lage to-night. Why?"

"Because, mademoiselle, there will be a bombardment."

"The village itself?"

"We expect it," he answered dryly.

Sara Lee went a little pale.

"But then I shall be needed, as I was before."

"No troops will pass through the town to-night. They will take a road
beyond the fields."

"How do you know these things?" she asked, wondering. "About the troops
I can understand. But the bombardment."

"There are ways of finding out, mademoiselle," he replied in his
noncommittal voice. "Now, will you go?"

"May I tell Marie and Rene?"

"No."

"Then I shall not go. How can you think that I would consider my own
safety and leave them here?"

Jean had ascertained before speaking that Marie was not in the house.
As for Rene, he sat on the single doorstep and whittled pegs on which to
hang his rifle inside the door. And as he carved he sang words of his
own to the tune of Tipperary.

Inside the little _salle a manger_ Jean reassured Sara Lee. It was
important--vital--that Rene and Marie should not know far in advance
of the bombardment. They were loyal, certainly, but these were his
orders. In abundance of time they would be warned to leave the village.

"Who is to warn them?"

"Henri has promised, mademoiselle. And what he promises is done."

"You said this morning that he was in England."

"He has returned."

Sara Lee's heart, which had been going along merely as a matter of duty
all day, suddenly began to beat faster. Her color came up, and then faded
again. He had returned, and he had not come to the little house. But
then--what could Henri mean to her, his coming or his going? Was she
to add to her other sins against Harvey the supreme one of being
interested in Henri?

Not that she said all that, even to herself. There was a wave of
gladness and then a surge of remorse. That is all. But it was a very
sober Sara Lee who put on her black suit with the white collar that
afternoon and ordered, by Jean's suggestion, the evening's preparations
as though nothing was to happen.

She looked round her little room before she left it. It might not be
there when she returned. So she placed Harvey's photograph under her
mattress for safety, and rather uncomfortably she laid beside it the
small ivory crucifix that Henri had found in a ruined house and brought
to her. Harvey was not a Catholic. He did not believe in visualizing
his religion. And she had a distinct impression that he considered su