of them was but a part of his wicked, wanton spirit of
destructiveness. He could not see a place standing that he did not
want to destroy, I think. It was not war he made, as the world had
known war; it was a savage raid against every sign and evidence of
civilization, and comfort and happiness. But always, as I think I
have said before, one thing eluded him. It was the soul of that which
he destroyed. That was beyond his reach, and sore it must have
grieved him to come to know it--for come to know it he has, in
France, and in Belgium, too.

We passed through a wee town called Doullens on our way from
Tramecourt to Albert. And there, that morn, I saw an old French nun;
an aged woman, a woman old beyond all belief or reckoning. I think
she is still there, where I saw her that day. Indeed, it has seemed
to me, often, as I have thought upon her, that she will always be
there, gliding silently through the deserted streets of that wee
toon, on through all the ages that are to come, and always a cowled,
veiled figure of reproach and hatred for the German race.

There is some life in that wee place now. There are no more Germans,
and no more shells come there. The battle line has been carried on.
to the East by the British; here they have redeemed a bit of France
from the German yoke. And so we could stop there, in the heat of the
morning, for a bit of refreshment at a cafe that was once, I suppose,
quite a place in that sma' toon. It does but little business now;
passing soldiers bring it some trade, but nothing like what it used
to have. For this is not a town much frequented by troops--or was
not, just at that time.

There was some trouble, too, with one of the cars, so we went for a
short walk through the town. It was then that we met that old French
nun. Her face and her hands were withered, and deeply graven with the
lines of the years that had bowed her head. Her back was bent, and
she walked slowly and with difficulty. But in her eyes was a soft,
young light that I have often seen in the eyes of priests and nuns,
and that their comforting religion gives them. But as we talked I
spoke of the Germans.

Gone from her eyes was all their softness. They flashed a bitter and
contemptuous hatred.

"The Germans!" she said. She spat upon the ground, scornfully, and
with a gesture of infinite loathing. And every time she uttered that
hated word she spat again. It was a ceremony she used; she felt, I
know, that her mouth w