Do you understand?" she asked,
laying her hand on his arm, for he seemed dazed and stupid with
the shock he had received.

"I understand," he said in a low voice. "Thank you all for your
warning. Yes, I will be here this evening."

So saying he turned and moved away, walking unsteadily as if he
were drunk. The woman looked after him pityingly, and then, shaking
her head and muttering execrations against the "Reds," she made
her way home to tell Mere Pichon that she had fulfilled her mission.

Harry walked on slowly until some distance from the town, and then
threw himself down on a bank by the road and lay for a time silent
and despairing. At last tears came to his relief, and his broad
shoulders shook with a passion of sobbing to think that just at
the moment when a chance of escape was opened--just when all the
dangers seemed nearly past--the girls should have fallen into
the hands of the enemy, and he not there to strike a blow in their
defence. To think of Jeanne--his bright, fearless Jeanne--and
clinging little Virginie, in the hands of these human tigers. It
was maddening! But after a time the passion of weeping calmed down,
and Harry sat up suddenly.

"I am a fool," he said as he rose to his feet; "a nice sort of fellow
for a protector, lying here crying like a girl when I had begun to
fancy I was a man; wasting my time here when I know the only hope
for the girls is for me to keep myself free to help them. I need
not lose all hope yet. After Marie has been saved, why shouldn't
I save my Jeanne? I am better off than I was then, for we have
friends who will help. These women whose hearts Jeanne has won will
aid if they can, and may get some of their husbands and brothers
to aid. The battle is not lost yet, and Jeanne will know I shall
move heaven and earth to save her."

Harry's fit of crying, unmanly as he felt it, had afforded him an
immense relief, for he hardly knew himself how great the strain
had been upon him of late, and with a more elastic step he strode
away into the country, and for hours walked on, revolving plan
after plan in his mind for rescuing the girls. Although nothing
very plausible had occurred to him he felt brighter in mind, though
weary in body, when, just after nightfall, he again approached the
spot where he had that morning received so heavy a blow. He was
not disheartened at the difficulty before him, for he knew that he
should have some time yet to hit upon a a plan, and the