They were speaking in whispered tones. Through the open doors they could see into the other room. Mrs. Phillips, under Airlie’s instructions, was venturing upon a cigarette. “No, that’s precisely what he isn’t,” answered Joan. “You feel that he belongs to no class, but his own. The class of the Abraham Lincolns, and the Dantons.”!

He met Joan, radiant, a morning or two later. The English Government had resigned and preparations for a general election were already on foot. He sat for a minute tattooing with his fingers on the table, before speaking.

“Oh, but I am,” answered the old lady with a grim tightening of the lips. “Not even Carleton would be allowed to incite to murder or arson. I would have him prosecuted for inciting a nation to war.” “So long as I live,” he answered. How long Joan remained there she was never quite sure. There was little difference between day and night. After it had been quiet for an hour or so, Madame Lelanne would go out, to return a little later with a wounded man upon her back; and when one died, she would throw him across her shoulder and disappear again up the steps. Sometimes it was a Frenchman and sometimes a German she brought in. One gathered that the fight for the village still continued. There was but little they could do for them beyond dressing their wounds and easing their pain. Joan and the little chemist took it in turns to relieve one another. If Madame Lelanne ever slept, it was when she would sit in the shadow behind the stove, her hands upon her knees. Dubos had been in the house when it had fallen. Madame Lelanne had discovered him pinned against a wall underneath a great oak beam that had withstood the falling débris. His beard had been burnt off, but otherwise he had been unharmed.