ions, seeking to
discover what had happened to him after his course at St. Cyr. He did
his best, but he was of inconsiderable agility of mind and deficient
in imagination. He had been, he said, with Maunoury's Sixth Army,
which, emerging from Paris in red taxis, had fallen upon the exposed
right wing of von Kluck. His description was accurate enough, but the
lavish details of former narratives were lacking. He had been
_officier de liaison_ on the Aisne; again the little intimate touches
were lacking. He had joined the flying corps, but omitted to explain
how he had learned to fly. It had been at Farnborough, but he could
hardly admit this, and was, unhappily, quite ignorant of the French
flying grounds.

Madame's quick mind began to see daylight. "How came it, my friend,
that you were flying upon the coast when you suffered that accident,
so terrible, and paralysed that poor brave heart of yours?" Madame
asked the question in the most natural, sympathetic way. It was a
facer for Rust, who regretted that he had been so communicative at
that first meeting "I was lent to the Naval Wing," he explained, and
avoided to particularise. By this time Madame had sorted out his
service. She was quite sure that he had not been with Maunoury or upon
the Aisne, but that in some manner, as yet not clear, he had left St.
Cyr to pass into the English Army.

When in his turn Rust sought diffidently to penetrate the mystery
surrounding Madame Gilbert, she overflowed with untruthful
particulars. She resembles her master Dawson in this--it is unwise to
believe one word which she wishes you to believe. Of her early life in
Paris she spoke with emotion. She was the beloved only child of a
French doctor--ah, the most learned and pious of men! He died early
smitten by disease contracted during his gratuitous practice amongst
the friendless poor. A most noble parent! Her mother, too, a saint and
angel, had gone aloft shortly after seeing her daughter, Madame,
happily married to a maker of caloriferes (anthracite stoves). "I am
unworthy of those so noble parents," wailed Madame in broken tones. It
was not until they were about to separate that Madame Gilbert herself
threw him a bone of truth designed to test his appetite for curiosity.
"I must fly," exclaimed she; "I am a woman _tres occupee_. I work, oh,
so very hard, for my belle France and to avenge the death of my
glorious husband." The blown-up stove maker did not seem to Rust to be
a fig