sent him
flying like a shot from a seventy-five! But I can't help hoping we may
meet by accident. There's a halo round the man's head for me since I've
heard that tragic story. Before, he was only a queer genius. Now, he's a
hero. Will he turn away, I wonder, if I walk up to him and hold out my
hand?

I am longing, for a double reason, to see Vitrimont and Gerbeviller and
Luneville, since I've learned that at one of those places Paul Herter
may appear.

CHAPTER XIV

We were three automobiles strong when we went out of Nancy, along what
they call the "Luneville road." That was yesterday, as I write, and
already it seems long ago! The third and biggest car belonged to the
Prefet; gray and military looking, driven by a soldier in uniform; and
this time Dierdre O'Farrell was with us. I was wondering if she went
"under orders," or if she wished to see the sights we were to see--among
them, perhaps, her elusive doctor!

We turned south, leaving town, and presently passed--at
Dombasle--astonishingly huge salt-works, with rubble-heaps tall as minor
pyramids. On each apex stood a thing like the form of a giant black
woman in a waggling gas-mask and a helmet. I could have found out what
these weird engines were, no doubt, but I preferred to remember them as
mysterious monsters.

At a great, strange church of St. Nicolas, in the old town of St.
Nicolas-du-Port, we stopped, because the Prefet's daughters had told us
of a magic stone in the pavement which gives good fortune to those who
set foot on it. Only when several of us were huddled together, with a
foot each on the sacred spot, were we told that it meant marriage before
the new year. If the spell works, Dierdre O'Farrell, Brian, and I will
all be married in less than four months. But St. Nicolas is a false
prophet where we are concerned. Brian and I will never marry. Even if
poor Brian should fall head over ears in love, he wouldn't ask a girl to
share his broken life: he has told me this. As for me, I can never love
any man after Jim Beckett. The least penance I owe is to be faithful
forever to his memory and my own falsehood!

St. Nicolas is the patron saint of the neighbourhood, so it's right that
from his little town and his big church all the country round should
open out to the eye, as if to do him homage.

From the hill of Leomont we could see to the south the far-off, famous
Forest of Parroy; away to the north, the blue heights of La Grande
Couronne