The cemetery of what was once Valoise commands the wide valley of the Marne, and, as so often happens in France, it is on the highest ground in the town, at a considerable distance from the parish church.

On the morning of the eighth day of September the Herr Doktor was betaking himself there to attend the funeral of his late colleague and patient, Dr. RouannÈs.

During the last three days he had scarcely ever left the house of the dying man. No son could have been more vigilantly, unwearyingly, devoted than had been this German surgeon to the dying Frenchman; but while to her whose vigils he shared time had seemed to drag with leaden feet, to him the hours had gone all too quickly, and every moment spent with the woman he loved had been fraught with emotions which gained in intensity owing to enforced lack of expression.

No wonder that he grew to care with an intimate, caressing affection for everything in the little homestead that now belonged to Jeanne RouannÈs. No wonder that he put far from him, even if he could not always wholly forget it, the fact that now, at this pregnant moment of their joint lives, their two countries were at war. Sometimes, indeed, he did actually forget it, for there was nothing to remind him of the conflict in the still, sunlit little house, hidden in its fragrant garden behind high walls. Even outside those walls, along the quiet, rudely paved streets and stony, steep byways of the town, there came no surge of the fierce, devastating tide of war now sweeping ever nearer and nearer to doomed Paris. Max Keller, one side of his nature absorbed in what had become an all-encompassing vision of coming joy, of heart-hunger satisfied, another side concerned with alleviating the last hours of Jeanne RouannÈs' father, scarcely heard the little there was to hear, or saw the little there was to see. He heard, that is, without hearing, the rumours, now glad, now sad, which flew, even in remote Valoise, from lip to lip. He saw, without seeing, the streets become more solitary and barer of human life, as those first September days passed by, bringing, as they always do in Northern France, a wonder of beautiful autumnal colour....

And now, this morning, as the Herr Doktor trudged up to the cemetery, he was conning over a suitable form of English words in which to tell Jeanne of her father's last wish and injunction—that they two should proceed to Paris without delay. As to what should follow their arrival in Paris he, Max Keller, must wait upon events. In any case, he knew that it would be an easy matter for him to afford the aunt and niece help and protection during the short time that must elapse ere Germany made peace with France.

In one thing, and one thing only, he had been keenly disappointed. Since they, together, had left the death-chamber, Mademoiselle RouannÈs had gently and courteously refused to see him, and he had been made to feel by old ThÉrÈse that his further presence in that house of bitter mourning was superfluous. Reluctantly he had gone off to the Tournebride to find there, as is always the case with an empty inn, an unnatural sense of peace and void. Madame Blanc had the spacious hostelry all to herself, and she spent her time in a restless coming to and fro about her one guest. Of her two young daughters there was now, to his indifferent surprise, no sign at all.

Half an hour ago the Herr Doktor and his hostess had started out together, she bound for the parish church, he for the cemetery. Soon their ways had parted, and it had seemed to the German surgeon that the whole remaining population of Valoise, or at any rate all the old women and all the children too, intended to be present at the funeral of Dr. RouannÈs. He noted, with a certain indulgent amusement, that there was an air of subdued festivity about those black-clad feminine mourners, for the French are a gregarious people, and to the women walking in slow-moving groups towards the church, any excuse for meeting was welcome.

Now he had left them all behind him, and as, breasting the light wind, he strode up the last lap of the stony thoroughfare which led to the cemetery, the practical side of his German mind asked itself, with a kind of impatient wonder, why such a peculiarly unsuitable stretch of high ground should have been chosen.

But there is something very appealing, and very intimate, in the final resting-places of the French dead, and the Herr Doktor, when he at last walked through the gates, and found himself in the strangely situated cemetery of Valoise, looked about him with a good deal of sympathetic interest and curiosity.

To his now brimful-of-sentiment heart there was nothing jarring in the ugly, often even grotesque, mementoes which here surrounded him. In his present mood the stone and marble hands clasped closely together struck him as exquisitely symbolic of the highest type of human love; he was touched by the quaint conceit of a black tablet bedewed with a widower's white tears, and he gazed with softened eyes at the contorted bead wreaths and crosses inscribed 'A notre pere,' 'Mon cher petit enfant,' 'Regrets sinceres,' which were among the humbler forms of commemoration.

While walking with reverent footsteps along a narrow pathway, his eyes were suddenly arrested by an English inscription. Though cut deep into a now very weather-beaten stone cross, the words had become partly effaced. He soon, however, made out their sense:

On September 29, 1870, there fell, close to Valoise, three brave men, nameless German officers. An Englishwoman, a lover of Germany, has put up this cross to their memory. May they rest in peace.

There came a deep frown over the Herr Doktor's mouth. He turned his back abruptly on the old stone cross, wondering bitterly whether the Englishwoman who had done this kindly act was still alive. If so, what must she now think of the treachery of her decadent fellow-countrymen?

Somewhat ruffled by this untoward incident, he walked on, till he found the deep, roughly made grave wherein his French colleague was about to be laid.

Above the now open vault rose a miniature stone chapel, and below the lintel of the roof ran in gold letters the words: 'Famille RouannÈs.'

Walking slowly forward Max Keller went and stood before the gates, between which rose the pair of trestles placed ready for the coffin.

Four marble tablets were fixed on the left-hand side of the entrance to the chapel, and on each was commemorated a member of the RouannÈs family. Jeanne's grandfather, dead forty-five years ago; her grandmother; an uncle who had died in childhood. And then, in blacker, clearer characters, an inscription which touched him nearly:

Dame Emile RouannÈs, nÉe Demoiselle Jeanne de BligniÈre. MÈre aimÉe. Femme adorÉe.

To the right of the RouannÈs monument, a square aperture cut in the cemetery wall commanded a wonderful view, not only of the town of Valoise, but of the spreading plains below. He went there, and leaning over the low parapet, gazed down at the place where, some hundred feet beneath him, was a little square from which fell away the grey and red roofs which seemed, in their turn, to drop sheer into the valley.

An autumn haze, rising from the river, and from the many other smaller waterways intersecting the woods and lands beyond the river, hung over the countryside. And as his short-sighted eyes tried to pierce the masses of shifting mist which moved over the wide, flat expanse of land below, there suddenly broke on the still air the sound of solemn chanting, and he saw, moving up the long winding street which led from the parish church to the cemetery, the funeral procession of Jeanne RouannÈs' father.

2

The procession was headed by a woman whom he knew to be the old priest's plain-featured housekeeper. She bore in her uplifted arms a cross, and, immediately after her, came Monsieur le CurÉ himself. In his black-and-silver mourning vestments the parish priest of Valoise looked an imposing, as well as a reverent, figure. Behind him were eight little boys in black cassocks, each of whom in his right hand held a lighted candle, which guttered and spluttered in the wind. Very slowly, and pacing in ordered array, the priest and his attendant acolytes debouched into the little square.

There followed a moment of confusion, and in the centre of a black-robed crowd of elderly women—of women the majority of whom each held a child by the hand—the Herr Doktor suddenly saw something which made him recoil and press further in to that side of the wall which concealed him from the people below.

On a rickety low cart, drawn by a decrepit pony, was a large wooden packing-case on which some well-meaning hand had drawn, in black paint which still gleamed wetly in the sun, a rude cross.

Such was the makeshift coffin of Doctor RouannÈs.

The colour flamed up into the Herr Doktor's face. With a shock of shame and, yes, of naÏve surprise, he realised how barbarous, how lamentable, even how grotesque, can be the minor consequences of Glorious War.

Behind the little cart and its untoward burden, Jeanne RouannÈs, shrouded in black, and heavily veiled, walked alone, followed at a few paces by the two servants of the dead man. Suddenly the cart stopped, and out of the crowd there came forward eight very old men. Stooping down till their knees almost touched the ground, they lifted the white deal case on to their shoulders, and slowly, pantingly, began the task of bearing it up the stony path which led to the cemetery.

The Herr Doktor, shrinking back, instinctively held his breath; he feared that each dragging moment might bring with it the slipping of the awkward burden from some heaving shoulder, and at last the strain on his nerves became so great that he deliberately turned away, and stared, in wretched suspense, unseeingly before him.

It seemed as if hours instead of minutes passed by ere he heard the muttered exclamations of relief: 'Ça y est!' 'Enfin!' 'Oh, lÀ, lÀ!' which signified that the eight old men had reached level ground at last.

Then, and not till then, the onlooker left the embrasure in the wall where he had been hidden. But no one glanced his way, or seemed conscious of his alien presence, and with aching heart he gazed his fill at the mournful little procession which was now passing a few yards to his left.

The coffin bearers walked more firmly, their burden now better adjusted to their frail shoulders, and close behind them came Jeanne RouannÈs.

She had thrown back her long black veil; her face looked as though it were of wax; alone her blue eyes, gleaming dry and bright, seemed alive.

Very soon the crowd surged up, forming a large semicircle, and the one stranger there fell back, on to the outer rim of it. But, even so, he could still see Jeanne RouannÈs quite clearly. And when the rude case which served as her father's coffin had been placed on the trestles standing ready for it, the hard waxen look left her face, a long quivering sigh escaped her lips, and these same poor lips began to tremble piteously. As the tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, the Herr Doktor's filled in sympathy....

Suddenly their tear-dimmed eyes met, and though he did not know it, and was never to know it, she saw him, this German man, Max Keller, who loved her, as if for the first time—for the agony she was feeling unlocked the key to his heart, and made her see therein.

She blushed—a dusky, painful blush of outraged pride, anger, surprise, and quick self-examination and reproach. But no, she had done nothing to deserve, to bring upon herself, this new, this inconceivably outrageous humiliation! But very soon the deep colour receded, leaving her pale as she had been red, and it was with a composed countenance and downcast eyes that she stepped forward to perform the last of the pious offices the Catholic living perform to the Catholic dead—that of sprinkling holy water on the coffin.

Taking the curiously shaped bÉnitier in her right hand, she raised it slowly in the air, and then, in startled surprise, she paused, for all at once there rose above the silent crowd, almost entirely composed of old women and little children, a long drawn-out, sibilant scream.

Only one of those now gathered there, in that wind-swept cemetery of Valoise, knew what that sinister sound portended; so well indeed did he know it that instinctively he made a movement as if to throw himself on the ground. But he restrained the impulse. And as Jeanne RouannÈs waited uncertainly, the women round her gazed up into the sky from whence came the strange sound. Like her, they were all startled and surprised rather than afraid.

Then came a muffled sound of explosion; an acrid smell floated on the light wind, and the Herr Doktor, glancing round, saw that the missile had struck the further wall of the enclosure.

The priest raised his hand. 'I think it is only a stray shell,' he called out in a loud voice. 'Do not be frightened, my children. Go home quietly, and take to your cellars, in case others follow it.'

There followed a general sauve-qui-peut. Mothers and grandmothers took up their little children, and galloped down the stony way, wailing as they ran. Alone among the women there Jeanne RouannÈs remained quietly standing in front of her father's bier. As for the old priest, he moved quickly to the aperture in the wall from whence the country below lay spread out map-wise, and the Herr Doktor followed him.

Both men bent down over the parapet, and then each straightened himself and looked at the other quickly, furtively, to see if what he had seen was indeed there, and no delusion bred of a weary and excited brain.

The Route Nationale, which followed the course of the river at the bottom of the town, was dark with moving masses of artillery, of motor wagons, horses, and men. The long sinuous coil was slow moving, yet there was an air of haste and of disorder about it. With an uneasy sense of surprise and discomfort the Herr Doktor gradually began to realise that they were his own countrymen hastening thus in the wrong direction—away from Paris, instead of towards it.

Even as the two, the Frenchman and the German, looked amazedly down, the dark, thick line halted, broke, and swerved; it was clear that in a few minutes the troops composing it would be over-running all Valoise.

The priest turned to the man standing by his side. 'The Germans have come back,' he said, and there was a note of deep sadness in his voice. 'They are in great force, and I trust, Monsieur, that you will help me to keep order in my poor town.'

'The town has nothing to fear.' The Herr Doktor spoke in a loud voice. His nerves were taut. The other's tone, at once commanding and appealing, irritated him. 'With every consideration will you treated be,' he said stiffly. 'I will myself go and the Commandant seek out.'

The old priest, glancing round, saw that Jeanne RouannÈs was practically out of earshot. Approaching yet closer, he said urgently, 'I also trust to you, Monsieur le MÉdecin, to make a special effort to protect that poor girl, and I appeal to you to tell me now, at once, if she will be safer with you or with me? In any case it is clear she must go home as soon as possible, and assume there once more her Red Cross uniform. That in itself is a protection.'

The Herr Doktor looked straight into the face of the priest. He saw there fear, horror, and indignation struggling for mastery. Very different had been the attitude, the appearance, of Monsieur le CurÉ when they had first met on that August day, nearly three weeks ago, when the Uhlans had taken peaceful possession of Valoise! Then there had been no sign of fear on the priest's face, and that though he had absurdly supposed himself to be about to be led out and shot. But now? Now the old Frenchman did look afraid.

As for a moment the Herr Doktor remained silent, the other repeated, with a touch of angry impatience and urgency in his voice—'What is it you advise? What do you believe will be best for the protection of Mademoiselle RouannÈs? I beg of you to tell me! There is no time to lose—soon it will be too late for me to do anything, for they will want me again as a hostage.'

'Yes,' said the Herr Doktor reluctantly, 'I fear it is true that you an hostage will have to be. But as—as for Mademoiselle RouannÈs, she, I assure you, will be perfectly safe! Of her to ask that she should her Red Cross dress again put on, that could I not on the day of her father's funeral do. Indeed, there is no reason why she again should to the barge go down. The men whom I have been compelled as prisoners to keep down there are nearly well, and she has never my own patient nursed.'

His French was poor and halting, but the old priest understood it well enough to be filled with dismay at such—such an obstinate blindness!

'Is it possible you do not know,' he said in a quick whisper, 'how the Prussians have been behaving since they began to retreat—since there began that great battle three days ago?'

The German surgeon stared at the old French priest. He felt amazed, incredulous, and yet—yet a gleam of doubt filled his soul. 'I have nothing heard!' he exclaimed. 'You forget that I the last few days constantly with Dr. RouannÈs have been. Why did you me unknowing leave of what you seem to think I should have known? Even now I do not what you mean understand. And I must of you request to tell me what it is you believe?'

But even as he asked the question the Herr Doktor's mind had rushed back to many apparently insignificant happenings of the last few days....

All through those days there had arisen an unwonted stir outside the little house where he was engaged in so skilfully tending a dying man. Along the quiet, sunny Rue des Jardins there had been an incessant coming and going of peasant women pouring into Valoise from the surrounding country. He also remembered now that a group of girls, crying bitterly, had come to see Mademoiselle RouannÈs, and that old ThÉrÈse had informed him that they belonged, like Mademoiselle herself, to a SodalitÉ, or religious society, and that they were leaving the town.

But he, Max Keller, had been too absorbed in his dying patient, and in that dying patient's daughter, to give any thought at all to what was going on in Valoise, outside the house and walled garden where he spent so many hours of each day.

'There has been a great battle,' went on the priest quickly, 'nay, a series of battles, in which your armies have been turned back—back from the very gates of Paris! I regret, Monsieur, to be the one to give what to you must be bad tidings——'

The Herr Doktor shook his head impatiently. He did not believe a word of the old Frenchman's incredible statement. It was possible that some trifling portion of the victorious German hosts had been caught at a disadvantage—not likely to be so, but still possible; and a temporary check would, of course, explain what was now going on down there by the river....

But what was this the parish priest of Valoise was muttering, almost in his ear, speaking so fast and so low that he, Max Keller, found it hard to follow him?

'And in their retreat—the retreat which is now a rout—I regret to tell you that your countrymen are doing terrible things! They are burning, Monsieur le MÉdecin, burning and sacking as they go—terrorising our population. Sometimes they do worse—far worse even than that!' He came nearer to the younger man, and more slowly, more calmly, he said: 'Four days ago, I arranged to send most of the young girls away from Valoise. They had to go walking, poor lambs of the Lord. We sent them through the woods,'—he waved his arm vaguely towards the further side of the cemetery—'where our own soldiers are said to be. It was but a measure of precaution, and one urged on me—I will do him that justice—by the Mayor. He always believed that some of your soldiery would come back this way. I did not agree with him. But I was wrong and he was right, and the God in whom he does not believe will, I feel sure, reward him for having saved so many poor innocents. But, as you will at once comprehend, to get Jeanne RouannÈs away was out of the question—I did not even think of it.'

And then the Herr Doktor uttered the first insulting words he had said in France: 'Your Mayor, and you yourself, Monsieur le CurÉ, judge Germans by Frenchmen. Believe me, your young countrywomen in no danger are.'

Again there suddenly rose that long drawn-out whistling, portent of destruction and disaster, and this time the Herr Doktor rushing forward, called out loudly, 'Prostrate yourself, Mademoiselle! Prostrate yourself, Monsieur le CurÉ!'

But neither of the two who heard his shout of warning followed his example, indeed the meaning of his words scarcely penetrated their brains. Again the noisesome missile struck the further wall of the cemetery, and this time a huge fragment of the shell hurled itself backwards, to within a few inches of the head of the rudely-fashioned coffin.

With a startled cry of pain and fear Mademoiselle RouannÈs shrank back, and covered her eyes with her hands.

'I can you indeed no moment longer allow to remain!' the Herr Doktor made a leap to where she stood. With an awkward movement he took hold of her arm, and, unresisting, she allowed herself to be hurried along the broad sanded path, and down the steep, stony way into the deserted square.

3

When they had reached the middle of the square, the Herr Doktor slackened his pace and looked about him in some perplexity. He suspected the two shells which had fallen so wide to be French shells, and if that were so, there might soon be sharp fighting in the very streets of Valoise. Anxiously he began asking himself which would be the safest shelter for the girl who now stood, silent and rigid, by his side? Should he take her home to the house in the Haute-Ville or down to the Red Cross barge?

Four streets led out of the square. It was clear that the widest must lead more or less straight down to the river. It was along that wider way that Monsieur le CurÉ, his sable-and-silver vestments flapping in the wind, was now hurrying. Staring after the strange, solitary figure, the Herr Doktor bethought himself uneasily of the old man's words of warning. It might well be true that Jeanne RouannÈs would be safer in her Red Cross uniform—safer, that is, from the discourtesy of rough, stern words. Not for a moment did Max Keller fear or admit, even in his innermost heart, that his fellow-countrymen could behave ill to the women of conquered France. To his mind such an accusation was as base as it was baseless. But he knew that many apparently harsh rules and regulations had had to be drawn up concerning the conduct of the civilian population. Most fortunately Jeanne RouannÈs, in her Red Cross dress, formed part of an International Society, and thus was assured of exceptional respect and courtesy.

And yet as he stood there, debating quickly within himself what it were best to do, he, Max Keller, felt a jealous pang of repugnance at the thought of the young Frenchwoman being brought in contact with—well, with the Prince Egon type of Prussian officer. Deep in his heart he knew only too well how small was the measure of respect that type of German is prepared to pay to any pretty woman with whom a lucky chance brings him in contact. Governed by that secret, reluctant knowledge, the Herr Doktor at last traced out a certain line of conduct for himself—one, too, which he believed it would be quite easy to carry out. That course was to take Mademoiselle RouannÈs back to her own house, after which, having left her safe with old Jacob and ThÉrÈse, he, in his official capacity, would seek out the officer in command of the troops about to occupy Valoise, and obtain a pass for a French Red Cross nurse. With that in his possession, it would surely be easy for them to proceed to Paris in his motor ambulance.

'Which way to your house leads?' he asked quietly.

But even as the words left his lips, there suddenly surged up a loud, confused, and menacing sound. With a strange feeling of fear, strange to Max Keller, for he was a brave man, he realised that it was the curious, sinister clamour caused by the undisciplined tramp of a crowd of hurrying men—a sound differing ominously from that produced by the ordered, measured, rhythmic march of soldiers....

Nearer and nearer came the tramp of thudding, shuffling feet. Jeanne RouannÈs moved closer to him, so close that he heard the hoarse, despairing whisper answering her own unuttered question—'Ce sont les Prussiens!'

She was glancing about her this way and that—a wild spasm of dread, that of a trapped creature, in her pale face. But every window in the square had been shuttered, every door locked and barred.

'Shall I go up into the cemetery again?' She spoke in English, her lips hardly moving.

The Herr Doktor looked straight into her face; her eyes were steady, but her lips trembled, and her hands were pressed together. He divined the mingled fear and shame—the shame and fear of being so horribly afraid—which possessed her.

'No, no—with me are you quite safe!'

Ah! If only he could make her, his beloved, understand his own complete understanding of her—if only he could lift her beautiful soul up into the ether where his own had dwelt ever since he had first seen her—then she would know how secure from harm she was in his company, and in that of his fellow-countrymen!

But the time had not yet come when he could say even a millionth part of what was in his heart, and so with a jolt he came down to this earth-bound little French town of Valoise, and once more he repeated reassuringly, 'With me are you quite safe.' And indeed he believed what he said. He had no fear but that his fellow-countrymen, even if drunk with victory, aye, and perchance with good French wine as well, would respect his uniform, and the presence of the mourning lady by his side.

But even so, as nearer and nearer came the sound of trampling feet, of loud, confused talk, there did come over the Herr Doktor's mind a disagreeable recollection of the old priest's hurried, broken account of the looting and the drinking which were said to have been going on in places near Valoise.

It would be indeed a misfortune were Mademoiselle RouannÈs to see the noble German soldier at a disadvantage. And then, while this unspoken fear was still passing through his brain, there suddenly surged up one of the narrower streets leading into the little square a motley crowd of grey-clad men.

Soldiers? Yes, men belonging to the famous Brandenburg Regiment, but now, to the Herr Doktor's disciplined eyes, presenting a sorry, and indeed, a shocking appearance. Some lacked their helmets, some their coats; a few still had their rifles, but all were dirty and unkempt.

It was not the first time the Herr Doktor had seen soldiers in this guise; so had many of the victorious German troops appeared after the hard-fought battle of Charleroi. And yet? And yet there had been a vast difference between those men and these, though he was not yet able to define where that difference lay.

---

When those who appeared to be the leaders of the unkempt rabble saw the two figures standing in the sunlit square, their line wavered, and some of them drew back, while the loud talking died down into a surprised silence.

There came quickly forward the burly figure of a non-commissioned officer, one, too, who had almost all of his accoutrement complete.

'Herr Doktor?' he exclaimed eagerly. 'We were told there was a good wine-shop up this way! Can you direct me to it? My men are badly in need of food and rest, and every inn in the lower part of the town has already been taken by assault'—he spoke complainingly; it was clear that he was labouring under a sense of grievance.

'But—but where have you come from?' asked the Herr Doktor in a low voice. He felt bewildered—bewildered and strangely oppressed. 'I don't understand how or why you are here, in Valoise-sur-Marne?'

'And yet it's clear enough!' said the other sharply. 'We were promised good beds, plenty to eat, and above all plenty to drink, once we reached Valoise. We find the town practically deserted—only old women and a few children left in it! As for wine'—he shrugged his shoulders. 'Just now the Mayor was required to produce twenty thousand bottles of wine. Do you know, Herr Doktor, how many he offers to provide?' He waited, and as the Herr Doktor remained silent, he suddenly shouted out, 'Eight hundred bottles! What is that among three thousand men? Of course we excluded the wine-shops as a source of supply—the wine-shops were already emptied before we managed to hunt out the Mayor. Our officers are furious!'

'The officers will get plenty of good wine at the Tournebride——'

The Herr Doktor knew now wherein lay the difference between the victors of Charleroi, and the men who stood staring stupidly before him. The victors of Charleroi had been sober; these countrymen of his were already more or less drunk.

But what was this the corporal was saying, smiling angrily the while? 'The Tournebride? Nay, those of our comrades who passed that way three weeks ago seem to have been locusts—what they couldn't drink they took away! All they left behind them is poison—rank poison! Cheap blue stuff, and not a single bottle of beer!'

There came a quick stir among the soldiers, and they parted to make way for a tall, fine-looking young officer. But he also looked worn, haggard, and angry. His face cleared somewhat as he came up to his two fellow-countrymen, and softened as his eye rested on the black-draped, fair-haired figure who now stood, with eyes cast down, and hands loosely clasped together, some way apart from the Red Cross doctor and his companion.

'I was told that I should probably find you up here, Herr Doktor! A woman down by the river directed me. Is it true that you've been in this town a fortnight, and that a number of our fellows stayed here a week and ate and drank up everything—the locusts? Not content with drinking up all the wine, it's clear that they also took all the young women away with them! They had, however, mercy on you!' With a smile and a slight gesture towards Jeanne RouannÈs, he added a few joking words which made the hot colour rush to the Herr Doktor's face.

'This lady,' he said stiffly, 'is a distinguished Sister of the Red Cross. It is in that capacity that she is now under my protection and care. Her father died but yesterday.'

The other had the grace to look slightly ashamed.

'Yes, yes,' he said hastily. 'I understand that—the woman by the river told me of the funeral. But, Herr Doktor? In your place I should take this Red Cross demoiselle straight back to her hospital, and, unless it is absolutely necessary, do not go down into the lower part of the town. When I said just now that there was no wine left in Valoise, it was merely a figure of speech. Of course, there is wine; in fact our weary fellows have got hold of a fair amount but it is not good—it is not the sort that we hoped to find here!'

There were many pressing questions on the Herr Doktor's lips, but he judged it best not to ask them. Instead he only observed: 'I am very desirous to get a pass into Paris for this Sister of Compassion. Her father was my colleague, a doctor, that is, of the Red Cross, and on his bed of death I promised him to try and procure a suitable escort and a pass into Paris for his daughter. So pray inform me, Herr Captain, of the name of our Commandant. Where can I find him?—is he at the Tournebride?'

The other turned, and gazed with a singular expression at the Herr Doktor. 'You will not be able to get a pass into Paris from any of us just now,' he said slowly. 'No doubt the time will come when you will be able to do so. But we do not yet hold the gates of Paris.' He waited a moment, then asked abruptly, 'Does this Red Cross Sister know our language?'

'No, not one word of it.'

'Then I will tell you,' and even so he lowered his voice, 'that we were within one day's march of Paris when came the order to make a turning movement. Do not ask me why, my dear fellow! I know less than nothing about it—only the bare fact. Ask Von Kluck the reason the next time you meet him! For the last three days we have been fighting—fighting and, well, yes, retreating, by night as well as day. That is why my men are worn out. Yesterday evening we were badly surprised, and as our fellows ran they threw away everything—everything which could impede their flight——'

'Their flight?' repeated the Herr Doktor, in a dazed voice.

'Yes, their flight,' said the other shortly, 'or if you prefer the word, my dear Herr Doktor, their rout! But we shall soon re-form. It is but a temporary check. We must not expect to meet nothing but astounding victories—such victories as have blessed us hitherto—in war. The British, at any rate are done—rolled up, put out of action altogether. It is a new French army which circled round from Versailles, commanded, they say, by Maunoury, which upset our calculations.' He added, lowering his voice yet more: 'But we are falling back on prepared positions, beyond the Aisne.'

'Then are the French just behind you—close to Valoise?'

'Not very far off,' said the other drily, but not likely to enter the town yet awhile. We have found excellent gun positions up there'—he pointed vaguely beyond the cemetery—'and this place should be easy to defend.'

'But where are our main forces?'

'Some have cut straight across the front of what remains of the contemptible little British army—at least that was the general disposition when I was last in touch with the Staff. About those corps there is no anxiety, for, as I told you just now, the British are done.'

A gleam of joy shot across the Herr Doktor's now haggard face. And the other hurried on: 'So, too, are the French who fell back with them. But that new, fresh army under Maunoury—that was a colossal surprise! Once it is disposed of, we shall renew our advance on Paris.' He hesitated for a moment, and then the pleasure of finding a listener conquered prudence. 'The Crown Prince did not come up to time. His army was to have joined ours on September 2—Von Kluck was waiting for him. There could be no final attack on Paris without the "DraufgÄnger." You understand? It was our future War Lord's perquisite——'

The Herr Doktor nodded comprehendingly. Oddly enough, he had never seen the Crown Prince, but from various things he had heard about him he supposed him to be not unlike Prince Egon.

4

After leaving the square, the Herr Doktor and Jeanne RouannÈs found every street and every alley barred. And though the uniform of the 'MilitÄr-Arzt' generally opened a way without much difficulty, Max Keller soon realised, with bitter, dumb self-reproach that he had wasted priceless minutes in asking and in answering futile questions. Perhaps because he had now spent a length of treasure-stored days in a country where time means at once so very much more, and so very much less, than it does in modern Germany, he was no longer in mental touch with the type of human being created by the sinister amalgam of sentimental idealism and military discipline.

To a German officer any waste of time, especially on active service, is abhorrent, and during the half-hour the Herr Doktor and his companion had spent in the square, Valoise had been rapidly divided into districts, and the looting therein, as far as was possible, systematised. Thus as soon as a certain number of marauders had been allowed to go through into it, further entry to a street was barred; and to the Herr Doktor there was something horribly grotesque in the contrast between the sharp discipline enforced by the patrols who sealed each thoroughfare, and the orgy of thieving and senseless destruction which they were apparently set there to supervise and protect.

It seemed, too, as if Nature herself had become a willing accomplice to the powers of evil, for the bright, delicious sunlight, the delicate breeze already touched to an autumnal sharpness, shone on, and blew about, the pitiful heaps of household plenishings which grew and swelled before each doorway.

In tacit agreement the two fugitives—for such they now felt themselves to be—chose a roundabout way to the Rue des Jardins; and as they hurried along, looking straight before them, averting their eyes from the sights which lay to their right and to their left, the Herr Doktor yet became conscious that here and there a house was being spared outrage. Before one such a number of his fellow-countrymen had squatted down on the cobble-stones, and were engaged in happily eating and drinking their fill. An old Frenchwoman, with a pitifully eager, servile manner, was waiting on them, bringing out of the villa, of which she was evidently the care-taker, armfuls of red-sealed bottles of wine. And yet, as he passed this house which was being spared outrage, the Herr Doktor quickened his footsteps. Somehow the sight he saw there shocked him more than did that of greater disorder.

Tides of shame, bewilderment, and pain welled up in his sore, burdened heart. Would the girl who now walked, with quick short steps, her head held high, looking always straight before her, ever forget the scenes they were now passing through? There was no fear now in her face, only a look of measureless scorn, disgust, and contempt. And it was he, rather than she, who felt a passion of relief when at last they emerged, through a final patrol, to find the intersecting web of streets composing the highest lap of the Haute Ville still free of soldiery.

The long, sunny Rue des Jardins looked unnaturally as usual, but when the two walked up through the garden of the Villa RouannÈs, they saw that the front door was still locked, and the green wooden shutters of all the windows on the ground floor still barred. ThÉrÈse and Jacob had evidently been stopped, and turned back, on their flight home from the cemetery.

'I think we can get in at the back, through the kitchen,' said Jeanne, breaking silence at last.

She led him round the house, to a door which stood wide open, and through the pleasant, exquisitely clean kitchen, where he had sometimes had occasion to seek old ThÉrÈse while tending the dying Frenchman.

Together they walked through into the empty house, and the Herr Doktor spent the short time she kept him waiting in walking restlessly about the darkened salon, which had become so familiar and so dear.

Each minute seemed an eternity—an eternity filled with suspense and acute, unreasoning fear, for he knew that any moment he might hear the sound of eager, predatory feet tramping up the Rue des Jardins; and he visualised with dreadful clearness the little fragrant garden filled with a mob of his fellow-countrymen, decent enough men at home no doubt, but here, in their grey uniforms and spiked helmets, transformed into thieves, drunkards, and, he feared, worse.

At last Jeanne RouannÈs opened the door. She was clad in the Red Cross uniform and veil-like cap which had now come to look unfamiliar in his eyes, for she had never worn them in her father's presence. She held a large, shabby leathern purse in her hand. 'This is the money—a thousand francs—my father always kept in the house. Will you take care of it for me?' She held it out to him. 'They say that'—she hesitated a moment, then said reluctantly—'they say that the Prussians always look first for the money, and then for the wine.'

He took the purse from her silently, and then, for what seemed to him a long time, though it was not five minutes, she stood in the centre of the square, shadowed sitting-room. A little light filtered through the chinks in the old wooden shutters, and slowly she gazed this way and that, as if desirous of imprinting an image of everything that was there on her heart and memory. But when they had left the house, and were walking through the garden, even when they reached the door in the wall, she did not once look back.

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They met with no adventures on their way to the Grande Place, for they chose a roundabout way, along field paths, and under the glades of the forest trees in what had been one of the loveliest of the smaller royal demesnes of old France. And as they at last came out from behind the Abreuvoir the Herr Doktor saw with silent, intense relief that here, too, everything looked as usual. The great open space before them was as empty of life and movement as he had always known it. There was, however, one rather curious exception; but it was a pleasant exception, for it lent an air of spurious brightness, even of cheerfulness, to the scene. This was that the doors and windows of the large villas which formed the left of the Grande Place of Valoise were now all wide open, and were evidently being prepared for the overflow from the Tournebride.

Suddenly, however, as the Herr Doktor's eyes wandered down the broad thoroughfare leading straight to the river, he saw that all was not quite as normal in this part of the town as he had at first thought, for all the way down the hill, every window of the humbler houses had been battered in!

An old woman was even now engaged in carefully sweeping up the glass in the roadway in front of her little shop, and gradually he became aware that the shop itself was completely gutted, and that there was a dark yawning hole where the window, filled with toys and sweetmeats, had been.

Once more his heart ached with sick disgust and pain while slowly he and his companion began walking towards the long, low buildings of the Tournebride.

The beautiful old inn, at any rate, looked exactly as when he had last seen it that morning, though the great gilt gates, which had been closed for over a fortnight, were now wide open. It was clear that the Commandant of the German forces now holding Valoise had fixed his headquarters there, but the Herr Doktor's eyes sought vainly for the sentries who should have been standing at either side of the open gates. This second occupation of Valoise was indeed unlike the first!

'While I the Herr Commandant interview, can you with Madame Blanc here stay?' he observed suddenly.

As they passed through the gates the Herr Doktor was sorry indeed to see that hundreds of empty and broken bottles were lying under the chestnut trees, on the now wine-stained paving stones. These empty, broken bottles gave an untidy, rakish air to the shady, stately courtyard where the first conquerors of Valoise had spent such peaceful, restful hours.

On they walked, picking their way among the dÉbris. The place seemed deserted.

Puzzled, and feeling at once relieved and uncomfortable, the Herr Doktor stayed his steps for a moment, and the girl at his side did so too. Her eyes filled with tears, a sense of terrible degradation seemed to soil her soul, and, as the moments sped by, her companion was filled with growing apprehension and unease.

Why was the Tournebride thus deserted? Officers, as well as the men who had drunk the wine from the bottles now lying empty and broken about his feet, had been here very lately, for on a wooden table standing in the middle of the courtyard were a dozen or more large glass goblets—one even now half full of white wine—and empty, gold-foiled bottles. There also, on this wooden table, lay the bunch of keys which always dangled at Madame Blanc's ample waist.

Madame Blanc? Yes, if, as now seemed to be the case, the Commandant and his staff were all out in the town, he could leave Mademoiselle RouannÈs with her while he went to look for them. In that thought he found a measure of relief. The knowledge that Jeanne RouannÈs would have to run the gauntlet of the Prussian officers' eyes had been hateful to him.

But where was Madame Blanc?

Calling out her name, he walked across to the half-open door of the kitchen; and then, suddenly, Jeanne RouannÈs, hardened as she had become that day to dreadful sights and sounds, uttered a low exclamation of fear and surprise. 'Great God!' she exclaimed in French, 'what is that? What is that, down there?'

The Herr Doktor peered towards the place where she was staring, and with eyes which gradually filled with pain and horror, he saw that a thin stream of blood was oozing sluggishly through the doorway where he had stood so often talking to the Frenchwoman, with whom, at last, he had become good friends.

He stumbled forward, full of a dreadful foreboding, and tried to push back the door. But it would only swing forward.

Waving the girl back with a sharp, quick gesture, he pressed through the aperture, and then he, too, uttered an exclamation, a hoarse guttural cry of distress, for just behind the door, huddled up on the floor of her kitchen, lay the dead body of Madame Blanc.

The landlady of the Tournebride had been shot half a dozen times, at close range, in the breast, not struck—as the German surgeon for a brief moment had supposed and hoped—by a stray fragment of shell.

'Ach!' he muttered under his teeth, 'this is bad—very bad!' But Jeanne RouannÈs, now standing just behind him, remained silent. She looked as if the tears had frozen on her face, and of the two she was the more composed, as, in silence, they dragged the dead woman a little further into the kitchen, and tried to arrange her poor, fat body into some semblance of decent death.

At last, having done the little they could, they came out again into the sunshine, and crossed once more the courtyard of the ownerless Tournebride. And still, of the two, it was the man who looked, and perchance felt, the more affected. In his companion all sensation seemed dulled, and as they walked along, perforce traversing many painful scenes—for they had now re-entered the zone of looting and disorder—she seemed really unconscious of what was going on about her.

Not till they had wandered for a long way, hither and thither, did they find the headquarters of the Commandant established in the Mairie. It was there that the Herr Doktor listened, with a rush of impotent anger, to the curt intimation that the French Red Cross nurse, instead of receiving a pass out of Valoise, must proceed at once to the German Field Ambulance which was already at work in the church hard by.

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