t
is absent, that concerns pathology, not the police!"

I did not mean to wound her--I was intensely in earnest; I wanted her
to show just a single glimmer of sympathy for her own country. It
seemed as though I could not endure to look at such a woman and know
that the primal passion, born with those who had at least wept for
their natal Eden, was meaningless to her.

She had turned a trifle pale; now she sank back into her chair,
looking at me with those troubled gray eyes in which Heaven itself had
set truth and loyalty.

I said: "I do not believe that you care nothing for France. Train and
curb and crush your own heart as you will, you cannot drive out that
splendid earth-born humanity which is part of us--else we had all been
born in heaven!"

"Come," said Bazard, in a rage-choked voice, "let it end here,
Monsieur Scarlett. If the government sends you here as a spy and an
official, pray remember that you are not also sent as a missionary."

My ears began to burn. "That is true," I said, looking at the
Countess, whose face had become expressionless. "I ask your pardon
for what I have said and ... for what I am about to do."

There was a silence. Then, in a low voice, I placed them under formal
arrest, one by one, touching each lightly on the shoulder as
prescribed by the code. And when I came to the Countess, she rose,
without embarrassment. I moved my lips and stretched out my arm,
barely touching her. I heard Bazard draw a deep breath. She was my
prisoner.

"I must ask you to prepare for a journey," I said. "You have your
own horses, of course?"

Without answering, Dr. Delmont walked away towards the stables;
Professor Tavernier followed him, head bent.

"We shall want very little," said the Countess, calmly, to
Mademoiselle Elven. "Will you pack up what we need? And you, Monsieur
Bazard, will you be good enough to go to Trois-Feuilles and hire old
Brauer's carriage?" Turning to me she said: "I must ask for a little
delay; I have no longer a carriage of my own. We keep two horses to
plough and draw grain; they can be harnessed to the farm-wagon for our
effects."

Monsieur Bazard's hectic visage flushed, he gave me a crazy stare,
and, for a moment, I fancied there was murder in his bright eyes.
Doubtless, however, devotion to his creed of non-resistance conquered
the impulse, and he walked quickly away across the meadows, his
skeleton hands clinched under his loose sleeves.

Mademoiselle Elven also d