We met again during the next halt. No one had the heart to say a word. Each one of us felt capable of mastering his own distress, but if they all came to be fused and strengthened by each other, there would be nothing for it but to sob.... CHAPTER XIII A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER We were billeted in a school, a pleasant change after the wretched holes we had been given in Argonne. I slept until it was broad daylight. When I awoke, our _poilus_ had been up for a long time. Judsi was parting his hair, and talking of asking for leave to go and see his lady friend. I went on lying in my corner for quite a long time. I was haunted by the gloomy speculations which had attacked me the day before. I thought of you, Jeannine, and wondered if you were thinking of me.... De Valpic appeared at the door and glanced round the room. He caught sight of me and came up. "Good morning, old chap!" He sat down beside me. "This Paris air does buck one up. I'm in the 'pink' this morning!" He coughed. "And what about you?" "Not so dusty." He continued: "You did look cut up last night. Directly I got up, I said to myself, now it's my turn to go and cheer him up!" I smiled. "Awfully decent of you, but did I need it as much as all that?" There was a moment's silence, while his warm gaze probed me. Then he put his hand on my shoulder: "We aren't getting letters," he said, "but it doesn't mean that they have forgotten us, old man!" He had accentuated his words, with the intuition of a generous heart. How cleverly he had seen through the almost unconscious yet ever-present motive of my bitterness. I hoped he would continue--but he did not force my reserve. Simply and quietly he began to open his heart to me again, as he had the other day. I learnt that his betrothed was named Anne-Marie, and he told me her family name too, an illustrious one, as I had supposed. The last card he had had from her had been sent from Laon, he said.... Yes, she was down there with a detachment of nurses. De Valpic spoke slowly, in his expressive, caressing voice. He told me what strength and stoical tenacity of purpose he had drawn more than once, from the tender daily letter. Without this assistance he would have faltered and fallen at the beginning. He considered that now was the time, when he, like me, had been deprived of all news, for so long, to stand fast, to show himself worthy of her, to put forth all the strength which she had inculcated into him.