on the part of the Germans to spare
one town and destroy another. Both serve as examples, the one as typical
of the excellent treatment meted out to those communities which welcome
the invaders, the other as a warning of the fate attending resistance.
Both instances are absolutely untrue. Every burgomaster in Belgium has
issued notices calling on non-combatants to avoid hostile acts, and
Verviers is exactly on a par with the other unfortified towns in this
part of the country. The truth is, monsieur, that the Germans are
furious because of the delay our gallant soldiers have imposed on them.
It is bearing fruit too. I hear that England has already landed an army
at Ostend."

Dalroy shook his head. "I wish I might credit that," he said sadly. "I
am a soldier, monsieur, and you may take it from me that such a feat is
quite impossible in the time. We might send twenty or thirty thousand
men by the end of this week, and another similar contingent by the end
of next week. But months must elapse before we can put in the field an
army big enough to make headway against the swarms of Germans I have
seen with my own eyes."

"Months!" gasped the cure. "Then what will become of my unhappy country?
Even to-day we are living on hope. Liege still holds out, and the people
are saying, 'The English are coming, all will be well!' A man was shot
to-day in this very town for making that statement."

"He must have been a fool to voice his views in the presence of German
troops."

The priest spread wide his hands in sorrowful gesture. "You don't
understand," he said. "Belgium is overrun with spies. It is positively
dangerous to utter an opinion in any mixed company. One or two of the
bystanders will certainly be in the pay of the enemy."

Though the cure was now on surer ground than when he spoke of a British
army on Belgian soil, Dalroy egged him on to talk. "My chief difficulty
is to know how the money was raised to support all these agencies," he
said. "Consider, monsieur. Germany maintains an enormous army. She has a
fleet second only to that of Britain. She finances her traders and
subsidises her merchant ships as no other nation does. How is it
credible that she should also find means to keep up a secret service
which must have cost millions sterling a year?"

"Yes, you are certainly English," said the priest, with a sad smile.
"You don't begin to estimate the peculiarities of the German character.
We Belgians, living, so to s