By good roads and bad roads and no roads at all Martique found his way across country with unerring sagacity, until they found themselves at a level crossing a few miles behind the British advanced line. A long hospital train was waiting in a siding for the next convoy of motor ambulances which should arrive from the various dressing-stations. The little village, not much knocked about by shell-fire, was occupied by a reserve brigade, and as the cap crossed the rails Martique shut off his engines. "I thought so," he said, getting out and looking at one of his back tyres, "we punctured half a mile back on the road, and I must put on a spare wheel. She wants some water too, and an oil up, so I am afraid you will have to cool your heels for the next quarter of an hour. No," he added, as Dennis prepared to help him, "I do all my own repairs--much rather. Thanks, yes, I will have a cigarette," and Martique slipped off his coat. It was good to be back among his own people once more, and with a smile of immense satisfaction on his face Dennis strolled along the little street, taking everything in. There were Army Service Corps motor wagons on supply, and an infantry platoon came swinging round the corner, looking very bronzed and fit. From their black buttons he saw that they belonged to a rifle battalion in the reserve. An orderly was holding horses outside a dirty little estaminet, and, riding his machine on the cobbled sidewalk, a motor dispatch-rider threaded his way with marvellous skill among the little groups of villagers and fatigue parties. Where a lane crossed the street at right angles he saw the white line of a trench close to the backs of the houses, and walked towards it. At the corner of the trench a Red Cross nurse was in the act of posting a letter in the field collection box. There were nurses from the waiting ambulance train among the crowd in the street. After a long gaze over the country beyond the trench he returned to retrace his steps, when something in the attitude of the nurse at the pillar-box attracted his attention. Her back was towards him, and she was peering round the angle in a furtive kind of way. He stood still, and then he noticed that the door of the collecting box was open, and that while she peered along the deserted trench she was gathering the letters and dropping them into a receptacle beneath her white apron. "I didn't know they had women letter carriers out here," thought Dennis; "possibly they take them down on the hospital train for quickness' sake--and yet----" An indefinable suspicion followed on the heels of his surmise as the girl turned her head, and in an instant he recognised the red hair and dark eyes of the waitress in the London restaurant. The rumble of the motor lorries at the cross-roads deadened the noise of his approach as he came softly up behind her, and then his suspicions were confirmed beyond any possibility of doubt.