademoiselle de BligniÈre.'

'To Paris?' The Herr Doktor could not keep the amazement he felt out of his voice.

The old man looked up at him quickly. 'Yes, my dear colleague, to Paris—why not?'

'But—but——' The Herr Doktor reddened, then very quietly, even deprecatingly, he said, 'But, Monsieur le Docteur—the Germans? Will they not in Paris be?'

'No,' said Dr. RouannÈs confidently. 'They will be kept out of Paris. I only wish she—aye, and I too—were in Paris now!'

There was a pause, a rather painful pause, between the two men.

'You do not believe what I say about Paris?' said Dr. RouannÈs abruptly.

'No, I regret to say that I cannot your opinion share.' The Herr Doktor forced himself to say the words.

'You do not know Joffre.' The old doctor looked up at him reflectively. 'Very few people know Joffre—I do. We were at school together. I saw him not so very long ago. In fact just before I was wounded.' Then he called out, 'Jeanne! Ma petite Jeanne!'

The door opened, and Mademoiselle RouannÈs walked in, pale, composed, but with lips quivering piteously.

'Do not look so anxious,' said her father quickly. 'As I have always told you, there is no mystery about my condition—none at all! My English colleague agrees with me that it's a very nasty wound. Well, you know that already! I'm not as young as I was—that is against me; on the other hand, I'm a very healthy man. You are not to trouble about me one way or the other. Certain things which we are lacking this gentleman will provide out of his stores. The English ambulance service is the best in the world.'

And then the Herr Doktor made his one mistake. 'Nein, nein!' he muttered. And then he felt his heart stand still.

But his new patient had not heard the protest. In a stronger, heartier voice he exclaimed, 'Ah yes, that's right! I wondered when it was coming——'

The door had opened, and ThÉrÈse walked round the corner of the screen, carrying a tray on which were three small glasses, a bottle of Malaga, and some little dry cakes.

'Do you mind stopping a few minutes and having a talk with my father?' Jeanne RouannÈs spoke in English. 'It's very'—she hesitated for a word, then found it—'it's very dull for him when I am away all day.'

Eagerly the Herr Doktor sat down.

'And now,' exclaimed the patient, 'we will forget illness and trouble! We will talk of the glorious British Army, and of your ships—that splendid navy which encircles and guards our shores. What would the Little Corporal have said to all this, hein?' Then more seriously he went on, 'I was put out of action almost at once, and that is why I saw nothing of my British confrÈres. I regret to say that I did see something of the German doctors'—the colour rushed into his face, flamed over his broad forehead, and up to the roots of his white hair.

'Father!' said his daughter imploringly, 'Father, be calm!'

'I am calm—I am absolutely calm! But I must tell our friend of my experience, if only because it will show him—it will show him——'

'Father!' she said again, 'why talk of it now? It will only excite you unduly.'

'No, it does not excite me—not in the least! Our English friend here will be interested—deeply interested—in my story. It is one which should be published in'—he waited a moment, then brought out triumphantly the name—'yes, the Lancet—it should be written in the Lancet. Perhaps M. le Docteur will himself write it?'

He stopped short, and looked inquiringly at the man sitting by his bedside.

'Most certainly will I it do, my dear confrÈre.' As he spoke the lying words, Max Keller looked, not at the old man in bed, but at Mademoiselle Jeanne, and there was a kindly, steady, reassuring expression in his eyes.

She had grown scarlet with annoyance, with—was it fear? The Herr Doktor longed to reassure her, to make her feel at ease. How little she understood the self-control, the generosity, the masculine good sense of the German character! As if he would or could mind anything which this poor, old, prejudiced Frenchman, dying so bravely of a gangrenous wound, was likely to say or think of the splendid surgeons now adorning the German Medical Corps! Courteously he bent forward to hear what the man in bed was saying.

'Yes, my dear confrÈre, what I am about to tell you deserves to be put on record! But I will not take up much of your time—I will be brief, very brief.'

He waited a moment, and then, with a curious change of tone, very quietly Dr. RouannÈs told his story. 'It was a few days before I was wounded, between two of the early battles. Six of us had been sent to hastily organise a field hospital'—a bitter look came into his face. 'As you know, for it is, alas! no secret, we were caught, thanks to our fine Government, quite unprepared.... But to return to our muttons—we of the Red Cross were being cordially entertained by one of our generals and his staff, when one afternoon a number of our brave fellows came in with a capture! Such fools were we, such quixotic fools—it is not yet a month ago, but we have all changed by now—that we were angered when we discovered that this capture consisted of four German ambulance waggons, and of ten German doctors.'

The Herr Doktor moved uncomfortably in his chair; it creaked a little.

'Because we were such quixotic fools—and our general, Monsieur, shared our folly and our quixotry—we invited these German confrÈres to join us at dinner. We were sorry for them, we felt ashamed they had been detained. We intended to send them away next day, back to their own side. We were the more interested in them owing to the simple fact that, like ourselves, they had not yet been in action—so far was clear, they wore quite new uniforms and their equipment was superb. Ah, Monsieur, their equipment made our mouths water! Another thing also filled us with envy and, yes, a little shame. All ten of these medical gentlemen spoke French, and excellent French too; but only one of us six spoke German! Fortunately three or four of the officers attached to our General spoke German too—not perhaps very well, but still sufficiently to understand. Fortunately, very fortunately as it turned out, the one of us doctors who could speak German was a very intelligent man. He was, Monsieur, from Luxembourg, and some of his medical studies had actually been carried out in Germany. Bref, he spoke German like a German.'

The old man waited a moment. 'Have patience with me,' he said quietly. 'It will not take you long to hear my story, but the preliminaries are important.... Down we all sat to an excellent dinner. "One thing at least we can show them," observed a friend to me. "Our cooking, at any rate, is superior to theirs!" Our confrÈre, the man who spoke German, did not say much, he remained curiously silent during the meal; but the Germans talked a good deal with us other five. They proved pleasant, for they were each and all cultivated men. Before we sat down we Frenchmen arranged not to touch on anything controversial. But, as was natural under the circumstances, we talked what you English call "shop"—we talked, that is, in an impersonal, courteous manner of wounds, and of the treatment of wounds; for from the day war had broken out we had naturally all been reading up everything we could lay our hands on about this terrible and fascinating subject.'

'You are getting tired, Father——'

Jeanne RouannÈs came forward as she said the words, but the old man raised his voice: 'No, I am not tired—not tired at all! They were ten Germans to us five Frenchmen, for, as I have already told you, our Luxembourg confrÈre hardly spoke at all. It was he, however, who towards the end of dinner got up and left the room, and his absence, rather to our surprise, seemed to make certain of our German confrÈres slightly uneasy. More than one of them asked why he had thus absented himself.... They soon had an answer to their question, for at the end of perhaps ten minutes he came back, and with him was the General. Our German guests rose to their feet with perfect courtesy as the General walked forward. He was pale, Monsieur—he was pale as you may be sure he never had been, he never would be, in action. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "I have to perform a disagreeable task! Your confrÈre here—if indeed he is your confrÈre—is convinced that among you there are a proportion of men who are not doctors, and who, to put it bluntly, know nothing of medicine. He is convinced, gentlemen, that out of you ten men there are four spies who have taken advantage of the Red Cross uniform to obtain information useful to our enemies. I now ask him, and his five French confrÈres, to constitute themselves into a court-martial; and you, gentlemen, will each in turn submit yourself to a short cross-examination. You all speak French so perfectly that it will be a very easy matter for you to answer the simple questions which will be put to you."'

Dr. RouannÈs drew a long breath.

'I do not mind confessing to you that I thought this proposal an outrage! I had no doubt at all that the ten men before me were Red Cross surgeons. I come, Monsieur, of a Bonapartist family. I can remember 1870—the foolish, senseless cry, "We are betrayed!" On this occasion I felt as if that same ignoble cry was being raised again. "This Luxembourg confrÈre is afraid. He is nervous. He has the spy mania!" I exclaimed to myself. But I did notice—I could not help noticing—that of the ten men standing before us two had turned horribly pale. But what of that? Might not anyone turn pale when accused of so hateful and loathly a thing as is that of which those men were being accused?'

He paused—it seemed a very long time to his two listeners.

'Well, my dear confrÈre—you will already have guessed the end of my story! The two hours which followed the decree of our General were the most painful of my life. But the Luxembourg doctor had made one mistake. He had thought to find four spies—Monsieur, there were five. Exactly half of these ten men wearing the Red Cross knew nothing of medicine—nothing of surgery. The fifth man, he who had escaped suspicion, was more intelligent than the others; he, at any rate, had taken the trouble to make himself conversant with certain things which are the ABC of our noble profession. Perchance he was the son of a doctor—who knows? You will ask why we were so long as two hours? We were two hours because we first took those whom our Luxembourg confrÈre believed to be medical men. We put them through a very thorough examination and they came out of it admirably. Then we took the others. Ah, Monsieur, that did not take long! We knew the truth very, very soon—almost within the first few moments. For the matter of that they scarcely went to the trouble of denying what we suspected—only the one of whom I have just spoken tried to deceive us. They were brave men—that I will say frankly—those Prussian officers who had done so dastardly a thing. Indeed, Monsieur, I do not mind admitting to you that, in the end, I understood their point of view far more than I did that of the five medical men who had lent themselves to so unprofessional an act of treachery. As for the spies, they were working for their country. I repeat, they were brave men. Not one of them flinched. A confrÈre who had been attached to a medical mission in the East said to me afterwards that to him they recalled fanatics. For the matter of that, even the German surgeons were not aware of the enormity of their crime. There seemed no shame among them—indeed, as one of them put it to me quite plainly, each of them placed his Fatherland above his sense of professional honour.'

And then at last the Herr Doktor spoke. 'You do not think any French Red Cross surgeon would such a—a trick have practised?'

And Jeanne RouannÈs, glancing at him quickly, and then averting her eyes, saw that his usually pale face was red.

The old man stared at him, surprised. He lifted his shaggy white eyebrows. 'I cannot answer for every member of the French Army Medical Corps,' he answered, with a touch of impatience. 'But I can answer for it that you would not have found five men, nay, not three, willing to do such a thing in concert. Had such a proposal been made to them, one and all, I am quite convinced, would have refused. Further, I assert that no French general would have dared to make to them so dishonourable a proposal. The Red Cross, as you know, my dear confrÈre, is an international institution; if it is to be used to cover, to serve military operations, then'—he shrugged his shoulders expressively.

The Herr Doktor rose to his feet. 'Yes,' he said, 'I quite see it, and from your point of view you have right—undoubted right!'

'And now, my dear father, I had better take the doctor downstairs. He has to go back to the barge.'

Dr. RouannÈs grasped his colleague's hand with both his. 'It has done me great good to see you,' he said heartily. 'And I am sure you will be able to alleviate the slight pain from which I now and again suffer. You will remember all I have told you'—the old man looked up at him with a touch of painful anxiety in his eyes, and, as he heard the door behind the screen swing to behind his daughter—'You will help her to get to Paris?' he muttered. 'It would not be safe for her to remain alone here. There may be fierce fighting our way soon. You have doubtless heard of our New Army?'

The Herr Doktor nodded. How piteous were these delusions of the conquered! He answered in all sincerity, 'In every possible way, my dear confrÈre, will I Mademoiselle RouannÈs assist, when you no longer there to help her are.'

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