The German offensive in the North had not come to an end. The fighting round Ypres had caused us a recurrence of anguish. My father had another attack one evening when we once more thought--from reticences in the _communiqué_--that our line had been forced and penetrated, and that the road to Calais was open. A few words from Jeannine--a supplementary card, that one--were what reassured us, before all the papers. An aide-de-camp from Foch had just been dining with them, and had given them details. The situation had been critical, desperate, one day, but it had been tardily re-established the next day, and was now consolidated, and no longer gave any cause for alarm. I read the whole passage to my father. He gave a sigh of relief. "We are saved, then! The source of your information seems reliable. Is it one of your friends, who's written to you?" "A friend, yes." Later on, quite soon, it would be sweet to open my heart to him, to claim his blessing on the daughter I should bring him. The Landrys had again put off the date of their departure. Jeannine gave me to understand, with a certain emphasis, that some business matters could not be settled. I had the delicacy never to ask for details. This delay suited me very well. I would have given a lot for them not to join us before the ghastly "stump" had been relegated to the rubbish heap. Jeannine had, perhaps, guessed as much. Oh! our correspondence at that point. I cannot prevent myself from returning to the subject. Its tone of complete confidence, of youthful abandonment. Oh! my loving beloved; arrayed in every attraction, who did not intoxicate me solely by the enchantment of her clear life and warm seduction, nor solely by the goodness which all her being irradiated. She was the intellectual companion, too--the complement, for which man's instinct yearns, and which he discovers so rarely.