She went on with her sewing. Doggie wondered how her hand could be so steady. There was a long silence. What words, save vain imprecations on the accursed race, were adequate? Presently her glance rested for a second or two on his sensitive face. "Why do you not smoke, Monsieur Trevor?" "May I?" "Of course. It calms the nerves. I ought not to have saddened you with my griefs." Doggie took out his pink packet and lit a cigarette. "You are very understanding, Mademoiselle Jeanne. But it does a selfish man like me good to be saddened by a story like yours. I have not had much opportunity in my life of feeling for another's suffering. And since the war--I am _abruti_." "You? Do you think if I had not found you just the reverse, I should have told you all this?" "You have paid me a great compliment, Mademoiselle Jeanne." Then, after awhile, he asked, "From the market-square of the little town you found means to come here?" "Alas, no!" she said, putting her work in her lap again. "I made my way, with my handcart--it was easy--to our original destination, a little farm belonging to the eldest brother of my father. The Farm of La Folette. He lived there alone, a widower, with his farm-servants. He had no children. We thought we were safe. Alas! news came that the Germans were always advancing. We had time to fly. All the farm-hands fled, except Pere Grigou, who loved him. But my uncle was obstinate. To a Frenchman, the soil he possesses is his flesh and his blood. He would die rather than leave it. And my uncle had the murder of my father and mother on his brain. He told Pere Grigou to take me away, but I stayed with him. It was Pere Grigou who forced us to hide. That lasted two days. There was a well in the farm, and one night Pere Grigou tied up my money and my mother's jewellery and my father's papers, _enfin_, all the precious things we had, in a packet of waterproof and sank it with a long string down the well, so that the Germans could not find it. It was foolish, but he insisted. One day my uncle and Pere Grigou went out of the little copse where we had been hiding, in order to reconnoitre, for he thought the Germans might be going away; and my uncle, who would not listen to me, took his gun. Presently I heard a shot--and then another. You can guess what it meant. And soon Pere Grigou came, white and shaking with terror. '_Il en a tue un, et on l'a tue!_'" "My God!" said Doggie again. "It was terrible," she said. "But they were in their right." "And then?"