Front matter (continued 4)

In the summer world around, no hint of impending change disturbed the calm serenity of that August afternoon—no sense of waiting, no prophecy of gathering storms. But in men's hearts reigned the breathless stillness which heralds tempests.

Silently as a kestrel's shadow gliding over the grass, an ominous shade sped over sunny France, darkening the light in millions of smiling eyes, subduing speech, stilling all pulses, cautioning a nation's ardent heart and conjuring its ears to listen and its lips to silence.

And, as France sat silent, listening, hand lightly resting on her hilt, came the far cry from beyond the Vosges—the voices of her lost children.

Now she had risen to her feet, loosening the blade in its scabbard. But she had not yet drawn it; she still stood listening to the distant shots from Longwy in the north, to the noise of the western winds blowing across the channel; and always she heard, from the east, the lost voices of her best beloved, calling, calling her from beyond the Vosges.

As they approached Ausone, driving full speed, Warner and Halkett encountered the Saïs omnibus returning, and drew rein.

In it was the Harem, much annoyed because not permitted to sketch in the Ausone streets.

They had seen nothing of any touring car containing several men and a young girl. That did not interest them. What preoccupied their minds was that they had been sketching in the streets of Ausone, and had been politely requested to desist by several unappreciative policemen. So they had collectively shaken the dust of Ausone from their several and indignant feet, and were now en route to Saïs to paint hay stacks.

Requesting to know whether they might still be permitted to paint haystacks at Saïs, Warner offered them no encouragement, pointing out that Saïs was in the zone of future military operations.

In the face of such an outrageous condition of affairs, there is no doubt that Art shrieked as loudly as did Freedom when her popular hero fell. Anyway, her devotees now protested in chorus; but Warner advised them to pack their trunks and go to Paris while the going was good; and the Saïs omnibus rolled away with the Harem still volubly denouncing a government which dared to interfere with Haystack Art on any pretext whatever.

As Warner drove forward Halkett said:

"The chances are that the military will requisition that omnibus before evening. It wouldn't surprise me if they stopped us at the entrance to Ausone and took your horse and cart."

And it happened as he had feared; red-legged soldiers halted them at the town entrance; a polite but resolute young officer refused to argue the matter, but insisted that they descend, accept an official voucher for the temporary loan of their horse and cart, and continue their journey on foot.

As yet, however, punts, rowboats, and skiffs were not subject to requisition by the authorities. Halkett noticed a skiff tied to the shore near a small house on the river bank; so they climbed a stile, crossed the newly mown hayfield, and found an old man fishing from his doorstep in the rear of the house.

For thirty francs they bought the boat outright; the old man shuffled into the house and returned with the home-made oars; Warner took them; Halkett pushed off and sprang in; and they pulled away up the river, breasting a glassy current over which swallows darted and played and dipped, starring the calm surface with a hundred spreading circles.

Rushes swayed inshore where meadows bordered the Récollette, and dragon flies with turquoise bodies sailed glittering into the breeze. Trees swept the surface of the water with tender leaves still untarnished by the ripening world of waning summer; and in shady coves the cattle stood to their knees in the crystal flood, staring with moony eyes at the passing skiff.

Presently Warner sent the skiff inshore, and when it lay floating in the shadow of the trees under the right bank of the stream, he rested on his oars.

"The café garden is just ahead, around that next turn," he said. "If you'll take the oars, I'll get out on the bank and look over the situation."

"Don't you want me?"

"I don't know; I'll see what things look like first. Do you mind?"

"I'll wait if you say so. But there's a rough crowd hanging about that café, as you know."

"I know it," said Warner grimly.

"Are you armed?"

"I certainly am, Halkett. But I don't count on any trouble, because Wildresse can't afford to make any. If there's a row in that cabaret at such a time as this, the police will make short work of it. I think I'll have no difficulty in finding my little friend Philippa and in taking her out of that miserable place."

Halkett said:

"Don't forget yourself and beat up Wildresse for what we saw him do to Philippa. You can attend to that later: the idea now is to take the child back to Saïs."

"I'll try to remember," said Warner with a somber glance at his friend. Then he handed him the oars and, making his way to the stern, leaped lightly to the grassy bank.

CHAPTER XVI

Warner entered a paved lane leading up the slope, between two high, stucco walls. It bore the name, "Impasse d'Alcyon," painted under the rusty bracket of a gas lamp projecting from the wall. A few chickens and a pig moved aside to let him pass.

The Impasse d'Alcyon emerged upon the market square of Ausone to the left of the Cabaret de Biribi; and, as Warner came out into the sunny, deserted square, the first thing he caught sight of was a written notice nailed up over the doorway of the Cabaret de Biribi:

AVIS IMPORTANT

The town of Ausone is proclaimed to be in a state of siege. Place and town will remain under government of the military authorities, aided by the municipality. Both are within jurisdiction of military headquarters in charge of the secteur which includes place, town, and environs of Ausone.

BY ORDER OF THE MAYOR.

The Cabaret de Biribi will remain closed until further notice. For the convenience of the public, the Café Biribi, adjoining, will remain open between the hours of seven A.M. and nine P.M. until further notice.

The café, separated from the cabaret by a clipped privet hedge, formed the southeastern angle of the square.

Under its orange and white awning the tables on the terrace were crowded with people lingering over after-luncheon coffee and cognac—quiet, serious, solid citizens, accustomed to their déjeuner at that time and place, whose habits of long standing had not so far been altered in the sudden and general upheaval in the accustomed order of things.

Waiters came and went as usual; men consulted the files of provincial and Paris papers; one or two were playing dominoes inside the café.

Warner, pausing at the entrance to the terrace, summoned a waiter.

"The cabaret is closed, then?" he asked.

"Since last night, Monsieur."

"By the police?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Why?"

The waiter said respectfully:

"It is usual in time of war to close places of amusement. Besides, music and dancing are in questionable taste at such a time as this."

"Certainly. Where is Monsieur Wildresse?"

"The Patron is absent."

"Where can I find him?"

The waiter shrugged:

"The Patron went away this morning. I do not know where. He has not yet returned."

"Are you quite certain?"

"Perhaps Monsieur had better ask the caissière. Maybe the Patron has returned."

So Warner entered the café. In the cool, subdued light of the interior, he saw the cashier behind her counter—a fresh-faced, plump, dark-eyed country girl, who returned his salute with a smile that showed her white teeth.

"Monsieur Wildresse?" he inquired. "May I see him for a moment?"

"The Patron is absent, Monsieur."

"When do you expect him to return?"

"We do not know. Sometimes he goes to Paris and remains a week or two."

"Do you suppose he has gone to Paris?"

"We do not know. He never tells us where he is going."

Warner thought hard for a moment, then:

"It seems that the cabaret is closed," he said.

"Locked up, Monsieur."

"I wonder if you could tell me where I might find the caissière of the cabaret—Mademoiselle Philippa?"

The girl shook her head:

"I think she went to Paris."

"When?"

"The other day. We understood that she had gone to Paris."

"No," said Warner, "she did not go to Paris. Has she not returned to Ausone?"

The caissière rapped with her pencil and a waiter hastened to the desk.

"Pierre, didn't you say something about Mademoiselle Philippa this morning?"

"I said that I thought I saw her. It was somebody who resembled her, no doubt."

Warner wheeled around:

"When?"

"It was before noon, some time——"

"Where?"

"Monsieur, they were putting up and locking the shutters of the cabaret, and on the top floor somebody inside was lowering the lateen shades and drawing the blue curtains.

"I thought I saw Mademoiselle Philippa—I thought I saw her face for a moment behind one of the windows in the Patron's apartment."

"And what do you think about it now?"

"Ma foi, Monsieur, if Mademoiselle Philippa has gone to Paris, I could not have seen her at the window."

"But you saw somebody there?"

"I thought I did."

"Could we go to the cabaret and inquire?"

"It is locked up. There is nobody now within."

"How do you know?"

"They locked and padlocked it from the outside. They even removed the geraniums and the three cats. The place is empty, Monsieur. I know, because I helped remove the cats and the potted plants. Everybody and everything was transferred last night to the café. And at noon today the police put seals on the doors."

Warner forced a smile:

"That, of course, settles it. I'm sorry. I wanted to see the Patron and Mademoiselle Philippa. Another time will do."

He thanked the waiter, lifted his hat to the caissière, turned, and walked over to a table by the opposite wall, where he ordered coffee and cognac and a newspaper, as though he had just lunched.

When his coffee was brought, he opened the paper and leaned back against the padded leather seat, pretending to read, but studying the room and everybody in it.

It was a café typical of almost any half dead provincial town in France—large, rather dimly lighted, shabbily furnished with marble-topped tables ranged around the walls and two ancient billiard tables occupying the center of the room.

In the corner near the door was the cashier's cage and desk; on the same side of the room, in the further corner, a swinging leather door, much battered, gave exit and entrance to the waiters as they went to or arrived from kitchen and cellar.

And one thing occurred to him immediately: the same kitchen, and perhaps the same cellar, had supplied both cabaret and café. Therefore, there must still be some passage of communication between the cabaret—which had been locked and sealed by the authorities—and the café which the police had decreed must remain open for the convenience of the public.

Deeply perturbed by what the waiter had said concerning the glimpse he had caught of somebody resembling Philippa, and made doubly anxious by Halkett's sinister remark in regard to the girl's knowledge of secrets which might send Wildresse before a platoon of execution, he studied the gloomy room from behind his newspaper, trying to come to some conclusion.

He did not believe that Wildresse and his companions had dared drive into Ausone by daylight with Philippa in the tonneau, either unconscious or resisting them.

If they had brought her to Ausone at all, they must have carried her by boat, landed at the foot of the cabaret garden, and smuggled the child into the house through the rear door giving on the river garden.

If they had brought her to Ausone at all, then, she must be at that moment somewhere within the walls of the double building forming the Café and Cabaret de Biribi. Otherwise, the grey touring car had never entered Ausone.

To make certain on that point he presently paid his reckoning, bowed to the cashier, and went leisurely out into the deserted square.

First of all he sauntered back to the town entrance, where the red-legged soldiers had taken over his cart and horse. Having been obliged to give particulars concerning himself, the soldiers were perfectly friendly. Inquiry they readily answered; such a touring car as he described had been halted and requisitioned by the guard about two hours before his own horse was stopped and appropriated. There were only two people in the car, both men.

"Friends of yours, Monsieur?" inquired the polite lieutenant in charge.

"Business acquaintances——"

Warner hesitated, then asked for the names of the two men and their addresses. The officer on duty very obligingly looked up the information in his leather-covered book. It appeared that the men were Adolf Meier and Josef Hoffman, commis voyageurs, of Paris, and that they had gone for lodging to the Boule d'Argent in Ausone.

Warner thanked the boyish officer; the officer was happy to have been of service to an American and an artist.

But when Warner turned back into the town, he went directly to the railroad station instead of to the hotel. There he presently discovered and consulted the chef de gare and the ticket agent; and he learned definitely that Monsieur Wildresse, who was perfectly well known to both of them by sight, had not taken any train there.

Travelers who board trains at provincial railway stations cannot escape official observation. Therefore, what the station master and ticket agent told him was sufficient for him.

He went slowly back along the river quay, crossed diagonally in front of the deserted cabaret, entered the Impasse d'Alcyon, and traversed it to the river bank, where Halkett sat under the big willow tree, smoking his pipe and letting the rowboat float by the chain which he held in his hands.

"Halkett," he said, "they're in Ausone or near it. I'm convinced of that. Their car came in with only two men in it. The military confiscated it. The men's names are Adolf Meier and Josef Hoffman, and they inscribed themselves as commercial travelers from Paris. Do you happen to know them?"

"Perfectly."

"What are they; spies?"

"They are—clumsy ones."

"By any chance are they any of the gentlemen who have been following you?"

"Exactly. Both have had several shots at me."

"That is interesting. The address they left with the military authorities is the Boule d'Argent.

"What I have found out is this: the Cabaret de Biribi has been closed and sealed up by the police; the café remains open. A waiter in the café thought he saw Philippa at the window of her apartment over the cabaret just before noon today.

"But Wildresse, they all say, went away this morning and has not returned. And they have no idea when to expect him.

"Now, my theory is this: Wildresse and his ruffians, realizing that their own necks are in danger, went to Saïs to see Philippa, either to bully her into silence or persuade her to return to duty. When they saw her by the roadside they changed their plans and took a chance. I don't believe they saw us. We were on our knees in the grass under the shadow of the hedge. After they caught her they never looked around. I don't believe any of them noticed us at all. Before the car reached Ausone they must have stopped in some deserted place, found a boat somewhere, sent the car on ahead to Ausone with only two men in it, and then Wildresse and the other two men must have dragged or carried Philippa across the fields to the river and forced her into the boat. That was the only way they could have ventured to enter Ausone. They must have gone by boat to the garden behind the cabaret, where nobody could see what was going on, and there they probably let themselves into the house by the rear entrance.

"That's my theory, Halkett. I believe Philippa is there. I believe Wildresse is there. And I feel very sure that those two choice scoundrels of his at the Boule d'Argent will join him wherever he is. So I think we had better tie up our boat and go to the Boule d'Argent and find these fellows, Meier and Hoffman, and never let them out of our sight."

"I think so, too," said Halkett quietly.

He knelt down on the grass, passed the boat chain around the base of the willow tree, linked and padlocked it, sprang to his feet, and walked quickly after Warner, who had already started to enter the Impasse d'Alcyon.

"You're a little flustered, old chap," he said, as he rejoined Warner in the narrow alley. "Don't walk so fast; we ought not to attract attention."

"I'm horribly nervous," admitted the other, slackening his pace.

"We'll have to keep pretty cool about this affair. It won't do to scare those scoundrels."

"Why?"

"Because if they really have her locked up in that cabaret. I'm afraid to guess what they might do to her if they thought their own skins were in danger."

"I know it," said Warner hoarsely. "I'm worried sick, I tell you! Wildresse has the worst face I ever looked at. There is only one word to characterize that countenance of his—bestial!"

"He's a bad lot and he looks it. The military authorities would make short work of him if Philippa should ever hint at what she has found out about his rather complicated business affairs. That's what I am afraid of—that he may take some terrible precaution in order to anticipate any danger from her——"

"What?"

"He is capable of doing anything to prevent her from speaking. Keeping her locked up is the precaution that I dread least. What I'm afraid of is that he may kill her."

Warner turned a bloodless visage to his comrade:

"That's what I'm afraid of, too," he said steadily enough. "I think we had better notify the police at once——"

"It won't do, old chap!"

"Why? On your account?"

"No, no! My papers are safe enough now. But I tell you, Warner, French temper is on a hair trigger, in spite of all this gravity and silence. The very word 'spy' would be the match to the magazine."

"But what of it?"

"Suppose Wildresse denies his treachery and makes a counter-accusation against Philippa?"

"What? How can he?"

"Suppose he declares that she betrayed him? Suppose already he has arranged documents to prove it? Suppose he had long ago taken such a precaution against any chance of her denouncing him? He is an old rat, grown grey in the business. He must have been perfectly aware that Philippa is honest—that it even went against her to do the dirty work that her own Government required of her. He must have known that if she ever discovered his double treachery, she would at least desert him, perhaps denounce him. No, no, Warner; that crafty old sewer rat left nothing to chance.

"If that girl now has an opportunity and the desire to denounce him, you can be absolutely certain that long ago he has foreseen and prepared himself for just such an event!"

"Do you believe that?"

Halkett smiled:

"I am certain of it."

"Why?"

"What does a young girl know about treachery? How many papers has Philippa ignorantly and innocently signed which might exculpate Wildresse and send her before a peloton of execution in the first caserne available? That's the way such rats as he protect themselves!

"No, Warner. It's a filthy business at best, and I admit, sadly enough, that I know more about it than you ever could know.

"Listen, old chap! It's no good stirring up the police until Philippa is outside French territory. Then, and then only, may we dare to let loose the police on this nest of rats in Ausone!"

"Very well," said Warner quietly. "I'll act as you think best, only I'll——" He stopped to regain control of himself. And when he had himself in hand again: "Only—it will be a—a bad mistake if Wildresse—if—if any harm comes to that child."

"Oh, in that event," said Halkett quietly, "we need not scruple to kill him where we find him."

Warner said unsteadily:

"I shall not hesitate a second——" But Halkett suddenly checked him with a touch on his elbow, and drew him back behind the wall of the Impasse d'Alcyon, from which alley they were on the point of emerging into the town.

Two men were crossing the almost empty market square toward the Café Biribi, moving without haste over the sunny pavement.

"Hoffman and Meier," whispered Halkett. "There go our promising young rodents straight toward the old rat's nest! It won't do for them to catch sight of me.... Wait a moment! There they go—into the Café Biribi! Follow them—they don't know you. Keep your eye on them.

"I'll stroll over to the quay and dangle my legs on the river wall. If you need me, come out on the café terrace and beckon."

"Would it do to hand over that pair to the police? They are German spies, are they not?"

"They are. But at present they are likely to be useful. If Wildresse is in the café or the cabaret, they are sure to reveal the fact to us. Better go in and keep your eye on them. If you want me, I shall be smoking my pipe on the river wall across the street."

He nodded and strolled over toward the little tree-shaded quay, filling his pipe as he sauntered along. Warner continued on to the café, entered, seated himself against the shabby wall, picked up an illustrated journal, ordered bitters, and composed himself to enjoy the preprandial hour sacred to all Frenchmen.

Without looking he was aware that the two men, Meier and Hoffman, seated at a table near the cashier's desk, had noted his arrival and were steadily inspecting him.

But he did not look in their direction; he turned the pages of the illustrated paper, leisurely, until the waiter brought his Amer Picon and a chilled carafe. Then he measured out his water with the unstudied deliberation of an habitué, stirred the brown liquid, sipped it, and, turning to another page of his paper, let his eyes rest absently on the two men opposite.

By that time neither of them was even looking at him. They were drinking beer; their heads were close together and they had turned so that they were facing each other on the padded leather wall settee.

It was impossible to hear what they were saying; they spoke rapidly and in tones so low that only the vibration of their voices was audible in the still room.

Guarded but vigorous gesticulations marked the progress of their conference; now and then both became mute while the waiter replenished their glasses with beer and added another little saucer to the growing pile on the marble table.

For an hour Warner dawdled over the café papers and his glass of bitters. The men opposite still faced each other on the leather settee, still conversed with repressed animation, still guzzled beer. Once or twice they had looked up and across the room at him and had taken a swift, comprehensive survey of the few other people in the café, but the movement had been wholly instinctive and mechanical. Evidently they felt entirely secure.

The plump, dark-eyed caissière had caught Warner's eye once or twice. Evidently she remembered him, and her quick smile became almost an invitation to conversation.

It was what he wanted and he hesitated only because he was not sure how the men opposite might regard his approach toward their vicinity.

But he did it very well; and both men, looking up sharply, seemed presently to realize that it was merely a flirtation, and that the young man lounging before the cashier's counter, smiling, and being smiled upon, could safely be ignored.

"To be the prettiest girl in Ausone," Warner was saying, "must be a very great comfort to that girl. Don't you think so, Mademoiselle?"

"To be the most virtuous, Monsieur, would be far more comforting."

"Have you then both prizes, Mademoiselle? I was sure of it!"

"Prizes, Monsieur?"

"The golden apple and the prix de la sagesse?"

She laughed and blushed, detaching from her corsage a rosebud.

"Accept, Monsieur, the prize for eloquence and for impudence!" And she extended the rosebud to Warner.

He took it, lifted it to his lips, looking smilingly at her, and listening with all the concentration he could summon to the murmuring conversation at the neighboring table.

Only a word or two he could catch—perhaps merely a guess at—"Patron," and "nine o'clock," and "cellar"—at least he imagined he could distinguish these words. And all the time he was up to his ears in a breezy flirtation with a girl very willing, very adept, and perfectly capable of appreciating her own desirability as well as the good points of any casual suitor whom Heaven might strand upon her little, isolated island for an hour or two.

Being French, she was clever and amusing and sufficiently grateful to the gods for this bit of masculine flotsam which had drifted her way.

"There are boats," she said, "and the evening will be beautiful." Having made this clear to him, she smiled and let matters shape their course.

"What pleasure is a boat and a beautiful night to me," he said, "if nobody shares both with me?"

"Alas, Monsieur, have you no pretty little friend who could explain to you the planets on a summer night?"

"Alas, Mademoiselle!"

"What a pity.... Because I have studied astronomy a little. And I recommend it to you as a diversion. They are so high, so unattainable, the stars! It is well for a young man to learn what is attainable, and then to address himself to its pursuit. What do you think, Monsieur?"

"That I should very much like to study astronomy if in all the world there could be discovered anybody amiable enough to teach me."

"How pathetic! If I only had time——"

"Have you no time at all?"

"It wouldn't do, mon ami."

"Why?"

"Because I should be seen going to a rendezvous with you."

"Isn't there any way into the cabaret garden except through the cabaret?" he asked.

She shook her head, laughing at him out of her brown eyes.

He waited a moment to control his voice, but there was a tremor in it when he said:

"Is there no way through the cellar?"

She noticed the tremor and liked it. In the lightest and airiest of flirtations the ardent and unsteady note in a man's voice appeals to any woman to continue and finish his subjugation.

"As for the cellar," she said, "it is true that one can get into the cabaret garden that way. But, Monsieur, do you imagine that a dark, damp, ghostly and pitch-black cellar appeals to any woman?"

"Is the cellar so frightful a place, Mademoiselle?"

"Figure it to yourself!—Some twenty stone steps from the pantry yonder"—She nodded her head toward the battered swinging door of leather.—"And then more steps, down, down, down!—Into darkness and dampness where there are only wine casks and kegs and bottles and mushrooms and rats and ghosts——"

"What of it—if, as you say, the stars are shining on the river——"

"Merci! A girl must certainly be in love to venture through that cellar! And a man, too!"

"Try me. I'll go!"

The girl laughed:

"You! Are you, then, in love already?"

"I should like to prove it. Where is that terrible cellar?"

"Behind the door, there." She waved her hand airily. "Try it. Show me how much you are in love! Perhaps then I'll believe you."

"Will the waiters interfere if I go into the cellar?"

"See how you try to avoid the test!"

"Try me!"

"Very well. The washroom is there. If you choose to wash your hands, you are at liberty to do so. And then if you can't slip down into the cellar while the waiters are looking the other way, all I can say is that you are not in love!"

He looked at her smilingly, scarcely trusting himself to speak for a moment, for the face of Philippa rose unbidden before his eyes and a shaft of fear pierced him.

"You are wrong," he said steadily enough. "I am in love.... Very honestly, very innocently.... It just occurred to me. I didn't know how deeply I felt.... I really am in love—as one loves what is fearless, faithful, and devoted."

"A dog is all that, Monsieur."

"Occasionally a human being is, also. Sometimes even a woman."

Her smile became a little troubled.

"Monsieur, are you, then, in love with some woman who possesses these commendable virtues?"

"No. I am in love with her virtues, Mademoiselle."

"Oh! Then she might even be your sister!"

"Exactly. That is the quality of my affection for her."

The pretty caissière laughed:

"You were beginning to make me sad," she said. "I—I am really willing to teach you astronomy, if you truly desire a knowledge of the stars."

"I do, ardently."

"But I am sincerely afraid of the cellar," she murmured. "It is ten o'clock before I am released from duty, and the knowledge that it is ten o'clock at night makes that cellar doubly dark and terrible. I—I don't want to give you a rendezvous down there; and I certainly don't propose to traverse the cellar alone. Monsieur, what on earth am I to do?"

"To study the stars on the river, and to reach a rendezvous without being noticed, makes it necessary for you to slip out through the cellar, does it not?"

"Alas!"

"Haven't you the courage?"

"I don't—know."

"Yes, you have."

"Have I?" She laughed.

"Certainly. I'll go to the washroom now, and get into the cellar somehow, and make myself acquainted with it.... I suppose I ought to have a candle——"

She said:

"When I walk home alone at night I have a little electric torch with me. Shall I lend it to you?"

She opened the desk drawer, drew it out concealed under her handkerchief, and he managed to transfer it to his pocket. It clinked against the loaded automatic pistol; nobody noticed the sound.

But for a moment he thought the two men, Meier and Hoffman, had noticed it, because they both got up and came over directly toward him.

However, they merely wished to pay their reckoning with a hundred-franc note, and Warner moved aside while they crowded before the pretty cashier's desk, offering hasty pleasantries and ponderous gallantries, while she dimpled at them and made change.

Then, after tipping the waiter, they went out into the late afternoon sunshine.

Warner, looking after them, could see that they were crossing the square toward the Boule d'Argent; and he knew that Halkett must have seen them and that he would manage to keep them in view.

Now was his time to investigate the cellar, and he said so to the brown-eyed girl behind the cage, who had been inspecting him rather pensively.

"I ought not to do this," said the pretty caissière.

"Of course not. Otherwise we should not find each other agreeable."

She smiled, looking at him a little more seriously and more attentively.

"It is odd, is it not," she said under her breath, "how two people from the opposite ends of the earth chance to meet and—and find each other—agreeable?"

"It is delightful," he admitted smilingly.

"I don't even know your name," she remarked, playing with her pencil.

"James."

"Tchames?"—with a pretty attempt to imitate his English.

"Jim is easier."

"Djeem?"

"Perfect!"

"Djeem," she repeated, looking musingly at the tall, well-built American. "C'est drôle, ce nom là! Djeem? It is pleasant, too.... My name is Jeanne." She shrugged her youthful shoulders. "Nothing extraordinary, you see.... Still, I shall try to please you, Monsieur Djeem."

"I dare not hope to please you——"

She laughed:

"You do please me. Do you suppose, otherwise, I should dare enter that frightful cellar?"

Under cover of her desk, she deftly detached a key from the bunch at her belt, covered it with her hand, palm down, and let it rest on the counter before him.

"Do you promise to keep away from the wine bins?" she asked lightly.

"I promise solemnly," he said, and took the key.

"Very well. Then you may go and look at this dreadful cellar at once. And when you behold it, ask yourself how great a goose a girl must be who ventures into it at ten o'clock at night merely because a young man desires to take a lesson in astronomy on the river Récollette."

CHAPTER XVII

He had little difficulty in gaining the cellar from the washroom. Both doors opened out of the pantry passage; he had only to watch the moving figures silhouetted through the pantry doorway, and when they were out of sight for the moment, he stepped out, unlocked the cellar door, closed it gently behind him, flashed his electric torch, and started down the broad stone steps.

It was one of the big, old-time cellars not unusual in provincial towns, but built, probably, a century before the café and cabaret had been erected on its solid stone foundations.

Two rows of squatty stone pillars supported the low arches of the roof; casks, kegs, bins, empty bottles, broken bottles, and row after row of unsealed wine bottles lined the alleyways leading in every direction through the darkness.

On either side of the main central corridor stood wine casks of every shape and size, some very ancient, to judge from the carving and quality of the wood, some more or less modern, some of today. Almost all were hoisted on skids with bung and bung starter in place and old-time jugs and measures of pewter or glass at hand; a few lay empty amid the cellar debris, where the salts born of darkness and dampness dimly glimmered on wall and pavement, and a rustling in unseen straw betrayed the lurking place of rats.

Warner, playing his flashlight, walked swiftly forward, traversing the three principal alleys in succession. The third round included the little dark runways twisting in and out among the bins, turning sudden angles into obscurity, or curving back in a blind circle to the point of entrance.

And as he stood resting for a moment, trying to get his bearings and shifting his electric torch over the labyrinth within which he had become involved, a slight but distinct sound broke the silence around him.

It came from the cellar steps: somebody had opened the door above.

Instantly he extinguished his torch; the blackness walled him in, closing on him so swiftly that he seemed to feel a palpable pressure upon his body.

Listening, every nerve on edge, he heard footsteps falling cautiously upon the stone stairway; a white radiance spread and grew brighter at the far end of the vaulted place; and in a moment more the blinding star of an electric torch dazzled his eyes, where he stood looking out between the cracks of the piled-up boxes which made of the alley in which he had halted a rampart and an impasse.

Two men were advancing, shining the way before them, turning their heads from side to side with curiosity, but without apparently any suspicion.

They seemed to know the place and to be entirely familiar with every alley, for, just before they passed the runway where he crouched behind the boxes, they turned aside, played their light over the dusty banks of bottles, chose one, coolly knocked off its neck, and leisurely drained it between them.

Then, exchanging a few comments in voices too low to be understood, they resumed their course, passed the entrance to the alley where Warner lay hidden, and continued on a few paces.

He could see them as black shapes against the flare of light; saw them halt a few paces from where he stood, saw them reach up and take hold of a huge tun which blocked their progress.

Their torch was shining full upon it; he could follow minutely everything they were doing.

One of the men stretched his arms out horizontally and grasped the edges of the immense cask. Then he threw his full weight to the right; the cask swung easily outward, leaving a passageway wide enough for a man. And there, full in the blaze of brilliant light, was a door, scarcely ten feet away from where he was standing.

The man who had turned the cask went to the door, slid aside a panel, reached in and unbolted it, and had already opened the door when a big bulk loomed up in front of him; a gross, vibrant voice set the hollow echoes growling under the arches of stone and mortar; Wildresse barred their way.

He stood there, the torchlight falling full on his round, partly bald and smoothly shaven head; his wicked little ratty eyes were two points of black, his wicked mouth was twisted with profanity.

"Sacré tas de bougres!" he roared. "I told you to come at nine o'clock, didn't I? What are you doing here, then? You, Asticot, you are supposed to have more sense than Squelette, there! Why do you interrupt me before the hour I set?"

The man addressed as Asticot—a heavy, bench-legged young man with two favoris pasted over his large wide ears—shuffled his shoes most uncomfortably.

Squelette, tall, frightfully thin, with his long, furrowed neck of an unclean bird swathed in a red handkerchief, stood sullen and motionless while the glare of his torch streamed over Wildresse.

"Nom de Dieu!" shouted the latter. "Aim at my belly and keep that light out of my face, you stupid ass!"

Squelette sulkily shifted his torch; Asticot said in the nasal, whining voice of the outer boulevards:

"Voyons, mon vieux, you have been at it for six hours, and the Skeleton here and I thought you might require our services——"

"Is that so!" snarled Wildresse. "Also, they may require your services in La Roquette!"

"They do," remarked Squelette naïvely.

"You don't have to tell me that!" retorted Wildresse. "You'll sneeze for them, too, some day!" He turned savagely on Asticot: "I don't want you now! I'm busy! Do you understand?"

"I understand," replied the Maggot. "All the same, if I may be so bold—what's the use of chattering if there's a job to finish? If there's work to do, do it, and talk afterward. That's my idea."

Wildresse glared at him:

"Really! Very commendable. Such notions of industry ought to be encouraged in the young. But the trouble with you, Asticot, is that you haven't anything inside that sucked-out orange you think is a head.

"Whatever mental work is to be done, I shall do. Do you comprehend me, imbecile? And I don't trouble to consult your convenience, either. Is that clear? Now, take your friend, the Skeleton, and take your torch and yourself out of this cellar. Get out, or I'll bash your face in!—You dirty little bandy-legged, blood-lapping cockroach——"

His big, pock-pitted, hairless face became frightful in its concentrated ferocity; both men made simultaneous and involuntary movements to the rear.

"You'll come at nine o'clock, do you hear!" he roared. "And you'll bring a sack with you and enough weight to keep it sunk! You, Maggot; you, Skeleton, do you understand? Very well, clear out!"

The young ruffians made no response; Asticot turned and made his way through the narrow passage; the Skeleton shuffled on his heels, shining his torch ahead.

Halfway down the central corridor they helped themselves to two more bottles of Bordeaux, pocketing them in silence, and continued on their course.

Listening, Warner could hear them ascending the stone stairs, could hear the door click above as they left the cellar. But his eyes remained fixed on Wildresse, who still stood in the door, darkly outlined against the dull gaslight burning somewhere in the room behind him.

Once or twice he looked at the great cask which the two voyous had not troubled to close into its place behind them. And Wildresse did not bother to go out and swing the cask back into place, but, as soon as he caught the sound of the closing cellar door, stepped back and shut his own door.

He must either have forgotten, or carelessly neglected, to close the open panel in it, for the lighted square remained visible, illuminating the narrow passage after Warner heard him bolt the door on the inside.

His retreating footsteps, also, were audible for some distance before the sound of them died away; and Warner knew then that the door belonged to the cabaret, and that behind its bolted shutters and its police seals Wildresse had been lurking since his return from Saïs.

There was no need to use his torch as he crept out of his ambush and entered the narrow lane behind the big cask.

With infinite precautions, he thrust his arm through the open panel, felt around until he found the two bolts, slid them noiselessly back.

The door swung open, inward. He went in softly.

The place appeared to be a lumber room littered with odds and ends. Beyond was a passage in which a gas jet burned; at the end of it a stairway leading up.

The floor creaked in spite of him, but the stairs were carpeted. They led up to a large butler's pantry; and, through the sliding door, he peered out into the dim interior of the empty cabaret.

Through cracks in the closed shutters rays from the setting sun pierced the gloom, making objects vaguely distinct—tables and chairs piled one upon the other around the dancing floor, the gaudy decorations pendent from the ceiling, the shrouded music stands, the cashier's desk where he had first set eyes on the girl Philippa——

With the memory his heart almost ceased, then leaped with the resurgence of his fear for her; he looked around him until he discovered a leather swinging door, and when he opened it a wide hallway lay before him and a stairway rose beyond.

Over the thick carpet he hastened, then up the stairs, cautiously, listening at every step.

Somewhere above, coming apparently from behind a closed door, he heard the heavy vibration of a voice, and knew whose it was.

Guided by it along the upper passageway, he passed the open doors of several bedrooms, card rooms, private dining-rooms, all empty and the furniture covered with sheets, until he came to a closed door.

Behind it, the heavy voice of Wildresse sounded menacingly; he waited until it rose to a roar, then tried the door under cover of the noise within. It was locked, and he stood close to it, listening, striving to think out the best way.

Behind the locked door Wildresse was shouting now, and Warner heard every word:

"By God!" he roared in English. "You had better not try to lie to me! Do you want your neck twisted?"

There was no reply.

"I ask you again, what did you do with that paper I gave you by mistake?" he repeated.

Suddenly Warner's heart stood still, as Philippa's voice came to him, low but distinct:

"I burned it!"

"You burned it? You lie!"

"I never lie," came the subdued voice. "I burned it."

"You slut! How dared you touch it at all?"

"You handed it to me," she said wearily.

"And you knew it was a mistake, you treacherous cat! My God! Have I nourished you for this, you little snake, that you turn your poisonous teeth on me?"

"Perhaps.... But not on my country."

"Your country! You miserable foundling, did you suppose yourself French?"

"France is the only country I have known. I refuse to betray her."

"France!" he shouted. "France! A hell of a country to snivel about! You can't tell me anything about France—the dirty kennel full of mongrels that it is! France? To hell with France!

"What has she done for me? What has she done to me? Chased me out of Paris; forced my only son into her filthy army; hunted us both without mercy—finally hunted my son into the Battalions of Biribi—me into this damned pigpen of Ausone! That's what France has done to me and mine!—Blackmailed me into playing the mouchard for her—forcing me to play spy for her by threatening to hunt me into La Nouvelle!

"By God! I break even, though! I sell her every chance I get; and what I sell to her she has to pay for, too—believe me, she pays for it a hundred times over!"

There came a silence, then Wildresse's voice again, rumbling, threatening:

"Who was that type you went to visit in Saïs at the Golden Peach?"

No answer.

"Do you hear, you little fool?"

"I hear you," she said in a tired voice.

"You won't tell?"

"No."

"Why? Is he your lover?"

"No."

"Oh, you merely got your wages, eh?"

No answer.

"In other words, you're launched, eh? You aspire to turn cocotte, eh?"

"I am employed by him quite honestly——"

"Very touching. Such a nice young man, isn't he? And how much did you tell him about me, eh?"

No reply.

"Did you inform him that I was a very bad character?" he sneered. "Did you tell him what a hard time you had? Did you explain to him that a pious Christian really could not live any longer with such a man as I am? Did you? And that is the way you feel, isn't it?—That you are too good for the business in which I have taken the trouble to educate you?"

"To be compelled to seek information for my Government has made me very unhappy," she said. "But to betray that Government—that is not in me to do. I had rather die.... I think, anyway, that I had rather not—live—any longer."

"Is that so? Is that all the spirit you have? What are you, anyway—a worm? Have you no anger in you against the country which has kicked you and me out of Paris into this filthy kennel called Ausone? Have you no resentment toward the Government that has attempted to beggar us both—the Government which bullies us, threatens us, blackmails us, forbids us entry into the capital, keeps us tied up here like dogs to watch and bark at strangers and whine away our lives on starvation wages, when we could make our fortunes in Paris?"

"I don't know what you did."

"What of it? Suppose I broke a few of their damned laws! Is that a reason to kick me from place to place and finally tie me up here?"

"I—don't know."

"Oh, 'don't know'!" he mimicked her. "You ungrateful slut, if you had any gratitude in your treacherous little body, you'd stick to me now! You'd rejoice at my vengeance! You'd laugh to know that I am paying back in her own coin the country which insulted me! That's what you'd do, instead of sniveling around about 'treachery' and 'betraying France.'

"And, by God!—now that war has come, you'll see your beloved France torn into pieces by the Bosches! That's what you'll see—France ripped into tatters!

"Yes, and that sight will repay me for all that has been done to me—that revenge I shall have—soon!—just as soon as they sweep up that stable litter of Belgians over there!

"Then we'll see! Then perhaps I'll get my recognition from the Bosches!

"What do I care for France or for them, either? I'm of no nation; I'm nothing; I'm for myself! The Bosches were the kinder to me, and they get what I don't need, voilà tout!"

There came a long pause, and then Wildresse's heavy tones once more:

"I'll give you your chance. Yes, in spite of your treachery and your ingratitude, I'll give you your chance!

"You have a brain—such as it is. It's a woman's brain, of course, but it can figure out on which side the bread is buttered.

"Listen: I ought to twist your neck. You've tried to put mine into the lunette. You could have sent me up against a dead wall if you had given that paper you burned to the flics. No, you didn't. You enjoyed a crisis of nerves and you burned it. I know you burned it, because I admit that you tell the truth.

"Bon! Now, therefore, I do not instantly twist your neck. No! On the contrary, I reason with you. I do not turn you over to the sergots. I could! Why? Voyons, let us be reasonable! I was not hatched yesterday. No! Do you suppose I have trusted you all these years without having taken any little precautions? Tiens, you are beginning to look at me, eh?

"Well, then, listen: if in future you have any curiosity concerning lunettes and dead walls, let me inform you that you are qualified to embellish either.

"Tiens! You seem startled. It never occurred to you to ask why I have had certain papers written out by you, or why I have had you affix your pretty signature to so many little documents which you could not read because the ink was invisible.

"No. You have never thought about such matters, have you? But, all the same, I have all I require to make you sneeze into the basket, or to play blindman's buff between a dead wall and a squad of execution.

"And now!—Now that you know enough to hold your tongue, will you hold it in future and be honest and loyal to the hand that picked you out of the gutter and that has fed you ever since?"

There was a silence.

"Will you?" he repeated.

"No!"

A bull-like roar burst from Wildresse:

"I'll twist your neck for you, and I'll do it now!" he bellowed. "I'll snap that white neck of yours——"

CHAPTER XVIII

The next instant Warner struck the door such a blow with his doubled fist that the jarring sound silenced the roar of rage that had burst from Wildresse at Philippa's answer, and checked the heavy scuffle of his great feet, too.

Already Warner had drawn back, pistol lifted, gathered together to throw his full weight against the door and hold it the moment it was opened from inside.

The sudden stillness which followed his blow lasted but a few seconds; heavy steps approached the door, halted; approached irresolutely, stopped short. Then ensued another period of quiet; and Warner, listening, could hear the breathing of Wildresse on the other side of the door.

Minute after minute passed; Wildresse, still as a tiger, never stirred, and even his suppressed breathing became inaudible after a while.

Warner, pistol in hand, ready to throw himself against the door the instant it moved on the crack, bent over and placed his ear close against the paneling. After a while he detected the sound of footsteps cautiously retreating, and realized that Wildresse did not intend to open the door.

He knocked again loudly: the steps continued to recede; somewhere another door was unbolted and opened; and the stealthy, retreating footsteps continued on beyond earshot.

Again he knocked heavily with the butt of his pistol; waited, listened, then drew back and fairly hurled himself against the door. It scarcely even creaked; he might as well have attempted to push over the retaining wall of the corridor itself.

"Philippa!" he called. "Philippa!"

A low cry answered him; he heard her stir suddenly.

But as he grasped the door knob and shook it in his excitement and impatience, over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of a gross, hairless face slyly peering around the further corner of the corridor. It disappeared immediately.

"Open the door, Philippa!" he cried. "Open quick!"

"Warner, mon ami, I can't! He took the key——" she called through to him. "Oh, Warner! What am I to do?"

"All right! Wait there!" He turned and ran for the further end of the corridor, sprang around the corner without hesitating, sped forward, now fiercely intent on the destruction of Wildresse. But the Patron had fled. He ran forward, turned another corner in the dim light of locked shutters, but found no trace of the bulky quarry he hunted, heard nothing, halted, breathing fast and hard, trying to establish his bearings.

A stair well plunged downward into shadowy depths just ahead; he stole forward and looked over; carpeted steps vanished into the darkness below.

Doors, all locked, faced him everywhere; he ran along them, trying each as he passed; came to an angle of solid wall, stepped around it, pistol extended; and it was a miracle he was not startled into pulling trigger when a door was torn open in his very face, and a figure, dark against the fiery sunset framed by a window, sprang forward.

"Warner, mon ami! Me voici!" she cried joyously, flinging both arms around his neck; but he stood white and trembling with the nearness of her destruction at his hands, holding the shaking pistol wide from her body and unable to utter a word.

And as he stood there, one arm around her thin body, somewhere below and behind him a door burst open and there came a muffled rush of feet up the stairway from the darkness below.

He pushed her violently away from him, but before he could turn and spring to the stairhead, three men leaped into the passage, their weapons spitting red flashes through the dusky corridor; and he jumped backward dragging Philippa with him into the room behind them, slammed the door, and bolted, chained, and locked it.

Outside, Asticot, Squelette, and Hoffman stood close to the door and poured bullets through it at close range. The stream of lead tore the papered plaster wall, opposite to tatters; but the door was as massive as the one he had tried to force with his shoulder; two great bars of metal bolted it, a heavy chain further secured it, and the key remained in the lock.

But steel-jacketed bullets still pierced the wood, stripping splinters from the inside and mangling the opposite wall until the gay wall paper hung in strips, and the whole room swam in a haze of drifting white dust.

Edging along, his body flattened against the north wall of the empty room, and drawing Philippa after him, he cautiously approached the door which he had tried to force; and heard Wildresse whispering to somebody outside. No wonder he had not been able to force it; the bolts and chains that held it were exactly like those which secured the other door.

He placed his lips close to Philippa's ear:

"Where are we?" he breathed; and bent his head to the child's bruised mouth, which was still swollen and cut from the blow dealt her by Wildresse that morning in the car.

"We are in the Patron's private office, where he used to lock himself in," she whispered. "They've taken out the desk and chairs. His bedroom is next; mine is the next beyond that."

He looked anxiously toward the window and saw tree tops and glimpses of rolling country sparkling in the lilac-tinted haze of approaching twilight.

"Where does that window face?" he whispered, softly.

"On the garden and river."

"How far a drop is it?"

"Too far, mon ami. The stone terrace is below."

"Is it thirty feet?"

"I don't know. The roof and chimneys are above us. We are in the top story of the house."

"There are only two stories above the cellar, as I remember."

"Two, yes."

Still holding himself and her flat against the wall, he turned his head cautiously from side to side, searching the empty room. There was absolutely nothing there except bare floor and walls, and, in the fireplace, a huge iron grate weighted with cannel coal.

Outside, from the two corridors the firing had ceased; but he could distinguish the low vibration of heavy voices, carefully subdued, catch the sound of stealthy movements on the carpeted floor close to both doors. Lifting his pistol he fired through one door, wheeled, and fired through the other. When the deafening racket in the room had ceased, he bent toward her and whispered:

"Philippa, will you obey me?"

"Yes, mon ami."

"Flatten yourself closer against the wall and don't stir."

The girl spread out both arms, palms against the wall, and shrank closer against it with her slim body.

Warner dropped cautiously to the floor, crept across it, dragging himself by his hands, grasped the sill of the window, drew his head up with infinite precaution, and looked out and finally down.

Below lay the flagstones and potted flowers of the garden terrace, not more than twenty-five feet, he thought. Beyond these, the grass sloped down to the Récollette, where rowboats still floated under the trees.

Reconnoitering, he could not discover a soul in sight, and, satisfied, he crept back to where Philippa stood.

As he looked up at her, a faint smile touched the girl's bruised lips, and her steady grey eyes seemed to say: "Me voici, mon ami, toujours à vos ordres!"

"We must try to leave by the window," he whispered. "Both doors are guarded. And this man means murder—for you, anyway——"

"Yes.... It does not matter much now.... Since I have seen you again."

"You dear child—you dear, brave little thing!"

"Oh, mon ami—if you truly are content with me——"

"Little comrade, you have been very wonderful and very true! Halkett has recovered his papers.... Can you imagine how I felt when that murderous brute struck you!"

"It was nothing—I don't care, now——" She looked at his face, extended one finger along the wall, and touched his arm, trying to smile with her disfigured lips.

He looked at her very intently for a moment, unsmiling. Then:

"Little comrade! Listen attentively."

"Yes, Warner."

"It's too far for us to drop. It is twenty feet, anyway, and probably more. You would break your legs on the stones.... How many of your clothes can you spare to make a rope?"

"My—clothing?"

"Yes. You see there is not a thing in this room, not even a shred of carpet. I can spare my coat, waistcoat, shirt, tie, two handkerchiefs, collar, belt—and both shoe laces. I have a heavy, sharp pocketknife with a four-inch blade, which will cut cloth into strips. Help me all you can, Philippa. We shall need every inch of cloth and linen we can spare.... And I think we had better hurry about it, because I don't know what they are planning to do outside those two doors."

She hesitated an instant, then:

"If you wish it.... Will you please turn your head?"

"Of course, you dear child! What can you spare?"

"I can spare my chemisette and underskirt and petticoat, and my velvet hairband and my shoe laces.... And a handkerchief and my stockings.... It leaves me my red velvet bodice, which I can lace tightly, my red velvet skirt, and my shoes.... Will it be enough to give you?"

"I hope so; we must try." He turned, stripped to his undershirt and trousers, opened the long-bladed knife, and began to cut out strips from the materials.

Presently she was ready to contribute to the projected rope, and together they ventured to seat themselves noiselessly at the base of the wall and begin serious work on the business before them.

The sound of linen or of cotton being ripped would certainly have set on the alert the men outside and directed a murderously inclined gentleman or two to the garden.

So they parted the stuffs with every precaution to avoid any noise, using the knife constantly, and easing the various fabrics apart little by little.

Warner was confident that Wildresse, knowing the utter nakedness of the room in which they were locked, and knowing that death or broken bones must result from a drop into the terrace flowerpots, was not concerning himself to guard that quarter. Working steadily, easing, parting, picking out or cutting threads, ripping and tearing with greatest caution, the growing dusk in the room began to impede their operations. But he dared not use his electric torch, lest they be seen from outside.

Already the girl's slender fingers were flying as she picked up strip after strip of fabric and twisted them into the quadruple braid, bending closer over her task as the light became dimmer and dimmer.

Her bare feet in her laceless shoes were extended and crossed in front of her; the slender neck and shoulders and arms were exquisite in the delicate loveliness of immaturity; she worked swiftly, intensely absorbed, unconscious, unembarrassed in her preoccupation.

Now and then she lifted the braided cord and, stretching it, tested it with all her youthful strength. Once she handed it to him and he threw his full strength into the test, nodded, passed it back to her, and went on with his cutting and ripping.

Before the cord was finished, a tremendous crash shook the door on the left; and Warner, seated flat on the floor, fired two shots through the panels.

Then they both went on with their cutting, ripping, knotting, and braiding. The fumes from the cartridges set them coughing, but the smoke filtered out of the open window very soon.

It was dark when the cord was ready—some eighteen feet of it, as far as Warner could judge by measuring it across his outstretched arms.

Everything was in it except his leather belt, and this he buckled around Philippa's body.

There seemed to be no way he could test the cord except, inch by inch, using main strength; and, looking at the slender girl beside him, he concluded that it was going to hold her anyway.

The only light left in the room came from the stars; by this he crept across to the fireplace, lifted the heavy, iron grate with difficulty, set it at the foot of the window, fastened one end of the cord to it, turned and beckoned to Philippa.

She came creeping through the dusk on hands and knees; he pushed the pistol into one hip pocket, the electric torch into the other, fastened the rope to his leather belt which she wore, motioned her to mount the sill.

"But—you?" she whispered.

"Listen! I shall follow. If I fall, try to find Halkett in the square and tell him."

"Warner—I am afraid!"

"I won't let you fall——"

"For you, I mean!"

"Don't be afraid. I could almost drop it without any cord to help me. Now! Are you ready?"

"If you wish it."

"Then sit this way—there! Now, turn and take hold of the sill with both hands—that way! ... Now, you may let go——"

Her full weight on the cord frightened him; he braced his knees and paid out the rope which crushed and threatened to cut his hands in two.

Down, down into the dusk below he lowered her; his arms and back and ribs seemed turned to steel, so terrible was the fear that he might let her drop.

There remained yet a coil or two of rope when the cord in his staggering hands suddenly slackened. A shaft of fright pierced him; he bent shakily over the sill and looked down. She had not fallen; she stood on the terrace, unknotting the rope from her leather belt.

A moment later he drew it up, the belt dangling at the end. With trembling and benumbed hands he tested the knot tied to the grate; then, twisting the cord around both hands, he let himself over the sill, clung there, and lowered the window, hesitated, let his full weight hang, heard the iron grate drag and catch, then, blindly, twisting the cord around his left leg, he let himself down foot by foot, believing every moment that the cord would part or that the iron grate would be dragged up and over the sill, carry away the sash, and crush him.

And the next instant his feet touched the stone flagging and he turned to find Philippa at his side.

"Be silent," she breathed close to his ear. "A boat has just landed."

"Where?"

"At the foot of the garden. Two men are getting out!"

He knew that the rope would be discovered; he seized it and tried to break it loose. It held as though it had been woven of wire.

"There is a way into the cellar," whispered Philippa. "Can you lift this grating? It is only a drop of a foot or two!"

He bent down beside her in the shadows, felt the bars of the narrow grating overgrown with herbage, pulled upward and lifted it easily from its grassy bed. Philippa placed her hand flat on the dewy turf, and vaulted down into darkness. He balanced himself on the edge of the hole, turned and pulled the grating toward him, and dropped. The grating fell with a soft thud on the damp and grassy rim of the manhole. Philippa caught his hand.

"I know my way! Come!" she breathed, and he followed into the pitchy darkness.

How far they had progressed he had no idea, when she halted and drew him close to her.

"I've lost my way; I thought I could find the main corridor. Have you a match?"

"I have a flashlight."

He pulled it from his pocket and drew his pistol also. Then he snapped on the light.

For a moment the girl stood dazzled and perplexed, evidently unfamiliar with what she was gazing at, bewildered.

But Warner knew. There, in front of him, stood the great tun, swung open like a gate, and between it and the next cask ran the secret alley blocked by the door from which Wildresse had driven Asticot and Squelette.

"I know the way now!" he said. "But we'll have to pass through the café——"

He sprang back with the words on his lips as the door opened violently and Wildresse lurched out, followed by Asticot and another man.

But the glare of the torch in their eyes checked them and they recoiled, stumbling over each other in the narrow doorway.

Step by step Warner backed away, keeping Philippa behind him and focussing the blinding light on the men huddled in the doorway.

"Who are you?" demanded Wildresse hoarsely. "What are you doing in my cellar?"

He made a motion toward his breast pocket; Asticot was quicker, and he fired full at the flashlight which Warner was holding wide of himself and Philippa.

The bullet struck the light; startling darkness buried them, instantly all a-flicker again with pistol flashes.

"The grating again! Can you find it, Philippa?" he whispered.

She turned her head as she retreated, caught a glimpse of the faint spot of starlight behind, took his hand and drew him around.

Evidently Wildresse dared not use any light; his friends were shooting wildly and at hazard for general results; the racket in the vaulted place was deafening; but the flashes from their own pistols must have obscured their vision, for if they could have distinguished the far, pale spot of light under the manhole, they evidently did not see the dim figures crouching there.

Warner reached up, grasped the iron bars, lifted them, swung them open. Then he dragged himself up and over, and, flat on the grass, held down his arms for Philippa.

Beside him, panting on the grass, she lay flat under the dim luster of the stars, while they searched the dusk for any sign of the two men who had landed from the rowboat.

And all at once the girl's eyes fell upon a ladder leaning against the house, and she silently touched Warner on the arm.

It became plain enough now; the rope was gone; the men had mounted to the room, found it empty, had unbolted both doors, and started Wildresse and his crew toward the cellar—the only egress to the street—where lay their only chance of successful pursuit.

Bending low above the grass, gliding close to the shrubs and bushes, Warner, with Philippa's hand clasped in his, stole down the slope and into the shadow of the shoreward trees.

A boat, with both oars in it, lay there, pulled up into the sedge; the girl stepped in; Warner pushed off and followed her, shipped the oars, swung the boat, and bent to his work.

"You are taking the wrong way!" whispered Philippa.

"Halkett is waiting on the quay."

Already they had rounded the bank in sight of the ancient arch of the bridge; the quay wall rose above them in the starlight. At the foot of the narrow flight of steps he checked the boat; Philippa took the oars, and he sprang out and ran up the stone incline.

"Halkett!" he called sharply.

A figure seated on the wall turned its head, jumped to the pavement, and came striding swiftly.

"Have you discovered her whereabouts? Good heavens! Where are your clothes, Warner?"

"I've found Philippa. She's waiting below in a boat——"

They ran down the steps while they were speaking, and Philippa cried:

"Is it you, Halkett? I am happy again!" And stretched out her slender bare arm to him, excited, trembling a little from the nervous reaction which now suddenly filled her eyes and set her disfigured mouth quivering.

"Awf'lly glad," said Halkett heartily, clasping her offered hand in his firm cool grip; and if he was astonished at her negligee he did not betray it, but took the oars with decision and sent the boat shooting out into mid-current.

"Philippa," he said, pulling downstream with powerful strokes through the darkness, "I don't know what has happened; Warner got you out of the mess, whatever it was; but what I do know is that you behaved like a brick and I shall never forget it! A soldier's thanks, little comrade, for what you did!"

"I—I am—happy——" she faltered; and her voice failed her. She slid from the stern down against Warner's knees, and buried her face in her bare arms against them.

"Do you think you could spare her your coat, old fellow?" asked Warner in a low voice.

"Of course!" Halkett stripped off his coat and passed it over; then he gave his waistcoat to Warner.

"Lucky it's a warm night," he said cheerfully, while Warner spread the coat over Philippa, where she lay exhausted, tremulous, and close to tears. The girl who had never whimpered when fear, timidity, and indecision meant instant disaster, now lay huddled against his knees, shaking in every limb, crushing back the tears that burned her eyes and her throat, striving to master the nerves that clamored for relief.

Warner bent over her, close, touching her disheveled hair:

"It's all right now," he whispered. "I shall not let you go again until you want to.... It's all right now, Philippa. I'll stand your friend always—as long as you need me—as long as you—want me.... Don't worry about a home; I'll see to it. You are going to have your chance."

One of her crossed hands groped blindly for his, closed over it convulsively, and her breath grew hot with tears.

"It's a long way to Tipperary," remarked Halkett cheerily. "Tell me about it when you're ready, old chap."

CHAPTER XIX

About seven o'clock the next morning Halkett knocked at Warner's door, awakening him.

"The cavalry are passing, if you'd care to see them," he said.

Warner got out of bed, found his slippers and a bathrobe, and opened the door. Halkett, fully dressed in the field uniform of a British officer, came in.

"Hello!" exclaimed the American in surprise. "What does this mean?"

"It means that we've gone in, old chap."

"England!"

"Yes, we're in it! And I'm off." He made a gesture for silence. "Hark! Do you hear that?"

Warner listened: from the distance came a confused, metallic sound, growing more and more distinct, filling the room with a faint ringing, jarring harmony.

"Come to the window; it's worth seeing," said Halkett.

It was worth seeing. Through the still morning sunshine, from the southward came an immense sound wave; the rustle and clash of steel, the clink-clank of iron-shod hoofs.

Leaning from the window, Warner looked down the road. A high column of white dust stretched away into perspective as far as he could see. Under it, emerging from it, rode the French heavy cavalry, the morning sun a blinding sheet of fire on their armor.

On they came at a leisurely walk, helmets and breastplates blazing silvery fire under a perpendicular forest of lances canopied by the white dust.

They were terribly conspicuous; a cloudless sky exposed every detail of their uniforms—the gold epaulets of their officers, the crimson epaulets and breeches of the troopers, the orange-red whalebone plumes that flew like the manes of horses from the trumpeters' helmets.

On they came, riding at ease, accompanied by dust and by a vast and confused volume of assorted noises—the tintinnabulation of their armor, the subdued clash of sabers, the rattle and clash of equipments, the solidly melodious trample of thousands of horses.

But Warner looked down at them with anxious eyes and lips compressed.

"Good God!" he said under his breath to Halkett. "Are they going into battle dressed that way? I thought they had learned something since 1870!"

"War has caught France unprepared in that particular matter," said Halkett gravely.

"I didn't know it. I understood that Detaille had designed their campaign dress. It's a dreadful thing, Halkett, to send men into fire dressed in that way!"

"It is. But look, Warner. Is there anything more magnificent when in mass formation than a brigade of French cuirassiers?"

As they rode clanging under the windows of the inn, officers and troopers looked up curiously at the man in his bathrobe, in friendly surprise at the young man in the British field uniform; but when the upturned, sunburned faces caught sight of the next window beyond, a quick, gay smile flashed out, and dark blue sleeves shot up in laughing greeting and salute.

"It's Philippa," whispered Halkett. "Look!"

Warner turned: Philippa, wearing the scarlet and black peasant dress of a lost province, sat sideways on her window sill, knitting while she watched the passing cavalry below.

The velvet straps and silk laces of her bodice accented a full chemisette of finest lawn; a delicate little apron of the same was relieved by the scarlet skirt; the dainty, butterfly headdress of black silk crowned her hair, which hung in two heavy braids.

And, as the cavalry column passed, every big cuirassier, looking up from the shadow of his steel helmet, saw Alsace itself embodied in this slender girl who sat knitting and looking down upon France militant out of quiet, proud eyes.

There was no fanfare, no shouting, no boasting, nothing theatrical. The troopers looked up from their saddles and rode by, still looking; the girl knitted quietly, her steady eyes gazing gravely over the needles. And it was as though Alsace herself were speaking a silent language from those clear, grey eyes:

"I am waiting; I have been waiting for you more than forty years. Take what time you need, but come. You will always find me waiting."

Every officer understood it; every giant rider comprehended, as the squadrons trampled past through a thickening veil of dust which grew denser, dulling the sparkle of metal and subduing the raw, fierce colors to pastel tints.

The brigade passed up the valley leisurely, without halting; dust hung along the road for many minutes after the last cuirassier had walked his big horse out of view.

Philippa, who had been seated on the window sill with her back toward Warner's window, left her perch; and Warner turned back into his room to bathe and dress.

"How long have you been up?" he asked Halkett, who had dropped on a chair by the window.

"Since sunrise. Madame Arlon is back. She behaved very nicely about the damage. She doesn't wish me to pay for it, but I shall. Did you know that your Harem left in a body for Paris yesterday afternoon?"

"Very sensible of 'em," said Warner with a sigh of relief. "How about you, Halkett?"

"I don't know yet. I'm expecting orders at any moment now."

"How do you know that your country has gone into this war?"

"I learned it last night at the Boule d'Argent. The news had just come over the wire.

"That precious pair, Meier and Hoffman, whom I had followed to the Boule d'Argent, were seated there in the café reading the newspapers when the telegram was posted up.

"They got up from their chairs with the other guests who had clustered around the bulletin to read what had been posted up. I watched their faces from behind my newspaper, and you should have seen their expressions—utter and blank astonishment, Warner! Certainly Germany never believed until the last moment that we had any real intention of going in."

"I didn't, either, to tell the truth."

Halkett smiled:

"It was inevitable from the very beginning. The hour that Austria flung her brutal ultimatum into the face of Servia, every British officer knew that we were going in. It took our politicians a little longer to realize it, that's all."

Warner finished dressing, and they went downstairs together and across the grass to the arbor in the garden, where Philippa sat knitting and talking under her breath to Ariadne, who gazed at her, brilliant-eyed, purring.

The girl had her back toward them and they made no sound as they advanced across the turf which bordered the flowers.

"She's talking to the cat; listen!" murmured Halkett.

"—And after many, many years," they heard Philippa saying, "the sad and patient mother of the two lost children sent out for her five million servants. 'Go,' she said, 'and search diligently for my little daughters who were stolen by the fierce old giant, Bosche. And when you come to where they are imprisoned, you shall know the place, because there is no place on earth so beautiful, no mountains so tender a blue, no fields so green and so full of flowers, no rivers so lovely and clear.

"'Also, you shall recognize my little children when you discover them, because they dress as I am dressed today, in red and black and wearing the black butterfly. So when you see them behind the bars of their prison, you shall call to them by name—you shall call out, Alsace! Lorraine! Be of good courage! Your mother has sent us here to find you and deliver you from the prison of the Giant Bosche!

"'Then you shall draw your broad, bright bayonets and fix them; and you who are mounted shall unsling your long, pointed lances; and you who feed the great steel monsters that roll along on wheels, shall make ready the monsters' food; and others of you who put on wings and who mount clattering to the clouds, shall wing yourselves and mount; and you others who look out over oceans from the tops of tall, steel masts shall signal for all the anchors to be lifted.

"'Thus you shall prepare to encounter the Giant Bosche, who will come thundering and trampling and flaming across the horizon, with his black banners like storm clouds, and advancing amid a roaring iron rain.

"'Thus you shall meet him and hold him, and turn him, and drive him, drive him, drive him, back, back, back, into the fierce, dark, shaggy places from whence he crept out into the sun and stole away my little children.

"'And when that is done, you shall bring me back my children who were lost, and you shall be their servants as well as mine, dwelling with us as one family forever, in happiness and honor, dedicating ourselves to generous and noble deeds as long as the world shall last!' ...

"That, minette, is the fairy story which I promised you if you would be a good cat and wait patiently for breakfast. And you have done so, and now I have kept my promise——"

She lifted her eyes from her knitting, turned her head over her shoulder, and saw Warner and Halkett gravely listening.

"Oh," she said, blushing. "Did you hear the story I have been telling to Ariadne?" She held out her hand to Warner and then to Halkett, inspecting the latter critically, much interested in his uniform.

"You saw our cuirassiers?" she asked, as they seated themselves at the table. "So did I. Also, they saw me. I wished them to see me because I was dressed in this dress. We understood each other, the 'grosse cavalerie' and I."

"We saw what was going on," said Halkett. "I should say that about two thousand suitors have been added to your list this morning, Philippa."

She turned shy and a little grave at that, but seeing Warner laughing, laughed too.

"If I were a great lady," she said, "you might be right. Only from the saddle could any man dare hope for a smile from me now."

Linette, with the bright color of excitement still brilliant in her cheeks, brought out the breakfast tray.

"On the quarry road, across the river," she said, "our fantassins are marching north—thousands of them, messieurs!—and the dust is like a high white wall against the hills!"

So they hastened with their coffee and rolls; Warner fetched the garden ladder and set it against the east wall, and all three mounted and seated themselves on the coping.

What Linette had reported was true: across the Récollette a wall of white dust ran north and south as far as they could see. Under it an undulating column tramped, glimmering, sparkling, flowing northward—an endless streak of dusty crimson where the red trousers of the line were startlingly visible through the haze.

Watching the stirring spectacle from a seat on the wall beside Philippa, Warner turned to her presently:

"Do you feel all right this morning?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Your lip is still a trifle swollen."

"I feel quite well." She looked up at him out of her honest grey eyes. "It is the happiest morning of my life," she said in a low voice.

"Why?"

"For two reasons: I am to remain with you, that is one reason; I have lived to see what I am looking at yonder, that is the other reason."

"You have lived to help what is going on yonder," remarked Halkett.

She turned, the question in her eyes; and he answered seriously:

"We British are your allies, now."

"Since when, Monsieur?"

"Since yesterday. So what you did for me when you saved my papers, you did for a friend to France."

Her sudden emotion left her silent; she bent her head and looked down at her knitting, and leisurely resumed it, sitting so, her legs hanging down from the wall, the sun striking her silver shoe buckles.

"Do you hear, Philippa?" asked Warner, smiling. "You have added reason to be proud of the wound on your lip."

She flashed a look at him, laughed shyly, and became very busy with her knitting and with watching the passing column across the river.

Halkett had unslung his field glasses to inspect them at closer range. The dusty fantassins were swinging along at a smart route step, rifles slung, red képis askew, their bulky luggage piled on their backs and flopping on their thighs—the same careless, untidy, slipshod infantry with the same active, tireless, reckless, rakish allure.

Their smartly mounted officers, smartly booted or gaitered, wearing the smart tunics and gold-laced caps of their arm of the service, seemed merely to accent the gayly dowdy, ill-fitting uniforms of the little fantassins.

No British officer could, on his soul and conscience, subscribe to such flapping, misfitting, fag-ends of military accouterments; and as Halkett watched them a singularly wooden expression came over his pleasant, youthful features; and Warner, glancing sideways at him, knew why.

"They're very picturesque if a painter handles them properly," he remarked, amused. "You know what De Neuville did for them."

Philippa, not comprehending, continued to knit and to gaze out of her lovely grey eyes upon her beloved fantassins.

Ariadne, seeing her three friends aloft, presently mounted to the top of the wall beside them, and sat gravely blinking into space through slitted eyes.

A glazier had come across the fields from some neighboring hamlet, bringing with him under his ragged arm some panes of glass and a bag of implements.

He was in a hurry, because he was expecting that his class would be called to the colors, but the spectacle of the passing infantry across the river so fascinated him that he made but a slow job of it.

Toward noon a mounted gendarme, who seemed to know him personally, shouted, as he rode by, that his class had been called. The little glazier nodded, smeared the last strip of putty under the last window pane to be replaced, climbed down from the sill, lifted his hat to the three people on the wall—possibly including Ariadne in his politeness—and trotted away across the fields to tie up a few possessions in a large red handkerchief, and then trot away toward Chalons, where France needed even the humblest and most obscure of the children she had nourished through many years for such an hour as was sounding now.

Philippa, looking after him, was unconsciously stirred to express her thoughts aloud:

"There must be something I can do," she said.

"You have been among the very first to do something," rejoined Warner.

"Oh, that? That was nothing." She pursed up her lips and stared absently at the troops across the Récollette. "I can knit socks, of course.... I don't know what else to do.... If anybody wants me I am here."

"I want you, Philippa," said Warner.

"Mon ami, Warner——" She gave him a swift, adorable smile and laid her hand lightly on his arm for an instant.

Such candid gratitude for friendship he had never read in any eyes before; the quick response of this friendless girl touched him sharply.

"Of course I want you," he repeated. "Never forget, Philippa, that where I am you are welcome—not tolerated—wanted!"

She continued to knit, looking down steadily. Halkett lowered his field glasses and glanced at her, then with an odd look at Warner leveled the glasses again and resumed his study of the distant column.

After a few minutes' silence the girl raised her eyes, and Warner caught the glint of unshed tears in them.

"It is only happiness," she said in a low voice. "I am not accustomed to it."

He did not know what to say, for the grey eyes were stirring him very deeply, and her attitude and their new relationship touched him and confused him, too.

The responsibility which he had assumed so impulsively, so lightly yet warmly, began to wear a more serious aspect to him.

Every few moments some new vein of purest metal was unconsciously revealed in her by her own transparent honesty. He began to understand that she had not only right instincts, but that her mind was right, in spite of what she had been since released from school—that her intelligence was of a healthy order, that she thought right, and that, untaught or taught otherwise, her conclusions were as direct and sane as a child's.

"I think, Philippa, we ought to have a business talk this morning," he said pleasantly.

"To discuss our affairs," she nodded contentedly. "I have my little account book in my trunk. Shall I get it for you?"

He smiled:

"I didn't intend to examine your financial situation——"

"Oh, but we had better be very clear about it! You see, I have just so much saved—I shall show you exactly!—and then we can compute exactly what economies it will be necessary for me to make in order to maintain myself until we can find employment for me——"

"But, Philippa—" he tried to maintain his gravity—"you need not have any concern in that regard. First of all, you are on a salary as my model——"

"Please! I did not wish to be paid for aiding you——"

"But it is a matter of business!"

"I thought—I am happy in being permitted to return a little of your kindness to me—I do not want anything from you——"

"Kindness!"

"You have let me find a refuge with you——"

"Dear child, I offer you employment until something more suitable offers. Didn't you understand?"

"Yes, but I did not expect or wish you to pay me—except with friendship. It is different between us and others, is it not?—I mean you are my friend.... I could not take money from you.... Let it be only friendship between us. Will you? I have enough to last until I can find employment. Only let me be with you. That is quite enough for me, Warner."

Halkett, who had been gazing fixedly through his glasses, remarked that the column across the river had now passed.

It was true; the wall of dust still obscured the blue foothills of the Vosges, but the last fantassin had trotted beyond their view and the last military wagon had rolled out of sight.

Halkett descended from the ladder and went through the house and down the road in the direction of the schoolhouse, a smart, well-groomed, well-set-up figure in his light-colored service uniform and cap.

Philippa gathered her knitting into one hand, placed the other in Warner's, and descended the ladder face foremost, with the lithe, sure-footed grace of Ariadne, who had preceded them.

"Come to my room," she said, confidently taking possession of Warner's arm; "I want to show you my account book."

Madame Arlon, who was coming through the hallway, overheard her, gazed at her unsmilingly, glanced at Warner, whose arm the girl still retained.

Philippa looked up frankly, bidding the stout, florid landlady a smiling good morning, and Madame Arlon took the girl's hands rather firmly into her own, considered her, looked up at Warner in silence.

Perhaps she arrived at some silent and sudden conclusion concerning them both, for her tightened lips relaxed and she smiled at them and patted Philippa's hands and went about her affairs, still evidently amused over something or other. She remarked to Magda in the kitchen that all Americans were mad but harmless; which distinguished them from Europeans, who were merely mad.

Upstairs in her bedroom, Philippa was down on her knees rummaging in her little trunk and chattering away as gay as a linnet to Warner, who stood beside her looking on.

And at first the pathos of the affair did not strike him. The girl's happy torrent of loquacity, almost childish in its eagerness and inconsequential repetition of details concerning the little souvenirs which she held up for his inspection, amused him, and he felt that she was very, very young.

All the flimsy odds and ends which girlhood cherishes—things utterly valueless except for the memories evoked by disinterring and handling them, these Philippa resurrected from the confused heap of clothing in her trunk—here a thin gold circlet set with a tiny, tarnished turquoise, pledge of some schoolmate's deathless adoration—there an inky and battered schoolbook with girls' names written inside in the immature chirography of extreme youth and sentiment. And there were bits of inexpensive lace and faded ribbons, and a blotting pad full of frail and faded flower-ghosts, and home-made sachets from which hue and odor had long since exhaled, and links from a silver chain and a few bright locks of hair in envelopes.

And every separate one of these Philippa, on her knees, held up for Warner to admire while she sketched for him the most minute details of the circumstances connected.

Never doubting his interest and sympathy, she freed her long-caged heart with all the involuntary ecstasy of an escaped bird pouring out to the clouds the suppressed confidences of many years.

Names, incidents, circumstances almost forgotten even in her brief solitary life, were now uttered almost unbidden from her ardent lips; the bright or faded bits of ribbon were held aloft, identified with a little laugh or sigh, tossed aside, and another relic uncovered and held out to him.

On her knees before these innocent records of the past, the girl was showing him everything she knew about herself—showing him herself, too, and her warm, eager heart of a child.

He was no longer merely amused; he stood listening in silence to her happy, disjointed phrases, evoked by flashes of memory equally disconnected.

The happiness connected with her girlish souvenirs faded, however, when they represented the period following her removal from school.

And yet, for all the loneliness and unhappiness—for all the instinctive mental revolt, all the perplexity and impatience of these latter years—their souvenirs she handled tenderly, describing each with that gentleness and consideration born of intimate personal association.

And at last she discovered her account book, strapped with rubber bands, and she rose from the floor, drew the only chair up for Warner, and seated herself on her bed, laying the book open across his knees.

Here, under his eyes, columns of accurately kept figures told the story. Here everything had been minutely set down—her meager salary, her few expenses, her rigid economies, her savings during the years of her employment by Wildresse—a record of self-denial, of rigid honesty, of childlike perseverance.

As he slowly turned the clearly written pages on his knees, Philippa, leaning against his shoulder, her fresh young face close to his, pointed out and explained with her forefinger tracing the written figures.

After he had examined her accounts, she unstrapped her thin little pass book for him. It was in order and balanced to the end of July.

He closed the books, rested his clasped hands on them, and sat thinking. His preoccupied expression left her silent, too—or perhaps it was the slight reaction from her joyous indulgence in loquacity. Reticence always follows—and always this aftermath of silence is tinged with sadness.

He was thinking, almost in consternation, how lightly he had assumed responsibility for a young soul in the making. All of her was still in the making; the girl was merely beginning to develop in mind and spirit; and in body her development had not ended.

Her circumstances aside—whatever her origin, whatever her class or position might have been—he suddenly realized that for him the responsibility was too great.

Whatever her origin, in her were the elements and instincts of all things upright. Whatever her place in the social scale, her intelligence could not be questioned. And, if her recent years had been passed amid sordid and impossible surroundings and influences, these had not corrupted her. In her there was no hint of depravity, nothing unwholesome, nothing spoiled.

Life and endeavor and the right to hope still lay before her; a theoretical future opened uncontaminated; opportunity alone was her problem; and his. And he realized his responsibility and was perplexed and troubled.

"Philippa," he said, looking up at her where she sat on the iron bed, her cheek resting on her clasped hands, "I am not very aged yet. Do you realize that?"

"Aged?" she repeated, puzzled.

He laughed and so did she.

"I mean," he said, "that if you and I go about together in this rather suspicious world, nobody is likely to understand how very harmless and delightful our friendship is."