Kendall awoke refreshed, but with those sensations which a man experiences after an exceedingly circumstantial and vivid dream. The reality of last night’s events had vanished, to be remembered only as something lived through in that subconscious land of dreams. The morning was bright, cheerful, and he breakfasted with enthusiasm. Directly afterward Jimmy was summoned to brigade headquarters, and Kendall, having finished his work at that point, set out with his chauffeur to walk back to Domptin. On the way they paused on the road to watch the shelling out of a corner of the woods by a German battery. The high-explosive shells fell with beautiful precision and at regular intervals of about a minute. The scream of the shells could be heard during an interval in which one could count up to six slowly, and then would come the explosion. By counting so and keeping his eyes on that wooded angle Kendall could watch the work of the shells with exact timing of his vision. Somehow the processes of the explosion reminded him of an enormously powerful man heaving upward a weight with his shoulders. First would come a small surge of smoke, as if the giant were testing his load, and then an uprush of black smoke and debris in geyser form, regular until it had spent its force, then breaking into irregular billows at the top and dissipating through the air.... Shell after shell dropped precisely, neatly, not varying in their placing by more than a couple of score of feet.... About the corner was no sign of life, no hurrying figures stumbling headlong away from the peril, and Kendall wondered if life were present there, if life had been there, or if it had wholly ceased to exist. They walked on down the road to their car and returned to Montreuil, where Kendall had business with the Assistant Provost Marshal, who occupied a house on the edge of town, midway down the winding hill. As Ken’s car drew up at the house a gray camion stopped at an adjoining cottage, and Kendall saw a girl leap briskly down from the seat and run up the bank. She wore the uniform of the Y. M. C. A.... He recognized Maude Knox. His first impulse was to hasten to her, for he was as much delighted as astonished to see her in such a place, but something stopped him—call it curiosity. He was conscious of wanting to see how she acted, what she was doing, how she did it.... An American girl alone in a French hamlet deserted by its civil population! A girl alone with an army! Here was indeed a situation; here was romance; here was something to excite the imagination! Kendall leaned forward eagerly and watched.