ad odd fungi sprouting from their roofs like
rosy mushrooms; the trees and streams had a silvery shimmer, like a
Corot fairy-land.

Then, set like sign-posts of desolation in this loveliness, came the
ravaged villages. We were on the soil where in the first month of the
war the Germans had trod as conquerors, and where, step by step, the
French had driven them back. We passed Cormizy, burnt to the ground
to celebrate its taking; Le Remy, where the heroic mayor had died,
transfixed by twenty bayonets; Bar-Villers, a group of ruined houses
about a mourning, shattered church. It was the region where the Hun
triumph had spoken aloud, unbridled. Miss Falconer sat white and silent
as we drove through it; my hands tightened on the wheel.

We had lunched at Tolbiac, late and abominably. Then, leaving the
highway, we had taken a country road. Two punctures befell us; once
our carburetor betrayed the trust we placed in it. By the time these
deficiencies were remedied I had collected dust and grease enough to
look my part.

It had been, by and large, a singularly speechless day, which my
spasmodic efforts at entertainment had failed to cheer. The girl tried
to respond, but her eyes were strained, eager, shadowed; her answers
came at random. My talk, I suppose, teased her ears like the troublesome
buzzing of a fly.

"She is thinking," I decided at last, "about those papers. Lord, if she
doesn't find them she is going to take it hard!"

I left her in peace after that and drove the faster. Luck was with us!
At the end of our journey everything would be all right.

As evening settled down on us the road grew increasingly lonely. Woods
of oak-trees were about us, their trunks mossy, their branches lacing;
on our left was a narrow river thick with rushes and smooth green
stones. So rutty was the earth that our wheels sank into it and our
engine labored. There was a charming sylvan look about the scenery; we
seemed to be alone in the universe: I could not recall when we had last
seen a peasant or passed a hut.

Suddenly I realized that there was a sound in the distance, not
continuous, but steadily recurrent, a faint booming, I thought.

"What's that noise off yonder?" I asked, with one ear cocked toward the
east.

Miss Falconer roused herself.

"It is the cannonading," she answered. "We have come a long way, Mr.
Bayne. In two hours--in less than that--we could drive to the Front. And
see!"

The dark was coming fast; a cri