CHAPTER XXX

Up and down, up and down, outside the long study windows marched a sentry. Outside the great gate stood another. Even the house door was guarded.

Angéle, her round arms bare, a great apron tied about her, her feet in wooden sabots, was busy scrubbing the kitchen floor of the gate house when the first company arrived. Soldiers were no new sight to the girl by now, but so many here, what could it mean? She dried her hands and clattered out to open the gates.

"Keep them open, my girl," smiled the Captain. "Others are coming," and leaving her standing round-eyed and open-mouthed, he took his men and stationed them about the place.

"What does it mean?" she asked one of them.

The young soldier left to guard the gate, smiled at her as he shouldered his gun and began pacing up and down, but his Captain was still within ear-shot and so he made no answer.

The girl turned and hurried back into the house.

"_Ma mère_," she called (Nanine was the only mother she had ever known) "_ma mère_, war has come even into the château."

"Eh," wheezed the old woman, coming heavily down the stair. "What are you saying?" Angéle bade her look out of the window. By now, several automobiles had arrived and were dislodging their passengers at the great door, care-worn looking men for the most part, grizzled of hair and mustache, their heavy army coats dusty and mud-splashed.

Nanine put her head, in its broad Breton cap, out of the door, only to find herself facing a sentry standing there.

"Orders are to stay indoors this morning, _bonne femme_," he said cheerily.

If anyone but a French soldier had dared to bar her way, a storm would have broken about his head, but to Nanine, the horizon blue of a _poilu's_ uniform, was never to be gainsaid in anything.

"_Eh bien, mon gosse_, if you say so, I'll stay in all week!" she answered.

The man grinned and resumed his sentry-go.

The purring motors brought Marie to her window. She had tossed and turned through the dark hours, dreading the task that was before her. Her mind whirled trying to plan a way that might satisfy Von Pfaffen and yet not betray her husband's cause. But like a wild bird, she beat against her prison bars, knowing there was no way out.

As she parted the curtains and looked out on the driveway, Gerome was just stepping from a motor car. There were three other officers with him, a tall thin man with a long nose and a heavy gray mustache, and a fat, red-faced man who wore a general's stars. The third, she could not see, his face was so muffled in his coat collar, although the day, early as it was, was quite warm. Another motor, whose occupants had evidently already entered the house, was just turning from the door.

She pushed the curtains back and stood looking out into the sunshine. How peaceful everything looked, and yet in the room below her, men were planning the best way to surprise and kill thousands of their fellow men, and here was she, her brain whirling, trying to devise a means to discover how they were to accomplish it.

She slipped quickly into her clothes and sat down again by the window to wait until the conference should be over. She knew that Gerome would come to her then. Every nerve was strained with a harrowing expectancy. It was as though she awaited her execution.

The little gilt clock on her dressing-table, cheerily ticked out the minutes as though they had been filled with joy, instead of agony. The sun sparkled and glittered on the dew-wet leaves as brilliantly as though the whole world on which it shone was as peaceful as the château garden. A robin was fluting happily. But up and down, before the door and before the great gate, paced the sentries, and from the distant horizon came the ever-present rumbling of the guns.

She sat staring at the thin lace curtains fluttering gently in the breeze, under the faded blue ones. What was the day to bring her, she wondered?

There was a gentle knock at the door. She turned with a start. In answer to her faint, "_Entrez_," Madame came in.

"You are awake, dear?" she said gently. "I came to see. The General is having a very important meeting in his study and has asked me not to have the servants come into the house. Will you mind waiting for your breakfast?"

Marie had risen to greet her.

"No, no," she said hastily, "I don't think I shall want anything to eat," and her hands trembled at her throat.

Madame led her back to the chair and made her sit down.

"We must all be brave," she said gently.

As she spoke, they could hear the door of the General's study opening and a murmur of men's voices.

Madame listened attentively for a moment.

"The conference is over," she said, "pray God what they have decided may be successful."

Marie turned miserably back to the window. The time for her task was drawing nearer. There might be some way out of it. There must be.

"I'll order coffee now," said Madame. "Try to be calm, dear, we women live in a man's world," and with a sigh, she left her.

Marie watched the officers come out and get into their motors. She watched the General standing tall and straight in the sunshine, as he shook hands with his _confrères_. Gerome's voice came up to her, as he told his father he would go as far as the village with them, and then come back, and she knew it meant he was coming back to her.

She watched the motors go down the driveway and out of the great gates. The General saluted the last man as he left, and then turned back into the house. The little band of soldiers mustered under their Captain and started after the chugging cars. Angéle pushed the heavy gates closed after them and clattered back to her scrubbing, and as the sound of the motors died away in the distance, Marie fell on her knees by the bed.

"Oh God," she prayed, "help me! Help me!"