f on chance. It was better than leaving the shells there for us.

After lunch we motored down to St. Quentin, and on the way stopped and
explored the great tunnel in the Canal du Nord. What a stronghold! It
seemed impossible that the Boche could have been driven out of it. (p. 091)
On the way down we travelled along a road _pave_ in the middle,
with mud on each side and the usual rows of trees, then a dip down to
the fields. These fields were full of dead Boche and horses. The road
had evidently been under observation a very little while back, as the
Labour Corps were hard at work filling in shell-holes, and the traffic
was held up a lot. In one spot in the mud at the side of the road lay
two British Tommies who had evidently just been killed. They had been
laid out ready for something to take them away. Standing beside them
were three French girls, all dressed up, silk stockings and crimped
hair. There they were, standing over the dead Tommies, asking if you
would not like "a little love." What a place to choose! Death all
round, and they themselves might be blown into eternity at any moment.
Death and the dead had become as nothing to the young generation. They
had lived through four years of hell with the enemy, and now they were
free. Another day I went to Douai, and there I saw the mad woman. Her
son told us she had been quite well until two days before the Boche
left, then they had done such things to her that she had lost her
reason. There she sat, silent and motionless, except for one thumb
which constantly twitched. But if one of us in uniform passed close to
her, she would give a convulsive shudder. It was sad, this woman with
her beautiful, curly-headed son. Later she was moved to Amiens, where
she had relatives. After about six months she became quite normal
again, and does not remember anything about it. The last time I saw
her she was cleaning the upstairs rooms at "Josephine's," the little
oyster-shop off the Street of the Three Pebbles.

[Illustration: XXXVIII. _The Mad Woman of Douai._]

One night at the "Hotel de la Paix" a weird thing happened. One (p. 092)
often hears strange stories of the powers different men and women have
over individuals of the opposite sex. As a rule, one hears, one
smiles, or one is rather disgusted; but seldom do we admit to
ourselves that these stories may be absolutely true--we nearly always
smile and think we are clever, and say to ourselves: "Ah! there's
someth