mber of cartridges, I hid at the top of the ravine. This is the pail
which I found in the shed. No doubt it belongs to the Jaquinot
household. Now, I have told you the actual truth. I ask nothing for
myself. If I stay here, even though you permit it, my presence will
certainly bring ruin on you. So I shall go at once. But I _do_ ask you,
as Christian people, to safeguard this young English lady, and, when
conditions permit, and she has recovered her strength, to guide her into
Holland, unless, that is, these German beasts are attacking the Dutch
too."

For a brief space there was silence. Dalroy looked fixedly at Joos,
trying to read Irene Beresford's fate in those black, glowing eyes. The
womenfolk were won already; but well he knew that in this Belgian nook
the patriarchal principle that a man is lord and master in his own house
would find unquestioned acceptance. He was aware that Irene's gaze was
riveted on him in a strangely magnetic way. It was one thing that he
should say calmly, "So I picked up a milking-stool, and killed both of
them," but quite another that Irene should visualise in the light of her
rare intelligence the epic force of the tragedy enacted while she lay
unconscious in the depths of a hedgerow. Dalroy could tell, Heaven knows
how, that her very soul was peering at him. In that tense moment he knew
that he was her man for ever. But--_surgit amari aliquid_! A wave of
bitterness welled up from heart to brain because of the conviction that
if he would, indeed, be her true knight he must leave her within the
next few seconds. Yet his resolution did not waver. Not once did his
glance swerve from Joos's wizened face.

It was the miller himself who first broke the spell cast on the
curiously assorted group by Dalroy's story. He stretched out a hand and
took the pail. "This is fresh milk," he said, examining the dregs.

"Yes. I milked the cow. The poor animal was in pain, and my friend and I
wanted the milk."

"You milked the cow--before?"

"No. After."

_"Grand Dieu!_ you're English, without doubt."

Joos turned the pail upside down, appraising it critically. "Yes," he
said, "it's one of Dupont's. I remember her buying it. She gave him
fifty kilos of potatoes for it. She stuck him, he said. Half the
potatoes were black. A rare hand at a bargain, the Veuve Jaquinot. And
she's dead you tell me. A bayonet thrust?"

"Two."

Madame Joos burst into hysterical sobbing. Her husband whisked round on
h