A blazing wood fire fitfully lit up a large room still without other means of illumination. Jordan explained that he had sent an orderly for some candles, as Madame had no petroleum for the lamps. The battalion-commander and the doctor threw themselves luxuriously into deep armchairs on either side of the fireplace and lit their cigars. In a few minutes the orderly arrived with the candles. Jordan fitted them into two large candelabra on the mantelpiece and lit them. The eyes of all three officers roved around the apartment. It was, like the dining-room, rather overfurnished and was particularly rich in bric-à-brac of all kinds. It was, in fact, overcrowded with porcelain figures, small mirrors, pictures of moderate size, all sorts of valuable objects that in almost every case were of _easily portable dimensions_. This last attribute leaped simultaneously to the minds of two of them. “_Mon commandant_,” began Jordan, in a humorously affected judicial tone, “I am penetrated by an unworthy suspicion----!” “French! _Nom d’un nom!_” cried the battalion-commander. “Everything here!--The collection of the burglar _boche_ officer!--Doctor! You speak German!--Ask that woman----!” Both were suddenly arrested by the attitude of the doctor. He was staring in a fixed fascination at a small Buhl clock upon the mantelpiece. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, snatched down the clock, and gazed eagerly at the back of it. “_Mon Dieu!_” he cried. “_This is mine!_--it comes from my house!--Look!” He showed them an inscription on the back: [1]“_A Jules, pour marquer les heures d’un amour qui ne cessera pas quand le temps même cessera, de sa Marcelle._” He stared at them like a lunatic. “My wife!” he cried. “My wife!--Oh, Marcelle, Marcelle, where are you? Where are you?” The others also had risen to their feet. A tense silence followed upon the wild cry. The battalion-commander touched the doctor’s arm. “_Mon ami_,” he said gently, “--can we help you----?” The erstwhile sombre eyes of the doctor blazed down upon him, as though searching for a mortal enemy even in this friend. Then, with a distinctly apparent effort of will, the anguished man mastered himself.