The Marne

uld have knelt to greet them-as he hurried down the gang-plank with the ea

nflict. Passports, identification papers, sharp interrogatories, examinations, the enforced surrendering of keys and papers: how different it all was fr

been exempted from it. They were all pledged to some form of relief work, and all overflowing with zeal: "France" was as often on their lips as on Troy's. But some of them seemed to be mainly concerned with questions of uniform and ran

the importance of America's mission. This was Liberty's chance to Enlighten the World;

ciency," they all said wit

in uniform too, cocked-hatted, badged and gaitered-though most of them, apparently, were going to sit in the

boys from contamination ... the dreadful theatres ... and the novels ... and the Boulevards.... Of course we mustn't be har

days he had been drawn into talk by a girl who reminded him of Miss Wicks, though she was in truth infinit

rtailed by the task of preparing a repertory, for she appeared to think that Joan of Arc was a Revolutionary hero, who had been guillotined with Marie Antoinette for blowing up the Bastille; and her notions of French history

s. You must set the example.... Oh, boys, do you know what my ambition is? It's to organize an Old Home Week just like ours, all over France from Harver right down to Marseilles-and all through the devastated regions too. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could get General Pershing

de it all so clear to me--" and an elderly Y.M.C.A. leader, adjusting his eye-glasses, added with nasal emphasis: "Yes, Miss War

d M. Gantier's phrase, "Self-satisfaction is death," and felt a sudden yea

ng to know something about it: to know, for instance,

ermination to succeed that after several months about the Pa

like those of the Marne, but swarming with big fair-haired soldiers. The land lifted and dipped again, and he saw ahead of him the ridge once crowned by M. Gantier's village, and the wall of the terraced garden, with the horn-beam arbour putting forth its early green. Everything else was in ruins: pale weather-bleached ruins over which the rains and suns of three years had passed effa

Gantier was an old woman too frightened and feeble-minded to answer intelligibly. Then a French t

y say.... The sons-ah, you knew Monsieur Paul? He went first.... What, the others?... Yes: the three others-Louis at Notre Dame de Lorette; Jean on a submarine: poor little Félix, the youngest, of the fever at Salonika. Voilà.... The old lad

out. How often I've seen them all sitting there, laughing and drinking coffee under th

ack to hi

tiers. For a long time he could get no trace of them; then he remembered his old go

g room, facing a row of horse-hair benches packed with tired peo

she recognized Troy. Then, after tears and raptures, he set forth his errand, and she began to peer

he room, sat one of the young war-goddesses of the Belknap tennis-court, trim,

o quick and clever," Mme. Lebuc sighed, r

il on her twitching head. She spoke in a low voice, slowly, taking a long time to explain; ea

to clasp Troy's hand. "Do sit down, Mr. Belknap.-Dépêchez-vous, s'il vous pla?t," she sa

g head, putting back her veil. Her eyes met Troy's, and they look

id, the tears runn

that most things had grown far off to her, and that for the moment her whole mind was centred on the painful a

" asked Miss Batc

I believe,"

ey're all alike. She wants to borrow five hundred f

, why

gainst all our principles. We give work, or

uld I give

y? Certainly not. Y

lived. The sister had become weak-minded, and the room was dirty and untidy, because, as Mme. Gantier explained, her lameness prevented her from keeping it clean, and they could not afford a charwoman. The pictures of the four dea

say: there's a family wiped out." He went away, too

managed to get out to Mondement and have the stone set up and the grave photographed. He had brought some flowers to lay on it, and he borrowed two tin wreaths from the neighbouring crosses, so that Paul Gantier's m