“If it’s true, they’ll be glad enough to know.” “It will cost something.” “Leave the money to me.” She had made up her mind and she was going. Independent as were few girls of her sort, she was too conventional to risk the journey alone. That would be to court scandal. So her father must come with her. At the station they got into some difficulty about tickets. The line was almost entirely military. The gray-haired Commissioner was an acquaintance. “What are you going to do there, you two?” Madeleine pushed before her father. “We are going to see a wounded relative in hospital!” “Well, you can have privilege tickets. All you want is the certificate of the Mairie.” Madeleine knew better than to argue on such a point. She drew the old man outside. “Get down to the ‘Golden Key’ and come back with the cart. Look sharp!” “Why not drive all the way?” “Twenty kilometers there and twenty back; we should not be home all night, and supposing an English regiment comes to the farm when I’m not there?” One of the great advantages Madeleine possessed over her father was that she could think so much quicker. The old man had fetched the cart, Madeleine had done her shopping, and they were two kilometers on the road home before he had thought of the next objection: “What are you going to say to Blanquart?” Blanquart was the schoolmaster and secretary of the Mairie. “That I want a certificate that we have relatives at the war.” “But that won’t get you a cheap ticket to visit the young baron in hospital.” “You leave it to me.” Obedient, the old man left it. Blanquart was not at the Mairie, he was measuring fields for an “expertise,” a professional assessment. Leaving the cart on the road, Madeleine lifted her best skirt and stepped over the clods to him. He was busy and interested in his job, and didn’t want to be dragged home to the Mairie. At her suggestion he wrote the certificate on the next fair page of the big square pocket-book he was covering with figures. He was not very curious about the matter. The Vanderlyndens were the best-known family in the parish. The loss of the two boys was no secret. He was asked every day for the endless certificates, questionnaires, lists and returns by which France is governed: “You are going to join the Society of the Friends of the Prisoners of War, I suppose?” Madeleine let him suppose, only murmuring that one did what one could in such times. He wrote: “I, Anastasius Amadeus Blanquart, Secretary of the Mairie of the Commune of Hondebecq, certify that Vanderlynden, Jerome, cultivator, has male relatives mobilized for military service,” and signed. “Now you’ll want the official stamp. Ask my little Cécile. She knows where it is.” “Perfectly. And we thank you many times.” “There is nothing. Always at your service.” “Good day, Monsieur Blanquart.”