, leaned forward, elbows on knees, and thrust
his clenched fists against his ears as though he would shut out the
deafening clamour of the guns. This attitude of dejection evidently
alarmed Madame Joos. She forgot her own fears in solicitude for her
husband. Bending over him, she patted his shoulder with a maternal hand,
since every woman is at heart a mother--a mother first and essentially.

"Maybe the lady is right, Henri," she said tenderly. "Young as she is,
she may understand these things better than countryfolk like us."

"Ah, Lise," he moaned, "you would have dropped dead had you seen poor
Dupont. He wriggled for a long minute after he fell. And the Abbe, with
his white hair! Some animal of a Prussian fired at his face."

"Don't talk about it," urged his wife. "It is bad for you to get so
excited. Remember, the doctor warned you----"

"The doctor! Dr. Lafarge! A soldier hammered on the surgery door with
the butt of his rifle, and, when the doctor came out, twirled the rifle
and stabbed him right through the body. I saw it. It was like a
conjuring trick. I was giving an officer some figures about the contents
of the mill. The doctor screamed, and clutched at the bayonet with both
hands. And who do you think the murderer was?"

Madame Joos's healthy red cheeks had turned a ghastly yellow, but she
contrived to stammer, "_Dieu!_ The poor doctor! But how should I know?"

"The barber, Karl Schwartz."

"Karl a soldier!"

"More, a sergeant. He lived and worked among us ten years--a spy. It was
the doctor who got him fined for beating his wife. No wonder Monsieur
Lafarge used to say there were too many Germans in Belgium. The officer
I was talking to watched the whole thing. He was a fat man, and wore
spectacles for writing. He lifted them, and screwed up his eyes, so,
like a pig, to read the letters on the brass door-plate. '_Almaechtig!_'
he said, grinning, 'a successful operation on a doctor by a patient.' I
saw red. I felt in my pocket for a knife. I meant to rip open his
paunch. Then one of our shells burst near us, and he scuttled. The wind
of the explosion knocked me over, so I came home."

The two, to some extent, were using the local _patois_; but their
English hearers understood nearly every word, because these residents on
the Belgian border mingle French, German, and a Low Dutch dialect
almost indiscriminately. Dalroy at once endeavoured to divert the old
man's thoughts. The massacre which had been ac