"In less than two hours!" he said. "I thought there was something in the wind," said Paul Guitry. "If we advanced only three kilometers," said the Idiot, "the village in which I was born would be French again. But there will be great changes." "You were born at Champ-de-Fer?" "It is directly opposite us." "You cannot know that." "I feel it," said the Idiot. "Wherever I have been stationed I have felt it. Sometimes I have asked an officer to look for Champ-de-Fer on his field map, and when he has done so, I have pointed, and said 'Is it in that direction?' and always I have been right." "Did your family remain in the village?" "I don't know. But I think so, for from the hour of the mobilization until now, I have not heard from them." "Since the hour of the mobilization," said Paul Guitry, "much water has flowed under the bridges. I had just been married. My wife is in Paris. I have a little son now. I saw them when I had my eight days' leave. And it seems that again I am to be a father. It is very wonderful." "I was going to be married," said the Idiot simply. There was a short silence. "If I had known," said Paul Guitry, "I would not have boasted of my own happiness." "I am not the only French soldier who has not heard from his sweetheart since the mobilization," said the Idiot. "It has been hard," he said, "but by thinking of all the others, I have been able to endure." "She remained there at Champ-de-Fer?" "She must have, or else she would have written to me." Paul Guitry could not find anything to say. "Soon," said the Idiot, "we shall be in Champ-de-Fer, and they will tell me what has become of her." "She will tell you herself," said Paul Guitry with a heartiness which he did not feel. The Idiot shrugged his shoulders. "We have loved each other," he said, "even since we were little children. Do you know why I am called the Idiot? It is because I do not go with women, when I have the chance. But I don't mind. They cannot say that I am not a real man, for I have the military medal and I have been mentioned twice in the orders of the day." To Paul Guitry, a confirmed sinner as opportunity offered, the Idiot's statement contained much psychic meat. "It must be," he said, "that purity tempts some men, just as impurity tempts others." "It is even simpler," said the Idiot; but he did not explain. And there was a long silence. Now and then Paul Guitry glanced at his companion's profile, for the night was no longer inky black. It was a simple direct young face, not handsome, but full of dignity and kindness; the line of the jaw had a certain sternness, and the wide and delicately molded nostril indicated courage and daring. Paul Guitry thought of his wife and of his little son, of his eight days' leave, and of its consequences. He tried to imagine how he would feel, if for two years his wife had been in the hands of the Germans. Without meaning to, he spoke his thought aloud: