rowsy brain: "Tiens ta Foy!" "Tiens
ta Foy!" (Keep thy Faith!). Aye, he would keep it unto death--he
knew it even in his slumber. But he did not know how near to
death that faith might lead him.

The wood-sparrows were chirping outside his window when he awoke.
It was scarcely dawn, but he heard the maid knocking at his door,
and the rattle of silver and china announced the morning coffee.

He stepped from his bed into the tub of cold water, yawning and
shivering, but the pallor of his skin soon gave place to a
healthy glow, and his clean-cut body and strong young limbs
hardened and grew pink and firm again under the coarse towel.

Breakfast he ate hastily by candle-light, and presently he
dressed, buckled his spurs over the insteps, caught up gloves,
cap, and riding-crop, and, slinging a field-glass over his
Norfolk jacket, lighted a pipe and went noiselessly down-stairs.

There was a chill in the gray dawn as he mounted and rode out
through the shadowy portals of the wrought-iron grille; a vapour,
floating like loose cobwebs, undulated above the placid river;
the tree-tops were festooned with mist. Save for the distant
chatter of wood-sparrows, stirring under the eaves of the
Chateau, the stillness was profound.

As he left the park and cantered into the broad red highway, he
turned in his saddle and looked towards the Chateau de Nesville.
At first he could not see it, but as he rode over the bridge he
caught a glimpse of the pointed roof and single turret, a dim
silhouette through the mist. Then it vanished in the films of
fog.

The road to Saarbrueck was a military road, and easy travelling.
The character of the country had changed as suddenly as a
drop-scene falls in a theatre; for now all around stretched
fields cut into squares by hedges--fields deep-laden with
heavy-fruited strawberries, white and crimson. Currants, too,
glowed like strung rubies frosted with the dew; plum-trees spread
little pale shadows across the ruddy earth, and beyond them the
disk of the sun appeared, pushing upward behind a half-ploughed
hill. Everywhere slender fruit-trees spread their grafted
branches; everywhere in the crumbling furrows of the soil, warm
as ochre, the bunched strawberries hung like drops of red wine
under the sun-bronzed leaves.

The sun was an hour high when he walked his horse up the last
hill that hides the valley of the Saar. Already, through the
constant rushing melody of bird music, his ears had distin