n battle. Don Marcelo, who had always considered
religion with indifference, suddenly recognized the necessity of
faith. He wanted to pray like the others, with a vague, indefinite
supplication, including all beings who were struggling and dying for a
land that he had not tried to defend.

He was scandalized to see von Hartrott's wife kneeling among these
people raising her eyes to the cross in a look of anguished entreaty.
She was begging heaven to protect her husband, the German who perhaps
at this moment was concentrating all his devilish faculties on the
best organization for crushing the weak; she was praying for her sons,
officers of the King of Prussia, who revolver in hand were entering
villages and farmlands, driving before them a horror-stricken crowd,
leaving behind them fire and death. And these orisons were going to
mingle with those of the mothers who were praying for the youth trying
to check the onslaught of the barbarians--with the petitions of these
earnest men, rigid in their tragic grief! . . .

He had to make a great effort not to protest aloud, and he left the
church. His sister-in-law had no right to kneel there among those
people.

"They ought to put her out!" he growled indignantly. "She is
compromising God with her absurd entreaties."

But in spite of his annoyance, he had to endure her living in his
household, and at the same time had taken great pains to prevent her
nationality being known outside.

It was a severe trial for Don Marcelo to be obliged to keep silent
when at table with his family. He had to avoid the hysterics of his
sister-in-law who promptly burst into sighs and sobs at the slightest
allusion to her hero; and he feared equally the complaints of his wife,
always ready to defend her sister, as though she were the victim. . . .
That a man in his own home should have to curb his tongue and speak
tactfully! . . .

The only satisfaction permitted him was to announce the military moves.
The French had entered Belgium. "It appears that the Boches have had a
good set-back." The slightest clash of cavalry, a simple encounter
with the advance troops, he would glorify as a decisive victory. "In
Lorraine, too, we are making great headway!" . . . But suddenly the
fountain of his bubbling optimism seemed to become choked up. To
judge from the periodicals, nothing extraordinary was occurring. They
continued publishing war-stories so as to keep enthusiasm at fever-heat,
but nothing de