question when
they saw her.

"Better," answered her Mother. "In another week or two the doctor
thinks he can be moved."

She was about to enter the shop to speak to Madame Coudert, when the
air was suddenly rent by a fearful roar of sound. She clasped her
children in her arms. "It's like thunder," she said, patting them
soothingly; "if you hear the roar you know at once that you aren't
killed. Come, we must hurry to the cellar." But before she could take a
single step in that direction there was another terrible explosion.

"Look, oh look!" screamed Pierre, pointing to the Cathedral towers,
which were visible from where they stood; "they are shelling the
Cathedral!"

For an instant they stood as if rooted to the spot. Was it possible the
Germans would shell the place where their own wounded lay--a place
protected by the cross? They saw the scaffolding about one of the
towers burst suddenly into flames. In another moment the fire had
caught and devoured the Red Cross flag itself and then sprang like a
thing possessed to the roof. An instant more, and that too was burning.

"Father!" screamed Pierre, and before any one could stop him or even
say a word, the boy was far up the street, running like a deer toward
the Cathedral. Pierrette was but a few steps behind him.

When she saw her children rushing madly into such danger, Mother
Meraut's exhausted body gave way beneath the demands of her spirit. If
Madame Coudert had not caught her, she would have sunk down upon the
step. It was only for an instant, but in that instant the children had
passed out of sight. Not stopping even to close her door, Madame
Coudert seized Mother Meraut's hand, and together the two women ran
after them. But they could not hope to rival the speed of fleet young
feet, and when they reached the Cathedral square the flames were
already roaring upward into the very sky. The streets were crowded by
this time, and their best speed brought them to the square ten minutes
after the children had reached the burning Cathedral, and, heedless of
danger, had dashed in and to the corner where their helpless Father lay.

The place was swarming with doctors and nurses working frantically to
move the wounded. The Abbe' was there, and the Archbishop also. Already
the straw had caught fire in several places from falling brands. "Out
through the north transept," shouted the Abbe.

Pierre and Pierrette knew well what they had come to do. For them there
was b