her hand convulsively in parting as if she
would leave the rest with him.

"I think it will," he said soberly. "I think it will prove that you have
done a great service," he repeated as he caught both her hands, which
were cold from her ordeal. His own were warm with the strong beating of
his heart stirred by the promise of what he had just heard. But he did
not prolong the grasp. He was as eager to be away to his work as she to
be alone. "I think it will. You will know in the morning," he added.

His steps were sturdier than ever in the power of five against three as
he started back to the house. When he reached the veranda, Bouchard, the
saturnine chief of intelligence, appeared in the doorway of the
dining-room: or, rather, reappeared, for he had been standing there
throughout the interview of Westerling and Marta, whose heads were just
visible, above the terrace wall, to his hawk eyes.

"A little promenade in the open and my mind made up," said Westerling,
clapping Bouchard on the shoulder.

"Something about an attack to-night?" asked Bouchard.

"You guess right. Call the others."

Five minutes later he was seated at the head of the dining-room table
with his chiefs around him waiting for their chairman to speak. He asked
some categorical questions almost perfunctorily, and the answer to each
was, "Ready!" with, in some instances, a qualification--the
qualification made by regimental and brigade commanders that, though
they could take the position in front of them, the cost would be heavy.
Yes, all were willing and ready for the first general assault of the
war, but they wanted to state the costs as a matter of professional
self-defence.

Westerling could pose when it served his purpose. Now he rose and, going
to one of the wall maps, indicated a point with his forefinger.

"If we get that we have the most vital position, haven't we?"

Some uttered a word of assent; some only nodded. A glance or two of
curiosity was exchanged. Why should the chief of staff ask so elementary
a question? Westerling was not unconscious of the glances or of their
meaning. They gave dramatic value to his next remark.

"We are going to mass for our main attack in front at Bordir!"

"But," exclaimed four or five officers at once, "that is the heart of
the position! That is--"

"I believe it is weak--that it will fall, and to-night!"

"You have information, then, information that I have not?" asked
Bouchard.

"No more than