“We have a little business to attend to,” having made up her mind that no one would guess what it was. She was right. Thus she set running the right stream of vague gossip. For weeks after, the news ran through all the surrounding communes, and flowed back to Hondebecq, that she and her father had been to St. Omer by train. It circulated from the inn of “Lion of Flanders” to the restaurant “The Three Crown-pieces,” even descended to mere estaminets like the “Return from the Congo” and the “Brave Sapeur-Pompier.” No one could make it out. Victor Dequidt soon rejoined his regiment, and if he mentioned the young baron, no one except Madeleine was curious enough to ask which hospital he had gone to. Nor did anyone know of Madeleine’s particular interest in him. At last, when the tale got to the café-restaurant “de la Gare et de Commerce,” one of the gaziers or bullock merchants who used that more business quarter of the village was able to propound a theory. There was an English Forage Officer at St. Omer, and he had his depot just exactly at Naes’ farm, by the new sidings the English had had to make at Schaexen Halte for their hospital, so as to be out of the way of the bombing. No doubt old Vanderlynden had worked the trick all right with that officer (who was buying large quantities), and done well out of it. The certificate of having mobilized relatives that Blanquart had given in such a hurry (and which, of course, was known through Cécile and the other school-children), might be on account of Marcel Vanderlynden, or might be merely a blind. The original paper on which Madeleine had written her brother’s name remained in the archives of the station until all were burnt in the bombardment of December, 1917. * * * * *