-if we had any
money."

"You shall have everything," cried Grahame; "you shall be driven
where you wish. I'm looking for a battle, but I can't seem to
find one. I've been driving about this wreck of a country for the
last three days; I missed Amonvillers on the 18th, and Rezonville
two days before. I saw the battles of Reichshofen and Borney. The
Germans lost three thousand five hundred men at Beaumont, and I
was not there either. But there's a bigger thing on the carpet,
somewhere near the Meuse, and I'm trying to find out where and
when. I've wasted a lot of time loafing about Metz. I want to see
something on a larger scale, not that the Metz business isn't
large enough--two hundred thousand men, six hundred cannon--and
the Red Prince--licking their chops and getting up an appetite
for poor old Bazaine and his battered, diseased, starved,
disheartened army, caged under the forts and citadel of a city
scarcely provisioned for a regiment."

Lorraine, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked at him silently,
but her eyes were full of a horror and anguish that Grahame could
not help seeing.

"The Emperor is with the army yet," he said, cheerfully. "Who
knows what may happen in the next twenty-four hours? Mademoiselle
de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour
of France."

"Yes," said Lorraine.

Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out
into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young
French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss
plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg
frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in
the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.

"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon;
this cannot go on. We will find the Emperor and do our part.
Don't look that way, Lorraine, my darling!" He took her in his
arms. She put both arms around his neck, and hid her face.

For a while he held her, watching the fire with troubled eyes.
The room grew darker; a wind arose among the forest trees,
stirring dried leaves on brittle stems; the ashes on the hearth
drifted like gray snowflakes.

Her stillness began to trouble him. He bent in the dusk to see
her face. She was asleep. Terror, pity, anguish, the dreadful
uncertainty, had strained her child's nerves to the utmost; after
that came the deep fatigue that follows torture, and she lay in
his arms, limp, pal