ars--my
personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be
coincident with my country's mishaps.... So I thought--if they sent an
officer who would be kind enough to understand----"

"I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?"

"Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o'clock in the afternoon."

"And--the clocks?"

"For a week they have been all wrong."

"What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously.

"Five."

"No matter where the hands point?"

"No matter. I have tried to regulate them. I have done everything I could
do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I
have"--a pale smile touched her lips--"I have been a little
wakeful--perhaps a trifle uneasy--on my country's account. You
understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than
uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely
bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to
understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the
race whose name she bore.

The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his
respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly
believed what she told him.

But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was
another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena
other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in
medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on
earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it. And
this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however
accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to
comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood
of every Breton ever born.

But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand
your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of
great nervous tension in France--of heart-racking suspense----"

She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur."

"I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a
natural explanation concerning these matters."

"I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no
explanation."

"Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything
in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?"

"T