ive to see again. A
few months more, a few battles, a few villages in flames, a few
cities ravaged, a few thousand corpses piled from the frontier to
the Loire--and then, what? Why, an emperor the less and an
emperor the more, and a new name for a province--that is all.

His delicate, high-bred face fell; he shaded his sad eyes with
one thin hand and wrote again--all that a good son writes to a
mother, all that a good soldier writes to a sovereign, all that a
good prince writes to an empress.

"Oh, what sad eyes!" whispered Lorraine; "he is too young to see
such things."

"He may see worse," said Jack. "Come, shall we walk around the
lawn to the dining-room?"

They descended the dark steps, her arm resting lightly on his,
and he guided her through a throng of gossiping cavalrymen and
hurrying but polite officers towards the western wing of the
Chateau, the trample of the passing army always in their ears.

As he was about to cross the drive, a figure stepped from the
shadow of the porte-cochere--a man in a rough tweed suit, who
lifted his wide-awake politely and asked Jack if he was not
English.

"American," said Jack, guardedly.

The man was apparently much relieved. He made a frank, manly
apology for his intrusion, looked appealingly at Lorraine, and
said, with a laugh: "The fact is, I'm astray in the wrong camp. I
rode out from the Spicheren and got mixed in the roads, and first
I knew I fell in with Frossard's Corps, and I can't get away. I
thought you were an Englishman; you're American, it seems, and
really I may venture to feel that there is hope for me--may I
not?"

"Why, yes," said Jack; "whatever I can do, I'll do gladly."

"Then let me observe without hesitation," continued the man,
smiling under his crisp mustache, "that I'm in search of a modest
dinner and a shelter of even more modest dimensions. I'm a war
correspondent, unattached just at present, but following the
German army. My name is Archibald Grahame."

At the name of the great war correspondent Jack stared, then
impulsively held out his hand.

"Aha!" said Grahame, "you must be a correspondent, too. Ha! I
thought I was not wrong."

He bowed again to Lorraine, who returned his manly salute very
sweetly. "If," she thought, "Jack is inclined to be nice to this
sturdy young man in tweeds, I also will be as nice as I can."

"My name is Marche--Jack Marche," said Jack, in some trepidation.
"I am not a correspondent--that is, not an act