For Madeleine it was easier. She simply went on behaving beautifully. The week had not been spoiled by one cross word. To the end, she found no fault with Skene, herself, or Fate. Such tenderness as life had not already rubbed out of her, showed itself in her solicitude as to his sandwiches and half-bottle of wine. It would be cold, she warned him, as they paced the platform of the Gare du Nord. If he passed by the farm he would say a word to her father and Marie. He promised, stoical as she, and habituated to War-time farewells. He did not allude to the future. She kept herself wrapped in uncritical passivity. The train was made up. She saw his out-of-shape cap, khaki back, and tightly clothed legs disappear successively in the doorway of the carriage. He came out again, having secured his corner, and they paced the asphalt of the station for yet a few minutes, in silence. Then at shoutings and whistlings and blowings of tin trumpets, without which no French train can start, he disappeared again, but, the door closed, hung out of the window. The train was full of French leave-men, many drunk. One in particular, who was wearing a bowler hat on his uniform, noticed Skene and Madeleine just as the train began to move, and shouted, “I know what you’ve been doing, English officer and little lady!” Skene waved and was gone. Madeleine turned and went. “Know what you’ve been doing” rang in her ears. A smile curled the corners of her mouth. Men looked after her again now that she was alone. She walked, taking pleasure in exercise and the keen air, to the little hotel in the stony street, paid the bill, with the money Skene had given her, reclaimed her hold-all, strained to bursting with the things he had bought for her. Then she demanded a taxi, which she dismissed in front of the Pantheon, and walked on foot to Monsieur and Madame Petit’s. She ascended the stone stairs, cold and bare as penury, and knocked. Monsieur opened to her with a short piece of candle, carefully screened in his hand. He closed the door and led her into the fireless dining-room, from which her room opened. He peered at her. “Well, this war, how goes it?” “But gently!” she replied, not guessing what he was driving at. “Come, your brother told you nothing?” In a moment it came back to her, that she had been spending a week’s “leave” with her “brother.” She faced the peering old eyes. “You know that the men in the trenches never say anything!” He was rebuffed, but tried again. “The Boulogne train must have been very late!” But she was on her guard now, and replied readily enough: “Very late. The Bosche were bombing Amiens!”