other soldiers who were in the
background and ordered them to search the house. This they did with
thoroughness. Marie had forgotten about the equipment of Captain
Grivelet in the cellar, but it was brought home to her with a shock
when the searchers came up bearing the stuff the French officer had
left. The soldier in charge eyed the Padre and his niece sternly. He
demanded to know to whom this equipment belonged.

"Marie very frankly told him that an officer had requested permission
to leave the equipment there, and had slept in the house. Beyond that
she knew nothing, nor did she know what his luggage contained.

"'I shall report this to my commander. I know not what he will do, but
giving aid to the enemy is a serious matter,' he warned. Then the
soldiers went away. That day neither the Padre nor Marie left the
house. Late in the afternoon an officer entered and questioned them
sharply, finally leaving, apparently satisfied with their answers. The
two were not disturbed again.

"Next day the Padre went to his church and Marie went out to do her
marketing. She was unmolested, though soldiers frequently spoke to her
jokingly, to all of which she smiled and made some bright reply.

"That night as she sat thinking in her room in the dark, her
conversation with Captain Grivelet suddenly came back to her. He had
been about to tell her something of importance, something that he
wished her to do for her people.

"'The cellar!' exclaimed the child.

"Snatching up a candle, she hurried below and holding the light above
her head, surveyed the low-ceilinged cellar keenly.

"'I see nothing,' murmured the girl. 'But surely there is something
here. It could not have been in the equipment that the Germans carried
away with them, for they searched the Captain's belongings and found
nothing. That I plainly saw with my own eyes.'

"Marie gave up her quest and, returning to her room, went to bed. The
greater part of the night she lay awake, disturbed now and then by
vollies of rifle shots, which she interpreted with a shudder. Some of
her neighbors were meeting a terrible fate, a fate that yet might be
hers or her uncle's, or both.

"On the following morning, after a soldier had visited their home and
again searched it, Marie, still troubled by her failure to find that
which the French captain had started to confide in her, locked the
door after the Padre's departure for his church, and once more went to
the cellar.

"Thi