ou must catch it."

He shook his head. "It's fate," he muttered, bitterly resigned. "What
is written is written."

Christine sprang to the floor, shuffled off the black gauze in almost
a single movement, and seized some of her clothes.

"Quick! You shall catch your train. The clock is wrong--the clock is
too soon."

She implored him with positive desperation. She shook him and dragged
him, energised in an instant by the overwhelming idea that for him to
miss his train would be fatal to him--and to her also. She could and
did believe in the efficacy of mascots against bullets and shrapnel
and bayonets. But the traditions of a country of conscripts were
ingrained in her childhood and youth, and she had not the slightest
faith in the efficacy of no matter what mascot to protect from the
consequences of indiscipline. And already during her short career
in London she had had good reason to learn the sacredness of the
leave-train. Fantastic tales she had heard of capital executions for
what seemed trifling laxities--tales whispered half proudly by the
army in the rooms of horrified courtesans--tales in which the remote
and ruthless imagined figure of the Grand Provost-Marshal rivalled
that of God himself. And, moreover, if this man fell into misfortune
through her, she would eternally lose the grace of the most clement
Virgin who had confided him to her and who was capable of terrible
revenges. She secretly called on the Virgin. Nay, she became the
Virgin. She found a miraculous strength, and furiously pulled the poor
sot out of bed. The fibres of his character had been soaked away,
and she mystically replaced them with her own. Intimidated and, as
it were, mesmerised, he began to dress. She rushed as she was to the
door.

"Marthe! Marthe!"

"Madame?" replied the fat woman in alarm.

"Run for a taxi."

"But, madame, it is raining terribly."

"_Je m'en fous_! Run for a taxi."

Turning back into the room she repeated; "The clock is too soon." But
she knew that it was not. Nearly nude, she put on a hat.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Do not worry. I come with you."

She took a skirt and a jersey and then threw a cloak over everything.
He was very slow; he could find nothing; he could button nothing. She
helped him. But when he began to finger his leggings with the endless
laces and the innumerable eyelets she snatched them from him.

"Those--in the taxi," she said.

"But there is no taxi."

"There will