"'Oh, we're people who don't matter, we have nothing to fear! Besides, our place is here.' "I said that so was mine; but I saw that she could not understand. "Jérôme, when I meet him, shakes his head and looks at me sadly. "_Tuesday, 4 August._ "I have not the least doubt of what my duty is. I would rather die than turn my back on it. But how am I to fulfil that duty and get at the truth? I am full of courage; and yet I am always crying, as though I had nothing better to do. The fact is that I am always thinking of Paul. Where is he? What has become of him? When Jérôme told me this morning that war was declared, I thought that I should faint. So Paul is going to fight. He will be wounded perhaps. He may be killed. God knows if my true place is not somewhere near him, in a town close to where he is fighting! What have I to hope for in staying here? My duty to my mother, yes, I know. Ah, mother, I beseech your forgiveness . . . but, you see, I love my husband and I am so afraid of anything happening to him! . . . "_Thursday, 6 August._ "Still crying. I grow unhappier every day. But I feel that, even if I became still more so, I would not desist. Besides, how can I go to him when he does not want to have anything more to do with me and does not even write? Love me? Why, he loathes me! I am the daughter of a woman whom he hates above all things in the world. How unspeakably horrible! If he thinks like that of my mother and if I fail in my task, we shall never see each other again! That is the life I have before me. "_Friday, 7 August._ "I have made Jérôme and Rosalie tell me all about mother. They only knew her for a few weeks, but they remember her quite well; and what they said made me feel so happy! She was so good, it seems, and so pretty; everybody worshiped her. "'She was not always very cheerful,' said Rosalie. 'I don't know if it was her illness already affecting her spirits, but there was something about her, when she smiled, that went to one's heart.' "My poor, darling mother! "_Saturday, 8 August._ "We heard the guns this morning, a long way off. They are fighting 25 miles away. "Some French soldiers have arrived. I had seen some of them pretty often from the terrace, marching down the Liseron Valley. But these are going to stay at the house. The captain made his apologies. So as not to inconvenience me, he and his lieutenants will sleep and have their meals in the lodge where Jérôme and Rosalie used to live. "_Sunday, 9 August._