stammered.

"I, Philippe ... I was sure of you. We have not to do with theories, but
with implacable facts. These are realities, to-day.... The enemy is
treading the bit of earth where you were born, where you played as a
child. The enemy is forcing his way into France. Defend her,
Philippe...."

He clenched his fists around his rifle and she saw that his eyes were
full of tears.

He murmured, quivering with inward rebellion:

"Our sons will refuse ... I shall teach them to refuse.... What I cannot
do, what I have not the courage to do they shall do."

"Perhaps, but what does the future matter!" she said, eagerly. "What
does to-morrow's duty matter! Our duty, yours and mine, is the duty of
to-day."

A voice whispered:

"They're coming near, captain.... They're coming near...."

Another voice, beside Philippe, the voice of one of the women tending
the wounded man, moaned:

"He's dead.... Poor fellow!... He's dead...."

The guns roared on the frontier.

"Are you coming, Philippe?" asked old Morestal.

"I'm coming, father," he said.

Very quickly, he walked out on the terrace and knelt beside his father,
against the balusters. Marthe knelt down behind him and wept at the
thought of what he must be suffering. Nevertheless, she did not doubt
but that, notwithstanding his despair, he was acting in all conscience.

The captain said, clearly, and the order was repeated to the end of the
garden:

"Fire as you please.... Sight at three hundred yards...."

There were a few seconds of solemn waiting ... then the terrible word:

"Fire!"

Yonder, along the barrel of his rifle, near an old oak in whose branches
he once used to climb, Philippe saw a great lubber in uniform throw up
his hands, bend his legs one after the other and stretch himself along
the ground, slowly, as though to sleep....

THE END

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