ur was right. Her aunt, Madame Morin, was
Breton, and had brought the cask with her as part of her dowry,
together with the press and other furniture. Doggie alluded to the
vastly lettered inscription, "Veuve Morin et Fils." Madame Morin was,
in a sense, his hostess. And the sons?

"One is in Madagascar, and the other--alas, monsieur!"

And Doggie knew what that "alas!" meant.

"The Argonne," she said.

"And madame your aunt?"

She shrugged her thin though shapely shoulders. "It nearly killed her.
She is old and an invalid. She has been in bed for the last three
weeks."

"Then what becomes of the business?"

"It is I, monsieur, who am the business. And I know nothing about it."
She sighed. Then with her blue apron--otherwise she was dressed in
unrelieved black--she rubbed an imaginary speck from the brass banding
of the cask. "This, I suppose you know, was for the best brandy,
monsieur."

"And now?" he asked.

"A memory. A sentiment. A thing of beauty."

In a feminine way, which he understood, she herded him to the door, by
way of dismissal. Durdlebury helped him. A tiny French village has as
many slanderous tongues as an English cathedral city. He was preparing
to take polite leave, when she looked swiftly at him and made the
faintest gesture of a detaining hand.

"Now I remember. It was you who nearly fell into me last night, when
you were entering through the gate."

The dim recollection came back--the firm woman's arm round him for the
few tottering seconds.

"It seems I am always bound to be impolite, for I don't think I
thanked you," smiled Doggie.

"You were at the end of your tether." Then very gently, "_Pauvre
garcon!_"

"The _sales Boches_ had kept us awake for four nights," said Doggie.
"That was why."

"And you are rested now?"

He laughed. "Almost."

They were at the door. He looked out and drew back. A knot of men were
gathered by the gate of the yard. Apparently she had seen them too,
for a flush rose to her pale cheeks.

"Mademoiselle," said Doggie, "I should like to creep back to the barn
and sleep. If I pass my comrades they'll want to detain me."

"That would be a pity," she said demurely. "Come this way, monsieur."

She led him through a room and a passage to the kitchen. They shared a
pleasurable sense of adventure and secrecy. At the kitchen door she
paused and spoke to an old woman chopping up vegetables.

"Toinette, let monsieur pass." To Doggie she said: "Au revoir