The most icy reserve must find itself cracked and thawing in the intimacies which a jerking railway car precipitates. There is no dignity which is proof against a sound bump upon the head. Thus our irritations and suspicions gave way to laughter, and laughter brings all the barriers down. The compartment became a confessional. The anxious looking man opposite was hoping to get to his estate and to bury a few of his most treasured things before the Germans came. The two young fellows with scraggly beards were brothers, given five days' leave to see a dying father; three days had been spent in a vain effort to get started there. Another man had a half telegram which read, "Accident at home you------" Not another word had he been able to get through. The silent young man in the corner smiled pleasantly when his turn came but volunteered no information. I likewise passed. Marie, wishing to fortify herself with all possible help in her venture, told her tale in full. An immediate proffer came from the hitherto taciturn young man in the corner. "Why, this is romance in earnest. I do wish that I might be of some help," he said with genuine interest. Our new friend we found had for a grandfather no less a dignitary than Alexander Dumas. His name he told us was Louis Dumas, an artist, not yet called to the colors, and bound now for Villeneuve, "and before we can really get acquainted, here we are," he said as the train came to a stop. As he stepped to the door it was flung open by an officer who shouted, "Everybody out! This car is for the military." We protested. We displayed our tickets. The officer laughed and, seizing one reluctant passenger, dragged him out. A quickly ejected and much dejected band, we found ourselves upon the street of a little outlying village nine miles from Paris. It had taken half as many hours to get there. We fell upon the one village gendarme with a volley of questions. By pitching her voice above the hubbub, Marie got in her inquiry about the distance to Melun. "Thirty kilometers by the main road," he answered. This, then, was the issue of that tense day of strategy and daring: to be stranded in this suburb from which it was impossible to go forward to Melun and almost as difficult to return to Paris. Marie crumpled under the blow and then I realized how much it had cost her to maintain that calm outward demeanor. By sheer will-power she had kept the tears from her eyes and the tremor from her limbs. Long held in leash, they now leaped out to possess her. Dumas ran hither and thither, hunting conveyance but in vain. Three of his friends had automobiles. He called them by telephone. All cars had been commandeered. He stood with head drooping in real dejection. "Ah, I have it!" he exclaimed, "my friend Veilleau, he has an aeroplane and he will do it."