Not that she said all that, even to herself. There was a wave of

gladness and then a surge of remorse. That is all. But it was a very

sober Sara Lee who put on her black suit with the white collar that

afternoon and ordered, by Jean's suggestion, the evening's preparations

as though nothing was to happen.

She looked round her little room before she left it. It might not be

there when she returned. So she placed Harvey's photograph under her

mattress for safety, and rather uncomfortably she laid beside it the

small ivory crucifix that Henri had found in a ruined house and brought

to her. Harvey was not a Catholic. He did not believe in visualizing

his religion. And she had a distinct impression that he considered such

things as did so as bordering on idolatry.

Sometime after dusk that evening the ammunition train moved out. At a

point a mile or so from the village a dispatch rider on a motor cycle

stopped the rumbling lorry at the head of the procession and delivered

a message, which the guide read by the light of a sheltered match. The

train moved on, but it did not turn down to the village. It went beyond

to a place of safety, and there remained for the night.

But before that time Henri, lying close in a field, had seen a skulking

figure run from the road to the mill, and soon after had seen the mill

wheel turn once, describing a great arc; and on one of the wings, showing

only toward the poplar trees, was a lighted lantern.

Five minutes later, exactly time enough for the train to have reached

the village street, German shells began to fall in it. Henri, lying

flat on the ground, swore silently and deeply.

In every land during this war there have been those who would sell their

country for a price. Sometimes money. Sometimes protection. And of all

betrayals that of the man who sells his own country is the most dastardly.

Henri, lying face down, bit the grass beneath him in sheer rage.

One thing he had not counted on, he who foresaw most things. The miller

and his son, being what they were, were cowards as well. Doubtless the

mill had been promised protection. It was too valuable to the Germans

to be destroyed. But with the first shot both men left the house by the

mill and scurried like rabbits for the open fields.

Maurice, poor Marie's lover by now, almost trampled on Henri's prostrate

body. And Henri was alone, and his work was to take them alive. They

had information he must have--how the modus vivendi had been arranged,

through what channels. And under suitable treatment they would tell.




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