would take
the place of the youth that the shells and bullets were now carrying
away.

He shook himself. Reflections like these were for men of middle years.
The tide of his own youth flowed back upon him and the world, even under
snow and with stray guns thundering behind him, was full of splendor.
Moreover, there was the village of Chastel before him! Chastel! Chastel!
He had never heard of it until two or three days ago, and yet it now
loomed in his mind as large as Paris or New York. Julie must have
arrived already, and he would see her again after so many months of
hideous war, but deep down in his mind persisted the belief that she
should not have come. Lannes must have had some reason that he could not
surmise, or he would not have written the letter asking her to meet him
at Chastel.

The village, he learned from one of the men in the automobile, was only
ten miles away and it was built upon a broad, low hill at the base of
which a little river flowed. It was very ancient. A town of the Belgae
stood there in Caesar's time, but it contained not more than two thousand
inhabitants, and its chief feature was a very beautiful Gothic
cathedral.

John's automobile could have reached Chastel in less than an hour,
despite the snow and the slush, but the train of the wounded was
compelled to move slowly, and he must keep with it. Meanwhile he scanned
the sky with powerful glasses, which he had been careful to secure after
his escape from Auersperg. Nearly all officers carried strong glasses in
this war, and yet even to the keenest eyes the hosts of the air were
visible only in part.

John now and then saw telephone wires running through the clumps of
forest and across the fields. There was a perfect web of them, reaching
all the way from Alsace and the Forest of Argonne to the sea. Generals
talked to one another over them, and over these wires the signal
officers sent messages to the men in the batteries telling them how to
fire their guns.

The telegraph, too, was at work. The wires were clicking everywhere, and
the air was filled also with messages which went on no wires at all,
but which took invisible wings unto themselves. The wireless, despite
its constant use, remained a mystery and wonder to John. One of his most
vivid memories was that night on the roof of the chateau, when Wharton
talked through space to the German generals, and learned their plans.

He looked up now and his eyes were shut, but he almost