And I told of the swift passing of the autos, mine and the commandant’s, on the dark hills of the Route Joffre, when I was coming back from St.-Amarin and he going there. How sadly I had seen its kind lights rise along the heights and disappear, and there had been no friendly handclasp on the hills, nor words of thanks from me in the dim light of the blurred Pleiades and the young, half-veiled, white moon. After dinner some one hazarded the word “bridge,” but there must have been that in my eye making for solitude rather than companionship, for the next thing I heard from some Frenchman, perceptive as to woman’s looks, was: “_Madame est sans doute bien fatiguée et nous jouerons demain._” And soon I was stumbling home on one or two or three blue-sleeved arms, in the inky darkness of a starless and moonless Masevaux. I had found St.-Amarin charming, and I left with deep regret, but at Masevaux I was experiencing the sensation, very agreeable, I must say, of one who, having wandered, returns to his or her first love; and any one who has done it will know exactly how I felt, and I don’t have to tell them. As for those who have never returned, they wouldn’t understand if I did explain. XV THE VIGIL OF THE ARMISTICE “_The Star is fall’n and Time is at his period_” _November 11th, 1 A.M._—At ten-thirty Captain Tirman came back to the _popote_ where we were playing bridge—Sérin, Laferrière, Toussaint, and I. He was very pale, but there was something shining about his face. “_Ça y est, l’armistice._” Dead silence; we don’t even drop our cards. In his excitement a very naughty soldier’s word escapes him. He turns away in consternation, and the others, somewhat appalled, too, at last drop their cards. I try not to smile. General recovery; they hope I didn’t catch it. It was sufficient, however, to break that strange feeling of _absence_ of feeling that each one of us was experiencing. “_Alors c’est fini, la guerre_,” some one finally said in a dazed way, and with the words the cruel thing seemed to drop heavily from us, as would some hideous, exhausting burden. Toussaint, with his far look of one who loves forests, very strongly marked, said, “To think that it has found us like this playing bridge at the _popote_!” Sérin: “I’ll not go to bed to-night.” I: “Oh, my friends!” and then nothing more—my knees suddenly as if broken. Laferrière (very quietly, after a pause): “I cannot but think of those who are not here.” And his words evoked great shining bands of the dear young, pressed closely, one against the other, out of their flesh, crowding the heavens. Then Sérin, again with his _bon sourire d’enfant_, “_Il faut boire_.”