aid. He--he must be a ve-ry important man,
Mademoiselle, or his duty would not keep him there."

"Unless the Boches succeed in raiding Paris from the air he is not
likely to get hurt at all--this Major Marchand?"

"Oh!" pouted Henriette. "You are so critical. But he is--what you
say?--so-o beautiful!"

"Not in my eyes," said Ruth grimly. "I don't like dolly soldiers."

"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!" murmured the French girl. "Do not let Madame
the Countess suspect your feelings toward her younger son. He is all
she has now, you know."

"Indeed? Has the older son fallen in battle?"

"The young count has disappeared," whispered Henriette, her lips close
to Ruth's ear. "We heard of it only lately. But it seems he
disappeared some months ago. Nobody knows what has become of him."

"He, at least, was on the battle front?" asked the American girl. "He
is missing? Probably a prisoner of the Germans?"

"No-o. He was not at the front," confessed the other girl. "He, too,
was engaged in Paris, it is understood. But hush! We are at the gate.
I will ring. Don't, Mademoiselle Ruth, let the dear countess suspect
that you do not highly approve of her remaining son."

The Red Cross girl smiled rather grimly, but she gave the promise.

CHAPTER II

AT THE CHATEAU

The two girls, arm in arm, approached the postern gate beside the wide
iron grille that was never opened save for the passage of horses or a
motor car. There was a little round shutter in the postern at the
height of a man's head; for aforetime the main gateway had been of
massive oak, bolt-studded and impervious to anything less than cannon
shot. The wall of masonry that surrounded the chateau was both high
and thick, built four hundred years or so before for defence.

An old-fashioned rope-pull hung beside the postern. Henriette dragged
on this sharply, but the girls could not hear the tongue of the bell,
for it struck far back in the so-called offices of the chateau, where
the serving people had had their quarters before these war times had
come upon the earth.

Now there were but few servants remaining at the chateau. For the most
part the elderly Countess Marchand lived alone and used but few of the
rooms.

As the girls waited an answer to their summons, Henriette said, in
reference to what had already passed in conversation between them:

"It hurts me, dear friend, that anybody should doubt the loyalty of our
countess whom _we_ kno