From time to time we passed large summer residences and artistic villas partly hidden in the woods, but all the doors were closed, and all the windows were dark. Not a human being passed us on the road, and the noise of our shoes crunching through the crusted snow was the only sound which broke the solemn stillness of the air. Our men too seemed oppressed with the weird solitude of the forest and seldom spoke above a whisper. "Seems as though the world were dead," said Burnham, after we had walked nearly two miles in silence. "Yes," I replied, "it gives one a creepy feeling passing through this long dark avenue of pines. The houses too look as if the inhabitants had fled and that no one had the courage to return." "I understand the _Bosches_ were through quite close to here," Burnham remarked, "in their first mad dash for Paris, and that some German soldiers were killed near the outskirts of this wood." "By the gruesomeness of it I can imagine they were _all_ killed," I replied. By this time we had turned at right angles to our former path and entered another long avenue of trees. The white walls of an isolated mansion stood out in the distance against the black-green of the forest and the fading purple of the evening sky. The grounds about it were enclosed by a high pointed iron fence; it looked a veritable prison. After tramping another mile we emerged into an open space between the trees and the rolling sand dunes of the coast, and saw before us a large limestone building, three stories in height and almost surrounded with broad, glass-enclosed balconies. The tracks of a disused tramway ran to the gate, and the rust upon the rails spoke more forcibly than ever of desolation and desertion. We passed through the stone gateway and crossed the snow-covered lawn. Everything was as dark and dreary as the grave. Surely no one was within! We mounted the steps and rang the bell. Its peal reverberated strangely through the empty halls. After a few moments, however, a light appeared and a solitary man entered the rotunda; he turned the electric switch, flooding the room with a bright light. He came to the door, unlocked it, and rolled it back slowly upon its wheels. "Gut evening, zhentlemen," he said in English, but with a peculiar Franco-German accent difficult to diagnose. "It iss fery kolt, iss it not?" We acknowledged the fact. "You are vrom the Canadian Hospital?" he queried. "You were evidently expecting us," I replied. "We are the advance party from that hospital." He pushed the door wide for us to enter. We didn’t debate the propriety of accepting the hospitality of a German, but marched in at once. "Your dinner vill be retty in a leedle vhile. I vill haf Alvred ligh’d you the grate, und you soon fery comfortable vill be." "Show me to the kitchen first," I asked him, "and let me see what arrangements you have for supper for the men. When they are made comfortable it will be plenty of time for our dinner."