man fliers turned tail,
disappointed; besides, the anti-aircraft gun which we'd been told about,
and had seen on our way to the convent, was potting away like mad, so it
wasn't healthful for aeroplanes to linger merely "on spec."

Mother Beckett was pale and trembling a little, but she said that she
had been too anxious about me, in my absence, to think of herself, which
was perhaps a good thing. I noticed, when I joined them in the garden,
after the roar had changed again to a buzz, that Dierdre stood close to
Brian, and that his hand was on her shoulder, her hand on Sirius's
beautiful head. Yet I felt too strangely happy to be jealous. I suppose
it must have been through my prayer--or the answer to it.

* * * * *

When all was clear and the danger over (our guide said that the "birds"
never made more than one tour of inspection in an afternoon) we started
off again. Father Beckett suggested that his wife had better go home and
rest, but she wouldn't hear of it. And when we reached a turning of the
road which would lead us to Coucy-le Chateau, it was she who begged our
lieutenant to let us run along that way, "just far enough for a glimpse,
a _tiny_ glimpse."

"My son wrote me it was the most wonderful old chateau in France," she
pleaded. "I've got in my pocket now a snapshot he sent me."

The Frenchman couldn't resist. You know how charming the French are to
old ladies. "It isn't as safe as--as the Bank of England!" he laughed.
"Sometimes they keep this road rather hot. But to-day, I have told you,
things are quiet all along. We will take what Madame calls a tiny
glimpse."

Orders were given to our chauffeur. Brian was with the O'Farrells,
coming on behind, and of course the Red Cross taxi followed at our heels
like a faithful dachshund. Our big car flew swiftly, and the little one
did its jolting best to keep up the pace, for time wouldn't wait for
us--and these autumn days are cutting themselves short.

Presently we saw a thing which proved that the road was indeed "hot"
sometimes: a neat, round shell-hole, which looked ominously new! We
swung past it with a bump, and flashed into sight of a ruin which
dwarfed all others we had seen--yes, dwarfed even cathedrals! A long
line of ramparts rising from a high headland of gray-white
chalk-ramparts crowned with broken, round towers, which the sun was
painting with heraldic gold: the stump of a tremendous keep that reared
its bulk lik