ote to his officer, and the answer
arrived--this, monsieur," she said, fumbling with shaking fingers in a
drawer where all her treasures were, and trying to hide her tears; and
handed me a folded piece of paper written on the battlefield.

It was from his captain, and it spoke of the death of as loyal and brave
a soldier as ever breathed. He was killed, the letter said, ten yards
from the enemy's trenches.

And it is so in every house that you go into in these villages. When the
billeting officer goes round to ask what rooms they have, it is
continually the same story. "Room, monsieur--yes, there is the room of
my son who was killed in Argonne--of my husband who was killed at
Verdun. He is killed, and my father and mother they are in the invaded
country, and I know nothing of them since the war."

[Illustration: ALONG THE ROAD TO LILLE]

But the road to the invaded country will be opened some day. These
people have not a doubt of it. If one thing has struck us more than any
other since we came to France, it is the spirit of the French. We came
here when the battle at Verdun was at its height; and yet from the
hour of landing I have not heard a single French man or woman that was
not utterly confident. There is a quiet resolution over this people at
present which makes a most impressive contrast to the jabber of the
world outside. Whatever may be the case with Paris, these country people
of France are one of the freshest and strongest nations on earth.

They are living their ordinary lives right up under the burst of the
German shells. Three of them were killed here the other day--three
children, playing about one minute at a street corner in front of their
own homes before Australian eyes, were lying dead there the next. Yet
the people are still there--it is their home, and why should they leave
it? An autocracy has no chance against a convinced, united, determined
democracy like this. More than anything I have seen it is this
surprising quiet resolution of the French which has made one confident
beyond a doubt that Frenchmen will pass some day again, by no man's
leave except their own, along the road to Lille.

CHAPTER V

THE DIFFERENCES

_France, April 25th._

The cottage door is open to the night. The soft air of a beautiful
evening following on a glorious day brushes past one into the room. As I
stand here the nightingale from a neighbouring garden is piping his
long, exquisite, repeated note till