"Listen. What is the article of the law relating to any person who has knowledge of a plan of desertion?" The soldier collected his thoughts, and recited: "Any one who shall have credible knowledge of a plan of desertion, when there is still time to frustrate it, and who does not give information thereof to his superiors, is liable to be imprisoned for ten months, and during war for three years." "Quick! To horse!" cried Farnow. "We must start. "Farewell, Lucienne." She ran forward and seized his arm. "No, no, you must not go; I shall not let you." He gazed a moment on her tear-stained face, where ardent love and sorrow were mingled. "You must not go! Do you hear?" she repeated. Farnow lifted her from the ground, pressed her against his breast and kissed her passionately. By the despairing violence of his kiss, Lucienne realised it was indeed farewell. He put her from him brusquely, ran to the gate, leapt to the saddle, and galloped away in the direction of Obernai. CHAPTER XVI IN THE FOREST OF THE MINIÈRES Night was falling, but Jean was still on German soil. He was sleeping, worn out with fatigue; he lay stretched upon a bed of moss and fir cones, while M. Ulrich watched, on the look out for fresh danger, still trembling from the danger he had just escaped. The two men had crept into a space between two stacks of branches left by the wood-cutters, who had been thinning the fir-tree plantation. The branches, still green, stretched from one stack to the other, making their hiding-place more secure. A storm of wind blew across the mountain, but otherwise no sound could be heard upon the heights. Two hours must have passed since Jean and his uncle had taken refuge in their hiding-place. When the train reached Russ-Hersbach, M. Ulrich had at once seen and said that the moment for Jean to change his uniform had passed. Even such a little thing as that would have excited too much attention in that frontier province, peopled by visible and invisible watchers, where the stones listen and the fir-trees are spies. He threw the valise to the coachman of the landau engaged three days previously at Schirmeck. "Here's some useless luggage," he cried, "fortunately it's not heavy. Drive quickly, coachman."