"I must pack," replied Henriette rather irrelevantly, and was gone. Irritating enough this task at all times, let alone when you may take only a small box and everything that you leave behind may fall into the hands of a conqueror. Henriette looked into the big closet at the array of gowns and the row of shoes under the drooping skirts and spread out her hands hopelessly. "I can buy new gowns," she said. "It's the laces and jewelry and the mementoes that must go." She unlocked an old carved chest and in turn unlocked a drawer within which was crammed full of bundles of letters, each tied with a bit of pink ribbon. There must have been a dozen bundles and she smiled at their number. "When I am so young, too!" she mused. "Why take them? Why not leave them locked up? But the Germans might break open the chest and read them. No, they must go--at the very bottom of the trunk;" where she laid the trophies of conquest before she thought of anything else. The firing had died down. All sense of fear had departed. After slipping into her kimono she moved about the room swiftly, gathering her most precious things. She had forgotten to draw the shade and Phil, returning from the terrace, saw her figure flitting about as he came down the path. Pausing to regard the trunk which was already giving signs of the limit of its capacity, she heard the sound of his step on the gravel. Leaning out of the window she called to him. "Have you been out to see the battle again? I suppose you felt you might go as long as the General remains on the sofa to guard us poor, lone women!" "He went on some errand and begged me to express his regrets if he does not see you again," Phil replied. "My packing has gone on so fast that I am coming down and going to the terrace for a look for myself." She gave a glance in the mirror. The kimono was good enough; it was particularly becoming, besides. "Aren't we giving you more entertainment than we promised at Mervaux?" she asked merrily, as she joined him. "But oughtn't you to sleep?" he suggested. "Seven is a pretty early hour. There's no telling how much rest you'll get to-morrow." "Sleep?" She looked at him, with the light of the lamp from the hall dancing in her eyes. "One must be sleepy in order to sleep." "I see that you are not." "Was Helen very frightened when the guns began firing?" she asked. "Not a bit," he replied. "Why should she be? Why should any one be?"