ned by
their heavy slumber, revolted at the food. Like a prudent old campaigner
Jean cut a loaf in two halves and placed one in Maurice's sack, the
other in his own. It was growing dark, it behooved them to be going.
Henriette, who was standing at the window watching the Prussian troops
incessantly defiling on distant la Marfee, the swarming legions of black
ants that were gradually being swallowed up in the gathering shadows,
involuntarily murmured:

"Oh, war! what a dreadful thing it is!"

Maurice, seeing an opportunity to retort her sermon to him, immediately
took her up:

"How is this, little sister? you are anxious to have people fight, and
you speak disrespectfully of war!"

She turned and faced him, valiantly as ever: "It is true; I abhor it,
because it is an abomination and an injustice. It may be simply because
I am a woman, but the thought of such butchery sickens me. Why cannot
nations adjust their differences without shedding blood?"

Jean, the good fellow, seconded her with a nod of the head, and nothing
to him, too, seemed easier--to him, the unlettered man--than to come
together and settle matters after a fair, honest talk; but Maurice,
mindful of his scientific theories, reflected on the necessity of
war--war, which is itself existence, the universal law. Was it not poor,
pitiful man who conceived the idea of justice and peace, while impassive
nature revels in continual slaughter?

"That is all very fine!" he cried. "Yes, centuries hence, if it shall
come to pass that then all the nations shall be merged in one; centuries
hence man may look forward to the coming of that golden age; and even in
that case would not the end of war be the end of humanity? I was a fool
but now; we must go and fight, since it is nature's law." He smiled and
repeated his brother-in-law's expression: "And besides, who can tell?"

He saw things now through the mirage of his vivid self-delusion, they
came to his vision distorted through the lens of his diseased nervous
sensibility.

"By the way," he continued cheerfully, "what do you hear of our cousin
Gunther? You know we have not seen a German yet, so you can't look to me
to give you any foreign news."

The question was addressed to his brother-in-law, who had relapsed into
a thoughtful silence and answered by a motion of his hand, expressive of
his ignorance.

"Cousin Gunther?" said Henriette, "Why, he belongs to the Vth corps and
is with the Crown Prince's army; I