In his pedantic way he began to tell her the story of Jeanne, so far as he knew it. He told her of the girl standing in the night wind and rain on the bluff by the turning of the road. He told her of Doggie's insane adventure across No Man's Land to the farm of La Folette. Tears rolled down Peggy's cheeks. She cried, incredulous: "Doggie did that? Doggie?" "It was child's play to what he had to do at Guedecourt." But Peggy waved away the vague heroism of Guedecourt. "Doggie did that? For a woman?" The whole elaborate structure of her conception of Doggie tumbled down like a house of cards. "Ay," said Phineas. "He did that"--Phineas had given an imaginative and picturesque account of the episode--"for this girl Jeanne?" "It is a strange coincidence, Mrs. Manningtree," replied Phineas, with a flicker of his lips elusively suggestive of unctuousness, "that almost those identical words were used by Mademoiselle Bossiere in my presence. '_Il a fait cela pour moi!_' But--you will pardon me for saying it--with a difference of intonation, which, as a woman, no doubt you will be able to divine and appreciate." "I know," said Peggy. She bent forward and picked with finger and thumb at the fluff of the blanket. Then she said, intent on the fluff: "If a man had done a thing like that for me, I should have crawled after him to the ends of the earth." Presently she looked up with a flash of the eyes. "Why isn't this girl doing it?" "You must listen to the end of the story," said Phineas. "I may tell you that I always regarded myself, with my Scots caution, as a model of tact and discretion; but after many conversations with Doggie, I'm beginning to have my doubts. I also imagined that I was very careful of my personal belongings; but facts have convicted me of criminal laxity." Peggy smiled. "That sounds like a confession, Mr. McPhail." "Maybe it's in the nature of one," he assented. "But by your leave, Mrs. Manningtree, I'll resume my narrative." He continued the story of Jeanne: how she had learned through him of Doggie's wealth and position and early upbringing; of the memorable dinner-party with poor Mo; of Doggie's sensitive interpretation of her French _bourgeoise_ attitude; and finally the loss of the letter containing her address in Paris.