There seemed an end of the outburst--probably an airman had signalled that the French were out of the woods--when one belated, harrowing scream seemed to have the pit of his stomach as a target just as he saw the white of a woman's gown, the wearer's face hidden by a branch. Then the crash came in front of him. Black smoke and a fountain of earth and shivered tree-roots hid the approaching figure and enveloped it, for it was nearer to the burst than he. Stunned, half thrown off his feet, as he regained them and realised that he was alive it was with the dagger thrust of horrible foreboding. The thing which he might have prevented must have happened. He rushed into the smoke, stumbled into the shell-crater and clambered wildly out of it, to see Helen rising unhurt and shaking the fresh, moist loam and splinters from her gown. Her hair had been blown almost free of its fastenings by the blast. She threw back her head at sight of him, her startled eyes glowing with the wonder of her escape and the supple figure drawn up as if testing the unscathed existence of muscle and nerve. She might be unnerved at the sight of blood, but she was not afraid of shells. "Thank heaven!" gasped Phil, and admiringly. "But what are you doing here?" he demanded, in the reaction of anger over her folly. "You--I came to see what you were doing--yes, what you were doing here!" she said, between deep breaths. "Why not?" She broke into laughter, that of the challenge across the table at Truckleford, that of even a more reckless humour. "And your promise to stay in?" he asked. "I made none!" "And Henriette?" "In the cellar." "Thank heaven! But why are we talking here?" he added. "Yes, why?" she said, turning to go. Shells were still screaming far over the tree-tops. "I think we are safe enough, for the German guns are firing over our heads at the French infantry," he said. "We are between the lines." Helen said nothing, but walked on rapidly. "We were very lucky," he continued. "I had a glimpse of you before the burst. It was an awful moment of suspense." "If we had been a few yards further along or had started a few seconds sooner--how simple!" she added. "I mean, some more people would have been killed in this war--I mean--well, here we are!" and she looked up, smiling. "None came near the house?" he asked. "One burst outside the dining-room just as I was leaving," she answered, "but it couldn't have hurt anybody in the cellar. You see the house is quite intact," she added, as they came in sight of it. "I'm sure that Henriette is safe--and I must add another cartoon to the history of the surviving Sanford, how he dodged the shells!"