groups of tall soldiers who stood at ease, contentedly smoking their big pipes under the chestnut-leaves canopy of her courtyard. They made way for her pleasantly enough—some even smiled the foolish, fond smile of the big man-child, for she reminded more than one of these burly giants of his own mother. But Madame Blanc gave no answering smile, as, gazing straight before her, she hurried on towards the high gilt gates of her domain—a domain which till a hundred years ago, and for more than a hundred years before that, had kennelled royal staghounds, and housed their huntsmen.

The Herr Doktor stopped for a moment to speak to a non-commissioned officer, a good fellow who came from his own town of Weimar. 'Keep an eye on the motor ambulance,' he muttered. 'You might, in fact, go and ask His Highness if he requires anything further just now. Tell him I have gone out to look for quiet quarters. It would be impossible to have the Prince here to-night; the house won't settle down for a long time.'

The other grinned, broadly. 'These are comfortable, greatly-to-be-commended quarters, nevertheless, Herr Doktor.' And the Herr Doktor, nodding, hastened after his guide.

He followed her through the wrought-iron gilt gates, now wreathed with white jessamine and orange-coloured trumpet flowers, and so to the great open space which formed the apex, not only of the hill, but of the little town, of Valoise-sur-Marne.

A moment later they stood before the oval abreuvoir, a stone-rimmed pool at which the timid does sometimes came, even now, to quench their thirst at night.

For a few moments Madame Blanc gazed dumbly over the dear familiar scene, and the German surgeon respected her silence.

Lit by the afterglow of the setting August sun, the little town of Valoise lay spread before them ... a picturesque, gaily charming cluster of white, grey, and red roof-trees, full of the peaceful stateliness of aspect which is a distinguishing mark of so many of the old villages and towns set amid chestnut groves, and on river banks, within easy reach of Paris.

From the days of Henri IV, the Kings of France had possessed a favourite hunting lodge on the edge of the wooded uplands stretching behind the town, and though the Pavillon du Roi had been destroyed during the Revolution, the avenue of high forest trees which had once bounded the royal demesne still remained, faithful witness to a vanished glory, while a fragmentary survival of what had been a grandiose and splendid whole remained in the stone abreuvoir.

And yet, as following his companion's example, the Herr Doktor gazed over what was in truth a singularly pleasing and soothing scene, a sense of chill, even of discomfort, crept over his kindly heart.

Valoise looked, on this fine summer evening, as might look a place stricken with the plague. Some melancholy-looking dogs had been shut out of doors: they, and a few cats who leapt furtively out of their way, seemed the only living things in the town.

Why were the French civilian population so sullen? The great, generous-hearted, all-conquering German army did not war on children and women—not, that is, so long as these women and children behaved in a reasonable, civilised manner.

The Herr Doktor had already heard rumours of certain painful, frightening things which had had to be done, and which were still being done, in Belgium. But the French were a more civilised people than the Belgians—or so the cultured Max Keller had persuaded himself to believe. Further, the Germans had no real quarrel with the French, the foolish, impulsive, chivalrous French, who had allowed themselves to be dragged into a quarrel with which they had no concern, in order to support barbarous Russia and lawless, savage Servia!

Standing by the side of the sensible, clean housewife who had just served him so admirably cooked a meal, the Herr Doktor reflected complacently that very soon some sort of peace would be signed in Paris, after which the French and Germans, friends as they had never been before, would join together to break the might of the now decadent, nerveless, and treacherous English.

He would have liked to have expressed some of this comfortable, so-friendly-to-the-French feeling to the woman who now stood, her hands clenched together, as if absorbed in painful, far-away thoughts, by his side. But he knew that his French was too halting to convey these cultured-and-so-humane and German sentiments. He started slightly when Madame Blanc suddenly turned to him with the words, 'It is getting rather too dark to see the place clearly from here, but if M. le Médecin will go straight down to the river, and across the wall, he will see the Red Cross barge just in front of him.'

Before he had time to utter the words aloud, 'Very truly, Madame, do I thank you,' she had left his side, and was halfway across the Grande Place, on her way towards the Tournebride.

Feeling a little discomfited by her abrupt departure, the Herr Doktor stepped forward, and started walking briskly down the hill.

How pleasant it was to be alone—alone with his own exciting and, yes, glorious thoughts! The absence of solitude had been the thing which had tried Max Keller the most in this amazing-and-ever-victorious campaign. During the last three days he had found the conversation of Prince Egon's brother officers particularly wearing, as also very, very—he hardly knew what phrase to use even in his inmost mind, but at last he found it—very-lacking-in-culture-and-seriousness.

The Paris of which these Junkers talked incessantly was not the Paris to which he, the Herr Doktor, looked forward so eagerly, the Paris, for instance, of the Pasteur Institute, and of the Salpétrière. The Paris of these young officers—and he regretted indeed that it was so—was the Paris which, as every good German knew, so aroused the anger and contempt of God as to cause France to be once more crushed and humiliated to the dust. Of this Paris there existed a very fair imitation in what had been euphemistically called 'the night life of Berlin,' but Berlin, to the Herr Doktor at any rate, did not stand for his Fatherland as Paris stands for France.

So musing, so thankful for even a few moments of peace and solitude, the mildest of the conquerors of Valoise reached the bottom of the hill.

Across the paved Route Nationale was an avenue, or mall, of lime trees which formed a green wall between the road and the river. He crossed the street as he had been directed to do, and then, when actually under the dense arch formed by interlacing branches of green leaves, he uttered an exclamation of relief; for there before him, close to the entrance of the lock, and only to be reached by a narrow stone jetty, lay on the placid, slow-moving waters of the river a broad, white barge, on the side of which was painted a large Red Cross. The small, square, white curtained windows just above the dimpling water line were all open, and, set amidships, was a round porthole, on whose edge stood a pot of brilliant scarlet geraniums.

On the deck of the barge stood a woman. She wore the loose, unbecoming white overall which forms the only uniform of a French Red Cross nurse, and there was a red cross on her breast. From where he stood the German surgeon could see that she was young, straight, and lithe. The gleams of the sun, which was now resting, like a huge scarlet ball, on the horizon, lit up her fair hair, which was massed, in the French way, above her forehead. He saw her in profile, for she seemed to be gazing, through the waning light, down the river beyond the lock.

With a queer thrill at the heart the Herr Doktor told himself that so might Wagner have visioned his Elsa in war-time. Since the Herr Doktor had left Weimar, he had not seen a so awakening-to-the-better-feelings and pleasant-to-the-senses-of-man sight as was this French golden-haired girl.

Taking off his cap—for Max Keller was aware that Frenchwomen are curiously punctilious, and he did not wish