"We lay hidden until it was dark--how they did not find us I don't know--and then we escaped across country. I thought of coming here to my Aunt Morin, which is not far from La Folette, but I reflected that soon the Boches would be here also. And we went on. We got to a high road--and once more I was among troops and refugees. I met some kind folks in a carriage, a Monsieur and Madame Tarride, and they took me in. And so I got to Paris, where I had the hospitality of a friend of the Convent who was married." "And Pere Grigou?" "He insisted on going back to bury my uncle. Nothing could move him. He had not parted from him all his life. They were foster-brothers. Where he is now, who knows?" She paused, looked again at her ghosts, and continued: "That is all, Monsieur Trevor. The Germans passed through here and repassed on their retreat, and, as soon as it was safe, I came to help my aunt, who was _souffrante_, and had lost her son. Also because I could not live on charity on my friend, for, _voyez-vous_, I was without a sou--all my money having been hidden in the well by Pere Grigou." Doggie leant his elbows on the table. "And you have come through all that, Mademoiselle Jeanne, just as you are----?" "How, just as I am?" "So gentle and kind and comprehending?" Her cheek flushed. "I am not the only Frenchwoman who has passed through such things and kept herself proud. But the struggle has been very hard." Doggie rose and clenched his fists and rubbed his head from front to back in his old indecisive way, and began to swear incoherently in English. She smiled sadly. "_Ah, mon pauvre ami!_" He wheeled round: "Why do you call me '_mon pauvre ami_'?" "Because I see that you would like to help me and you can't." "Jeanne," cried Doggie, bending half over the table which was between them. She rose too, startled, on quick defensive. He said, in reply to her glance: "Why shouldn't I call you Jeanne?" "You haven't the right." "What if I gain it?" "How?" "I don't know," said Doggie. The door burst suddenly open and the anxious face of Mo Shendish appeared. "'Ere, you silly cuckoo, don't yer know you're on guard to-night? You've just got about thirty seconds." "Good lord!" cried Doggie, "I forgot. _Bon soir, mademoiselle. Service militaire_," and he rushed out. Mo lingered, with a grin, and jerked a backward thumb. "If it weren't for old Mo, miss, I don't know what would happen to our friend Doggie. I got to look after him like a baby, I 'ave. He's on to relieve guard, and if old Mac--that's McPhail"--she nodded recognition of the name--"and I hadn't remembered, miss, he'd 'ave been in what yer might call a 'ole. Compree?" "_Oui._ Yes," she said. "_Garde. Sentinelle._" "Sentinel. Sentry. Right." "He--was--late," she said, picking out her few English words from memory. "Yuss," grinned Mo. "He--guard--house?"