I can say is that they are well within the limits of the town.' To accede to his request had been, of course, out of the question; and to the Herr Doktor's surprise, and indeed to his disgust, it was plain that the German Commandant's refusal to let the old priest have his way had gratified the Mayor—indeed the only smile any of them had seen on the French Republican official's face was while this discussion, this urgent painful discussion, was going on.

After it was over, the two of them had been marched off to the Tournebride, where a large windowless fruit and tool house, standing isolated in the middle of Madame Blanc's kitchen garden, had been assigned to them as prison.

Everything else had gone quite smoothly, and both officers and men had found delightful quarters in the fine old inn which stood at the top of the hill, taking up all one side of the Grande Place. The Tournebride, so the Commandant informed the Herr Doktor, had been noted among gay Parisians, in the days of peace which now seemed so long ago, as a motoring luncheon and supper resort. Thus the conquerors of Valoise had found there the best of good wine, good food, and good beds.

2

At last the Herr Doktor got up from his chair. Unnoticed by the others, he slipped out into the cooler air outside. The courtyard, shaded by high horse chestnut trees, was now crowded with good-humoured German cavalry-men waiting, patiently enough, for the savoury meal which Madame Blanc and her two anxious-faced young daughters were engaged in preparing for them.

As the Herr Doktor walked quickly over to the other side of the quadrangle, the soldiers respectfully made way for him, and he stood, for a few moments unnoticed, on the threshold of the big kitchen of the Tournebride. To eyes already war-worn it was a pleasant sight.

To and fro in her low, arch-roofed, spacious domain, the landlady came and went, busily intent on her considerable task of feeding over a hundred men. There were huge copper cauldrons on the steel top of the fourneau, and Madame Blanc herself constantly stirred and inspected their contents. But when she became suddenly aware of the German doctor's presence at the kitchen door, she stayed her labours and came towards him.

Silently she waited, a stern look of heavy-hearted endurance on her face, for him to speak; and at last, in a French which was somewhat halting, he put the question he had come to ask, and on the answer to which, as he well knew, depended a good deal of the future comfort of his illustrious, tiresome patient, Prince Egon von Witgenstein. Was there a hospital in Valoise?

'There is no hospital in Valoise.' Madame Blanc's voice was very, very cold. But after a moment's pause she added: 'The nuns were chased away four years ago, and the Government have not yet decided what to do with their convent.'

As there came a look of disappointment on his mild face she went on, as if the words were being dragged from her reluctant lips: 'But M. le Médecin will find a Red Cross barge on the river.'

Madame Blanc's powerful, swarthy face was set and grim; she did not look as if she had ever smiled, or if she had, would ever smile again. Yet the man now standing opposite to her remembered that, when he had first arrived with his patient, she had shown a certain maternal interest in the inmate of the Red Cross motor ambulance which now stood in a corner of her large paved courtyard, also that within a few minutes of the peaceful assault of her inn she had herself cooked for the wounded officer a delicate little meal.

The Herr Doktor smiled conciliatingly, but she gave him no answering smile. Her heart was still too full of wrath, of surprise, of agonised, impotent rage, at the happenings of the last two hours.

A troop of the abhorred, dreaded Uhlans had suddenly appeared, clattering along the wide Route Nationale which followed the right bank of the river Marne. Without drawing rein they had ridden up the steep, central street of Valoise, and then they had turned straight into the courtyard of the Tournebride.

Madame Blanc had been amazed at the extent and particularity of the Prussians' knowledge of the town, and of her inn. Not only had they greeted her, with a strange mixture of joviality and sternness, by name, but the golden-haired, pink-cheeked commanding officer had actually alluded to the spécialité of the Tournebride—a certain chicken-liver omelette which Parisians motored out to enjoy on all fine Sundays from each May to each October! And then, perhaps because she had tacitly refused to fall in with his pleasant humour, the young Uhlan officer, after his first roughly jovial words, had suddenly threatened her with mysterious and terrible penalties if she disobeyed, in any one particular, his own and his comrades' confusing orders.

Yes, they had only arrived two hours ago, and yet already Madame Blanc hated these arrogant Uhlan officers with all the strength of her powerful, secretive French nature. Quite willingly, had she thought it would have served the slightest good purpose, would she have put a good dose of poison in the excellent soup they, in the company of the man now talking to her, had just eaten.

She also hated, but in an infinitely lesser degree, their men—those big, bearded, splendidly equipped soldiers clad in the grey-green cloth which her strong common sense had at once told her must be so far more serviceable, because blending with nature's colouring, than the bright blue and red uniforms of her own countrymen. But for the wounded youth, who now lay straight and still in the huge grey motor-car, bearing on its side a painted Red Cross which she could almost touch from where she stood at her low kitchen door, she felt a thrill of motherly pity and concern....

'A Red Cross barge on the river?' repeated the Herr Doktor doubtfully.

For a man who had never been in France before, and who had been taught French by a German who, in his turn, had never been in France save during the brief, glorious-and-ever-victorious-campaign of 1870, the Herr Doktor spoke very fair French. But while he spoke, and even more while he listened to Madame Blanc's quick, short utterances, he blamed himself severely for having wasted so much time on the English language. English was now never likely to be of much use to him, save perhaps during the coming Occupation of London. If only he had spent as much time and trouble over French as he had done over English, not only would it have been useful here and now, but it would have been invaluable a little later on—when he took up his quarters, as he hoped to do within the next two or three weeks, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

'Yes,' said Madame Blanc, with a touch of irritation in her even, vibrating voice, 'as I have just had the honour of explaining to M. le Médecin, there is a Red Cross barge on our river. Mademoiselle Rouannès is there all day, from six in the morning till nine o'clock each night.'

'Is Mademoiselle'—he had not really caught the curious name, 'is she'—he hesitated for the right phrase—'is she a Sister of Compassion?'

'I have just told M. le Médecin that all our good sisters were chased away by the Government four years ago. Mademoiselle Rouannès is our doctor's daughter.'

And then, as the man standing before her uttered a quick guttural exclamation of relief, she added sharply, 'You cannot see Doctor Rouannès, for he is very ill—some say he is dying.' As again she saw a look of disappointment overcast his face, she added—'But his daughter is a very serious demoiselle. The wounded have every confidence in Mademoiselle Rouannès.'

'Thank you, Madame, I will now the barge of the Red Cross go and seek,' he said, and bowed courteously.

'It is just at the bottom of the hill, this side of the lock. But wait a minute—I can show you the exact place from the abreuvoir.'

She stepped across the threshold of her kitchen, and walked, with a good deal of simple dignity, through the