When he was within speaking distance I came out from the shadow of the wall and put the question. If he had suddenly been confronted with a spook I do not think the old man could have been more astonished. He stopped dead still, as though not knowing whether to turn about and run, or to advance and take the consequences. Realizing his embarrassment, I hastily proffered a few words of greeting, and then he chose the latter prerogative. "-Vous?_" he said, when at length he found his tongue. "_Vous?_" "Yes--why not?" "Who's with you?" "Nobody. Why?" He seemed more embarrassed than ever. Evidently he hadn't yet "caught on." "What can I do for you?" I continued. He still hesitated, looking first at me and then at a bottle he carried in his hand. Finally he resolved to make a clean breast of it. "Why," he said, "I didn't expect to find a woman here, least of all _une chatelaine_. It rather startled me! You see, I've got into the habit of coming round towards dawn. The boys begin to get chilly about that time, and are glad enough to have a go at my fruit brandy. They say I'm too old to mount guard, so I must serve my country as best I can. Will you have some--my own brew?" I declined, but he was not offended; yet he seemed reluctant to go. "Sit down," I said. "It won't belong before some of the men will be passing by on their way to the fields, and then you won't have made your journey for nothing." Pere Potipard gladly accepted, and after a generous swig at his brandy, began telling me about what happened at Villiers during the German invasion in 1870. As he talked on, night gradually disappeared, and when the clock in the belfry tolled three A. M. my successors came to relieve me. I blew out the lantern and walked home in broad daylight. The boys looked very sheepish when they learned what had happened, but as I did not boast of my exploit, merely taking it as a matter of course, they had no way of approaching the subject, and like many other things of the kind, it was soon forgotten in the pursuing of our onerous daily tasks, and the moral anxiety we were experiencing. There seemed to be no end to the fruit season that summer. The lengthy table in the servants' hall was literally covered with glasses containing jam and jelly of every description, awaiting their paper lids. Nini said there were over five hundred--to me it seemed thousands, and I was heartily glad of a lull before the hospital should open. And I remember distinctly that the last thing I prepared was some thirty quarts of black currant brandy; that is to say, I had poured the raw alcohol on to the fruit and set the jars aside to await completion six months later! Shortly afterwards I received word by a roundabout route from Soissons that I might expect my trained nurses and supplies at any moment. In the meantime I was without word from H. since that eventful meeting a week before.