rapped on his back, bread-bag and field-flask at his
side, gun at his feet--in the centre, in full dress uniform as a
lance-corporal, with his hand to his helmet saluting.

That was no doubt the man, Michel Solheid as a soldier. Kate cast a
timid glance at the picture--that man had been shot in the Venn whilst
smuggling. How terrible! She heard the old man tell the story once
more, saw the bleeding man lying in the heather, and the horror of his
tragic end made her shudder. Her glance fell on the picture again and
again, the usual picture of a soldier which told nothing whatever in
its stereotyped inanity, and then on little Jean-Pierre's cradle. Did
he resemble his father much?

Paul Schlieben had expected his wife to speak--she would of course
know best what to say to the other woman--but she was silent. And the
vestryman did not say anything either; as he had started the
negotiations he considered it polite to let the gentleman speak now.
And Lisa Solheid was also silent. All she did was to drive away the
children, who wanted to fall upon the hard bread on the table with
ravenous appetites, with a silent gesture. Then she stood quietly
beside the cradle, her right hand, which still held the axe with which
she had cut the wood, hanging loosely by her side. Her face was gloomy,
forbidding, and still a struggle was reflected on it.

Paul Schlieben cleared his throat. He would have preferred some
other person to have settled the matter for him, but, as this other
person was not there and the vestryman only looked at him expectantly,
he was compelled to speak. With an affability which might have been
taken for condescension but which was nothing but embarrassment he
said: "Frau Solheid, the vestryman will have told you what has brought
us to you--do you understand me, my good woman?"

She nodded.

"It's our intention to take your youngest child away with us"--he
hesitated, for she had made a movement as though she wanted to deny
it--"as our own, to adopt it. Do you understand?"

She did not answer, but he continued with as much haste as if she
had said yes. "We will treat it as if it really were our own. We shall
be able to do more for it than you would, of course, and we----"

"Oh, and we'll love it so," his wife broke in.

The black-eyed woman turned her head slowly to the side where the
fair-haired lady was standing. It was a peculiar look with which she
scanned the stranger, who had now approached the cradle.