She told him, as briefly as might be, what Heinz had told him—of a world in upheaval and nations at grips with each other; the same story if not from the same point of view. She added that he was now on French soil (which he had not guessed) some miles from the Belgian frontier, and that it would be possible, she hoped, to make the journey onward by rail. The French were falling back and the district had been warned of the likelihood of enemy occupation; she supposed that the needs of the army had absorbed the local rolling-stock, for there had been no passenger train on their small branch line that day. The authorities, however, had promised one to Paris in the morning and she, herself, was waiting in the hope of obtaining a seat. She hesitated and broke off at the sound of shuffling feet in the passage outside—slow feet and uncertain, as of men who carried a burden. William heard the sound likewise and, guessing its meaning, would have risen and gone to the door; but she kept him to his seat with a hand on his shoulder and he obeyed the touch because, at the moment, it was easier to obey than to resist. He sat and trembled, twisting his fingers, while the shuffling died away into momentary silence, followed by trampling and the closing of a door as the burden-bearers went out.... Then silence again, a much longer silence, till the stout priest entered the room, moving quietly, as men are accustomed to move in the neighbourhood of those whom no sound can arouse or disturb. He spoke softly at some length to the Englishwoman, who, having listened and nodded, turned to William and told him that if he would like to go to her—— He followed the priest down the passage to a room at the back of the house; wherein, on a table, and covered by a sheet, they had laid the body of his wife. There were long candles burning around the table and on either side of her a little metal vase filled with roses. The priest stood aside in the doorway for William to enter, bowed his head in a prayer and went out; when he had gone William crept to the table, turned the sheet from her face and looked down—on Griselda dowered with a grave dignity that had never been hers while she lived.... Some one had washed away the stains of the road and arranged the disordered rags that had once been a dress; the hair was smoothed out of its three-day tangle and her poor hands crossed on her breast. He stayed with her till dusk had thickened into darkness, sometimes standing at her side to look down on her face, sometimes bowed to his knees by the burden of the years without her. When the priest came back to rouse him he was crouched in the attitude of prayer; but his prayer (if such it might be called) was only the eternal petition of the bereaved, "Would God that I had died instead!"