imes I grow confused
trying to remember when things actually happened, as they all came
quickly and unexpectedly. After my brother and our men servants had gone
my mother and I tried to carry on the work at the chateau as well as we
could with only the women to help. We were not rich people; my father
had died some years before, soon after my younger brother was born. But
we had a good deal of land and a beautiful orchard. It seems strange to
think that even the orchard has been destroyed!"

As Yvonne talked she had a little habit of frowning, almost as if she
were doubting the truth of her own story. Nevertheless, however unique
and impossible her story might sound to her own ears, stories like hers
had grown only too familiar since the outbreak of the war in Europe.

A moment later and she seemed confused, as if scarcely knowing how to
take up the threads of her own history. Afterwards she tried to speak
more slowly, her voice sounding as if she were worn out both from her
recent suffering and from the effort to recount her own and her
country's tragedy.

"For weeks after the war started we had almost no news of any kind to
tell us what was taking place. My brother could not send us a letter, as
all our trains were devoted to carrying our troops. Now and then, when
an occasional motor car passed through our village, a soldier or an
officer would drop on the roadside an _edition speciale de la
Presse_. Perhaps one of the old peasants, picking up the paper, would
bring it to our chateau. Afterwards a number of them would gather around
while either my mother or I read aloud the news. In those first days the
news was nearly always sad news."

Then for a little while Yvonne made no effort to continue her story and
Mrs. Burton understood her silence.

"As soon as we could, my mother and I organized a little branch of La
Croix Rouge in our village and did what we could. We had many people to
help and so spent most of our time making bandages from old linen. We
were told then that the wounded might be sent back across the Marne to
be cared for by us and that our houses must be made ready to use as
hospitals. But the wounded were not cared for by us, not in those early
weeks of the war. You know what took place, Madame. Our soldiers were
defeated; it is now an old story. One night when the battle line was
drawing closer and closer to our home we were warned to flee. But my
mother could not, would not believe the word when