following a line of which Morestal knew every
guiding-mark, every turn, every acclivity and every descent.

"The frontier!" he muttered. "The frontier here ... at twenty-five miles
from the Rhine ... the frontier in the very heart of France!"

Every day and ten times a day, he tortured himself in this manner,
gazing at that painful and relentless line; and, beyond it, through
vistas which his imagination contrived as it were to carve out of the
Vosges, he conjured up a vision of the German plain on the misty
horizon.

And this too he repeated to himself; and he did so this time as at every
other time, with a bitterness which the years that passed did nothing to
allay:

"The German plain ... the German hills ... all that land of Alsace in
which I used to wander as a boy.... The French Rhine, which was my river
and the river of my fathers.... And now _Deutschland_ ... _Deutsches
Rhein_...."

A faint whistle made him start. He leant over towards the staircase that
climbed the terrace, a staircase cut out of the rock, by which people
coming from the side of the frontier often entered his grounds so as to
avoid the bend of the road. There was nobody there nor anybody opposite,
on the roadside slope all tangled with shrubs and ferns.

And the sound was renewed, discreetly, stealthily, with the same
modulations as before.

"It's he ... it's he ..." thought M. Morestal, with an uncomfortable
feeling of embarrassment.

A head popped from between the bushes, a head in which all the bones
stood out, joined by prominent muscles, which gave it the look of the
head of an anatomical model. On the bridge of the nose, a pair of
copper-rimmed spectacles. Across the face, like a gash, the toothless,
grinning mouth.

"You again, Dourlowski...."

"Can I come?" asked the man.

"No ... no ... you're mad...."

"It's urgent."

"Impossible.... And besides, you know, I don't want any more of it. I've
told you so before...."

But the man insisted:

"It's for this evening, for to-night.... It's a soldier of the
Boersweilen garrison.... He says he's sick of wearing the German
uniform."

"A deserter.... I've had enough of them.... Shut up and clear out!"

"Now don't be nasty, M. Morestal.... Just think it over.... Look here,
let's meet at four o'clock, in the pass, near Saboureux's Farm ... like
last time.... I shall expect you.... We'll have a talk ... and I shall
be surprised if ..."

"Hold your tongue!" said Morestal.