so.
He was fully twelve hours upon the road; and daylight was just
breaking in the east when--exhausted by hunger, fatigue, and loss
of blood--he crawled up to the door, and knocked.

There was a movement inside, but it was not until he had knocked
twice that a voice within asked:

"Who is there?"

"A wounded officer," Ralph said.

There was a whispered talk, inside.

"Let me in, my friends," he said, "for the remembrance of your boys
in Paris. There is no danger to you in doing so as, if the Germans
come, you have only to say you have a wounded officer. I can pay
you well."

"We don't care for pay," the woman of the house said; opening the
door, with a candle in her hand--and then falling back, with a cry
of horror, at the object before her: a man, tottering with fatigue,
and with his face a perfect mask of stiffened blood.

"You do not remember me," Ralph said. "I am the captain of the
staff who chatted to you, two days ago, about your boys in Paris."

"Poor boy!" the woman said, compassionately. "Come in.

"Monsieur will pardon me," she went on, apologetically, "for
speaking so, but I called you the boy captain, when I was telling
my good man what a bright--

"But there, what you want now is rest, and food. The question is
where to put you. We may be searched, at any time; though it's not
likely that we shall be, for a few days. The battle has gone away
in the direction of Orleans, and we have not seen half a dozen men
since I saw you, two days ago.

"The first thing is to give you something warm. You are half
frozen. Sit down for a few minutes. I will soon make a blaze."

Ralph sank down--utterly exhausted and worn out--in the settle by
the fireplace; and fell into a half doze, while the woman lit a
bright fire on the hearth. In a few minutes she had drawn some
liquor from the pot-au-feu--the soup pot--which stands by the
fireside of every French peasant, however poor; and into which all
the odds and ends of the household are thrown. This liquor she put
into a smaller pot; broke some bread into it, added an onion--which
she chopped up while it was warming--together with a little pepper
and salt and, in ten minutes from the time of Ralph's entry, she
placed a bowl of this mixture, smoking hot, before him.

At first, he seemed too exhausted to eat; but gradually his
appetite returned, and he finished off the hot broth.

"What shall I do to your wound, sir?" the woman said. "It is a
terrible sight,