The rumble and thump of the cannonade grew more intense; a violent engagement was evidently going on not far off. Troy pulled out his map and tried to calculate how far he was from the front; but the front, at that point, was a wavering and incalculable line. He had an idea that the fighting was much nearer than he or Jacks had imagined. The place at which they had broken down must be about fifteen miles from the Marne. But could it be possible that the Germans had crossed the Marne? Troy grew hungry, and thrust his hand in his pocket to pull out a sandwich. With it came a letter of his mother's, carried off in haste when he left Paris the previous morning. He re-read it with a mournful smile. "Of course we all know the Allies must win; but the preparations here seem so slow and blundering; and the Germans are still so strong...." (Thump, thump, the artillery echoed: "_Strong!_") And just at the end of the letter, again; "I do wonder if you'll run across Sophy...." He lit a cigarette, and shut his eyes and thought. The sight of Miss Warlick had made Sophy Wicks's presence singularly vivid to him: he had fallen asleep thinking of her the night before. How like her to have taken a course at the Presbyterian Hospital without letting any one know! He wondered that he had not suspected, under her mocking indifference, an ardour as deep as his own, and he was ashamed of having judged her as others had, when, for so long, the thought of her had been his torment and his joy. Where was she now, he wondered? Probably in some hospital in the south or the centre: the authorities did not let beginners get near the front, though, of course, it was what all the girls were mad for.... Well, Sophy would do her work wherever it was assigned to her: he did not see her intriguing for a showy post. Troy began to marvel again at the spell of France--his France! Here was a girl who had certainly not come in quest of vulgar excitement, as so many did: Sophy had always kept herself scornfully aloof from the pretty ghouls who danced and picnicked on the ruins of the world. He knew that her motives, so jealously concealed, must have been as pure and urgent as his own. France, which she hardly knew, had merely guessed at through the golden blur of a six weeks' midsummer trip, France had drawn her with an irresistible pressure; and the moment she had felt herself free she had come. "Whither thou goest will I go, thy people shall be my people...." Yes, France was the Naomi-country that had but to beckon, and her children rose and came.... Troy was exceedingly tired: he stretched himself on the dusty bank, and the noise of the road-traffic began to blend with the cannonade in his whirling brain. Suddenly he fancied the Germans were upon him. He thought he heard the peppering volley of machine-guns, shouts, screams, rifle-shots close at hand.... He sat up and rubbed his eyes.