answer when she spoke to him. But, at four o'clock,
hearing that his father, eager for news, had ordered the carriage, he
went downstairs.

They drove to Saint-Elophe and then, growing more and more anxious, to
Noirmont, twelve miles beyond it, where Morestal had many friends. One
of these took them to the offices of the _Eclaireur_.

Here, nothing was known as yet: the telegraph-and telephone-wires were
blocked. But, at eight o'clock, a first telegram got through: groups of
people had raised manifestations outside the German embassy. On the
Place de la Concorde, the statue of the city of Strasburg was covered
with flags and flowers.

Then the telegrams flowed in.

Questioned in the Chamber, the prime minister had replied, amid the
applause of the whole house:

"We ask, we claim your absolute confidence, your blind confidence. If
some of you refuse it to the minister, at least grant it to the
Frenchman. For it is a Frenchman who speaks in your name. And it is a
Frenchman who will act."

In the lobby outside the house, a member of the opposition had begun to
sing the _Marseillaise_, which was taken up by all the rest of the
members in chorus.

And then there was the other side of the question: telegrams from
Germany; the yellow press rabid; all the evening-papers adopting an
uncompromising, aggressive attitude; Berlin in uproar....

*
* *

They drove back at midnight; and, although they were both seized with a
like emotion, it aroused in them ideas so different that they did not
exchange a word. Morestal himself, who was not aware of the divorce that
had taken place between their minds, dared not indulge in his usual
speeches.

The next morning, the _Boersweilener Zeitung_ announced movements of
troops towards the frontier. The emperor, who was cruising in the North
Sea, had landed at Ostende. The chancellor was waiting for him at
Cologne. And it was thought that the French ambassador had also gone to
meet him.

Thenceforward, throughout that Friday and the following Saturday, the
inmates of the Old Mill lived in a horrible nightmare. The storm was now
shaking the whole of France and Germany, the whole of quivering Europe.
They heard it roar. The earth cracked under its fury. What terrible
catastrophe would it produce?

And they, who had let it loose--the actors of no account, relegated to
the background, the supernumeraries whose part