o indifference. "I haven't been as far as Rechamp."

"But you must have seen people who'd been there--you must have heard."

"I've heard the masters were still there--so there must be something
standing. Maybe though," she reflected, "they're in the cellars...."

We continued to jog on through the dusk.

V

"There's the steeple!" Rechamp burst out.

Through the dimness I couldn't tell which way to look; but I suppose in
the thickest midnight he would have known where he was. He jumped from
the trap and took the old horse by the bridle. I made out that he was
guiding us into a long village street edged by houses in which
every light was extinguished. The snow on the ground sent up a pale
reflection, and I began to see the gabled outline of the houses and
the steeple at the head of the street. The place seemed as calm and
unchanged as if the sound of war had never reached it. In the open space
at the end of the village Rechamp checked the horse.

"The elm--there's the old elm in front of the church!" he shouted in
a voice like a boy's. He ran back and caught me by both hands. "It was
true, then--nothing's touched!" The old woman asked: "Is this Rechamp?"
and he went back to the horse's head and turned the trap toward a tall
gate between park walls. The gate was barred and padlocked, and not a
gleam showed through the shutters of the porter's lodge; but Rechamp,
after listening a minute or two, gave a low call twice repeated, and
presently the lodge door opened, and an old man peered out. Well--I
leave you to brush in the rest. Old family servant, tears and hugs and
so on. I know you affect to scorn the cinema, and this was it, tremolo
and all. Hang it! This war's going to teach us not to be afraid of the
obvious.

We piled into the trap and drove down a long avenue to the house. Black
as the grave, of course; but in another minute the door opened, and
there, in the hall, was another servant, screening a light--and then
more doors opened on another cinema-scene: fine old drawing-room with
family portraits, shaded lamp, domestic group about the fire. They
evidently thought it was the servant coming to announce dinner, and
not a head turned at our approach. I could see them all over Jean's
shoulder: a grey-haired lady knitting with stiff fingers, an old
gentleman with a high nose and a weak chin sitting in a big carved
armchair and looking more like a portrait than the portraits; a pretty
girl at his feet, w