"The frontier!" he muttered. "The frontier here ... at twenty-five miles from the Rhine ... the frontier in the very heart of France!" Every day and ten times a day, he tortured himself in this manner, gazing at that painful and relentless line; and, beyond it, through vistas which his imagination contrived as it were to carve out of the Vosges, he conjured up a vision of the German plain on the misty horizon. And this too he repeated to himself; and he did so this time as at every other time, with a bitterness which the years that passed did nothing to allay: "The German plain ... the German hills ... all that land of Alsace in which I used to wander as a boy.... The French Rhine, which was my river and the river of my fathers.... And now _Deutschland_ ... _Deutsches Rhein_...." A faint whistle made him start. He leant over towards the staircase that climbed the terrace, a staircase cut out of the rock, by which people coming from the side of the frontier often entered his grounds so as to avoid the bend of the road. There was nobody there nor anybody opposite, on the roadside slope all tangled with shrubs and ferns. And the sound was renewed, discreetly, stealthily, with the same modulations as before. "It's he ... it's he ..." thought M. Morestal, with an uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment. A head popped from between the bushes, a head in which all the bones stood out, joined by prominent muscles, which gave it the look of the head of an anatomical model. On the bridge of the nose, a pair of copper-rimmed spectacles. Across the face, like a gash, the toothless, grinning mouth. "You again, Dourlowski...." "Can I come?" asked the man. "No ... no ... you're mad...." "It's urgent." "Impossible.... And besides, you know, I don't want any more of it. I've told you so before...." But the man insisted: "It's for this evening, for to-night.... It's a soldier of the Boersweilen garrison.... He says he's sick of wearing the German uniform." "A deserter.... I've had enough of them.... Shut up and clear out!" "Now don't be nasty, M. Morestal.... Just think it over.... Look here, let's meet at four o'clock, in the pass, near Saboureux's Farm ... like last time.... I shall expect you.... We'll have a talk ... and I shall be surprised if ..." "Hold your tongue!" said Morestal. A voice cried from the drawing-room: "Here they come, sir, here they come!" It was the man-servant; and Mme. Morestal also ran out and said: "What are you doing here? Whom were you talking to?" "Nobody." "Why, I heard you!..." "No, I assure you...." "Well, I must have imagined it.... I say you were quite right. It's twelve o'clock and they are here, the two of them." "Philippe and Marthe?" "Yes, they are coming. They are close to the garden-entrance. Let's hurry down and meet them...." CHAPTER II THE GIRL WITH THE BARE ARMS