nd Marthe, who had not left his side,
Marthe, anxious, full of mingled hope and apprehension, watched every
phase of the tragic struggle:

"All the past is calling on you, Philippe; all the love for France that
the past has bequeathed to you. Listen to its voice."

And, replying to every possible objection:

"Yes, I know, your intelligence rebels against it. But is one's
intelligence everything?... Obey your instinct, Philippe.... It's your
instinct that is right."

"No, no," he stammered, "one's instinct is never right...."

"It is right. But for that, you would be far away by now. But you can't
go. Your whole being refuses to go. Your legs have not the strength for
flight."

The Col du Diable was pouring forth troops and more troops, whose
swarming masses showed along the slope. Others must be coming by the
Albern Road; and, on every side, along every path and through every gap,
the men of Germany were invading the soil of France.

The vanguard reached the high-road, at the end of the Etang-des-Moines.

There was a dull roll of the drum; and, suddenly, in the near silence, a
hoarse voice barked out a German word of command.

Philippe started as though he had been struck.

And Marthe clung to him, pitilessly:

"Do you hear, Philippe? Do you understand? The German speech on French
soil! Their language forced upon us!"

"Oh, no!" he said. "That can't be.... That will never be!"

"Why should it never be? Invasion comes first ... and then conquest ...
and subjection...."

Near them, the captain ordered:

"Let no one stir!"

Bullets spluttered against the walls, while the sounds of firing
reverberated. A window-pane was smashed on the floor above. And more
bullets broke fragments of stone from the coping of the parapet. The
enemy, surprised at the disappearance of the French troops, were feeling
their way before passing below that house, whose gloomy aspect must
needs strike them as suspicious.

"Ah!" said a soldier, spinning on his heels and falling on the threshold
of the drawing-room, his face covered with blood.

The women ran to his assistance.

Philippe gazed haggard-eyed at that man who was about to die, at that
man who belonged to the same race, who lived under the same sky as
himself, who breathed the same air, ate the same bread and drank the
same wine.

Marthe had taken down a rifle and handed it to Philippe. He grasped it
with a sort of despair:

"Who would ever have told me ...?" he