an inn as you can find in Luxembourg, or in Belgium either. Then
I'll follow you to Sedan."

They all rose from the table; Lorraine came and held out her
hand, thanking Grahame for his kindness to them and to Rickerl.

"Good-by," said Grahame, going with them to the door. "There's
your dog-cart; it's paid for, and here's a little bag of French
money--no thanks, my dear fellow; we can settle all that later.
But what the deuce you two children are going to Sedan for is
more than my old brains can comprehend."

He stood, with handsome head bared, and bent gravely over
Lorraine's hands--impulsive little hands, now trembling, as the
tears of gratitude trembled on her lashes.

And so they drove away in their dog-cart, down the flat,
poplar-bordered road, silent, deeply moved, wondering what the
end might be.

The repeated shocks, the dreadful experiences and encounters, the
indelible impressions of desolation and grief and suffering had
deadened in Lorraine all sense of personal suffering or grief.
For her land and her people her heart had bled, drop by drop--her
sensitive soul lay crushed within her. Nothing of selfish despair
came over her, because France still stood. She had suffered too
much to remember herself. Even her love for Jack had become
merely a detail. She loved as she breathed--involuntarily. There
was nothing new or strange or sweet in it--nothing was left of
its freshness, its grace, its delicacy. The bloom was gone.

In her tired breast her heart beat faintly; its burden was the weary
repetition of a prayer--an old, old prayer--a supplication--for
mercy, for France, and for the salvation of its people. Where she
had learned it she did not know; how she remembered it, why she
repeated it, minute by minute, hour by hour, she could not tell.
But it was always beating in her heart, this prayer--old, so
old!--and half forgotten--

"'To Thee, Mary, exalted--
To Thee, Mary, exalted--'"

Her tired heart took up the rhythm where her mind refused to
follow, and she leaned on Jack's shoulder, looking out over the
gray land with innocent, sorrowful eyes.

Vaguely she remembered her lonely childhood, but did not grieve;
vaguely she thought of her youth, passing away from a tear-drenched
land through the smoke of battles. She did not grieve--the last sad
tear for self had fallen and quenched the last smouldering spark of
selfishness. The wasted hills of her province seemed to rise from
their ashes a