ving been killed in the earlier fighting, and they advanced
slowly across the stubble of a wheat field. The morning was still cool,
although the sun was bright, and the air was full of vigor. The rumbling
of the artillery grew with the day, but the Strangers said little.
Battle had ceased to be a novelty. They would fight somewhere and with
somebody, but they would wait patiently and without curiosity until the
time came.

"I suppose Lannes didn't come back," said Carstairs. "I haven't heard
anyone speak of seeing him this morning."

"He may have returned before we awoke," said John. "The _Arrow_ flies
very fast. Like as not he delivered his message, whatever it was, and
was off again with another in a few minutes. He may be sixty or eighty
miles from here now."

"Odd fellow that Lannes," said Carstairs. "Do you know anything about
his people, Scott?"

"Not much except that he has a mother and sister. I spent a night with
them at their house in Paris. I've heard that French family ties are
strong, but they seemed to look upon him as the weak would regard a
great champion, a knight, in their own phrase, without fear and without
reproach."

"That speaks well for him."

John's mind traveled back to that modest house across the Seine. It had
done so often during all the days and nights of fighting, and he thought
of Julie Lannes in her simple white dress, Julie with the golden hair
and the bluest of blue eyes. She had not seemed at all foreign to him.
In her simplicity and openness she was like one of the young girls of
his own country. French custom might have compelled a difference at
other times, but war was a great leveler of manners. She and her mother
must have suffered agonies of suspense, when the guns were thundering
almost within hearing of Paris, suspense for Philip, suspense for their
country, and suspense in a less degree for themselves. Maybe Lannes had
gone back once in the _Arrow_ to show them that he was safe, and to tell
them that, for the time at least, the great German invasion had been
rolled back.

"A penny for your dream!" said Carstairs.

"Not for a penny, nor for a pound, nor for anything else," said John.
"This dream of mine had something brilliant and beautiful and pure at
the very core of it, and I'm not selling."

Carstairs looked curiously at him, and a light smile played across his
face. But the smile was sympathetic.

"I'll wager you that with two guesses I can tell the nature of