. There is no
dignity which is proof against a sound bump upon the head. Thus
our irritations and suspicions gave way to laughter, and laughter
brings all the barriers down. The compartment became a confessional.
The anxious looking man opposite was hoping to get to his estate
and to bury a few of his most treasured things before the Germans
came. The two young fellows with scraggly beards were brothers,
given five days' leave to see a dying father; three days had been
spent in a vain effort to get started there. Another man had a half
telegram which read, "Accident at home you------" Not another word
had he been able to get through. The silent young man in the corner
smiled pleasantly when his turn came but volunteered no information.
I likewise passed.

Marie, wishing to fortify herself with all possible help in her venture,
told her tale in full. An immediate proffer came from the hitherto
taciturn young man in the corner. "Why, this is romance in earnest.
I do wish that I might be of some help," he said with genuine
interest.

Our new friend we found had for a grandfather no less a dignitary
than Alexander Dumas. His name he told us was Louis Dumas, an
artist, not yet called to the colors, and bound now for Villeneuve,
"and before we can really get acquainted, here we are," he said as
the train came to a stop.

As he stepped to the door it was flung open by an officer who
shouted, "Everybody out! This car is for the military." We
protested. We displayed our tickets. The officer laughed and,
seizing one reluctant passenger, dragged him out. A quickly
ejected and much dejected band, we found ourselves upon the
street of a little outlying village nine miles from Paris. It had taken
half as many hours to get there.

We fell upon the one village gendarme with a volley of questions.
By pitching her voice above the hubbub, Marie got in her inquiry
about the distance to Melun.

"Thirty kilometers by the main road," he answered.

This, then, was the issue of that tense day of strategy and daring:
to be stranded in this suburb from which it was impossible to go
forward to Melun and almost as difficult to return to Paris. Marie
crumpled under the blow and then I realized how much it had cost
her to maintain that calm outward demeanor.

By sheer will-power she had kept the tears from her eyes and the
tremor from her limbs. Long held in leash, they now leaped out to
possess her.

Dumas ran hither and thither, huntin