ther strange men in the
chase--always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do
Germans want of maps of France? I thought of it all day--every day; I
watched, I listened in the forest. And do you know what I think?"

"What?" asked Marche.

She pushed back her splendid hair and faced him.

"War!" she said, in a low voice.

"War?" he repeated, stupidly. She stretched out an arm towards
the east; then, with a passionate gesture, she stepped to his
side.

"War! Yes! War! War! War! I cannot tell you how I know it--I ask
myself how--and to myself I answer: 'It is coming! I, Lorraine,
know it!'"

A fierce light flashed from her eyes, blue as corn-flowers in
July.

"It is in dreams I see and hear now--in dreams; and I see the
vineyards black with helmets, and the Moselle redder than the
setting sun, and over all the land of France I see bayonets,
moving, moving, like the Rhine in flood!"

The light in her eyes died out; she straightened up; her lithe
young body trembled.

"I have never before told this to any one," she said, faintly;
"my father does not listen when I speak. You are Jack Marche, are
you not?"

He did not answer, but stood awkwardly, folding and unfolding the
crumpled maps.

"You are the vicomte's nephew--a guest at the Chateau Morteyn?"
she asked.

"Yes," said Marche.

"Then you are Monsieur Jack Marche?"

He took off his shooting-cap and laughed frankly. "You find me
carrying a gun on your grounds," he said; "I'm sure you take me
for a poacher."

She glanced at his leggings.

"Now," he began, "I ask permission to explain; I am afraid that
you will be inclined to doubt my explanation. I almost doubt it
myself, but here it is. Do you know that there are wolves in
these woods?"

"Wolves?" she repeated, horrified.

"I saw one; I followed it to this carrefour."

She leaned against a tree; her hands fell to her sides.

There was a silence; then she said, "You will not believe what I
am going to say--you will call it superstition--perhaps
stupidity. But do you know that wolves have never appeared along
the Moselle except before a battle? Seventy years ago they were
seen before the battle of Colmar. That was the last time. And now
they appear again."

"I may have been mistaken," he said, hastily; "those shaggy
sheep-dogs from the Moselle are very much like timber-wolves in
colour. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Nesville, why should you believe
that we are going to have a war? Two w