it out.

"It's the young girl I am engaged to. She was at Rechamp visiting my
parents when war was declared; but she was to leave the day after I
did...." He hesitated. "There may have been some difficulty about her
going.... I should like to be sure she got away.... Her name is Yvonne
Malo."

He did not offer me the photograph, and I did not need it. That girl had
a face of her own! Dark and keen and splendid: a type so different
from the others that I found myself staring. If he had not said "_ma
fiancee_" I should have understood better. After another pause he went
on: "I will give you her address in Paris. She has no family: she lives
alone--she is a musician. Perhaps you may find her there." His colour
deepened again as he added: "But I know nothing--I have had no news of
her either."

To ease the silence that followed I suggested: "But if she has no
family, wouldn't she have been likely to stay with your people, and
wouldn't that be the reason of your not hearing from her?"

"Oh, no--I don't think she stayed." He seemed about to add: "If she
could help it," but shut his lips and slid the picture out of sight.

As soon as I got back to Paris I made enquiries, but without result.
The Germans had been pushed back from that particular spot after a
fortnight's intermittent occupation; but their lines were close by,
across the valley, and Rechamp was still in a net of trenches. No one
could get to it, and apparently no news could come from it. For the
moment, at any rate, I found it impossible to get in touch with the
place.

My enquiries about Mlle. Malo were equally unfruitful. I went to the
address Rechamp had given me, somewhere off in Passy, among gardens, in
what they call a "Square," no doubt because it's oblong: a kind of long
narrow court with aesthetic-looking studio buildings round it. Mlle.
Malo lived in one of them, on the top floor, the concierge said, and
I looked up and saw a big studio window, and a roof-terrace with dead
gourds dangling from a pergola. But she wasn't there, she hadn't been
there, and they had no news of her. I wrote to Rechamp of my double
failure, he sent me back a line of thanks; and after that for a long
while I heard no more of him.

By the beginning of November the enemy's hold had begun to loosen in the
Argonne and along the Vosges, and one day we were sent off to the
East with a couple of ambulances. Of course we had to have military
chauffeurs, and the one attached to