Part 149

"I should like to find Halkett," said Warner. "I certainly should like to see him again. We had become friends, you see. Shall we walk back that way across the fields, Sister Eila?"

Sister Eila turned to Sister Felicite. Her color was high, but she spoke very calmly:

"Had I not better remain with you and help you close the school?"

Sister Felicite shook her head vigorously:

"I can attend to that if it becomes necessary. I shall not budge unless I am called to field duty."

"But the children? Had I not better take some of them home?"

"There's time enough. If there is going to be any danger to them, I can arrange all that."

Sister Eila hesitated, her lovely head lowered.

"If we could find Halkett on our way back," said Warner, "I think he would be very glad to hear from us that Gray is alive."

Sister Eila nodded in silence; Warner made his adieux; the Sisters of Charity consulted together a moment, then the American and Sister Eila went out through the rear door and through the little garden. And at their heels shuffled Asticot, furtively chewing a purloined apple.

*CHAPTER XXXI*

As they reached the plateau above the school and halted for a few moments to look back across the valley of the Recollette, Warner began to understand.

The cannonading in the north had ceased. On every road, in whichever direction he looked, troops, artillery, and wagons were moving eastward. This was no mere cavalry reconnoissance; it was a serious offensive movement in force toward the east. Eastward and south lay the Vosges; beyond, the lost provinces stretched away in green valleys toward the Rhine.

There lay the objective of this movement which was based on the great Barrier Forts from Verdun to Toul, from Toul to Nancy and Luneville, southward to Epinal, to the great, grim citadel of Belfort.

This was no raid, no feint, no diversion made by a flying corps along the frontier. A great screen of cavalry was brushing back every hostile scout toward the mountains; the contact at the cement works was a mere detail. Nor was this movement directed toward the north, where the Grand Duchy was crawling alive with Prussians already battering at the "Iron Gate of France."

No, the guns of Longwy were not calling these French horsemen north, whatever was happening at Verdun or along the Moselle. Their helmets were moving toward the east, toward the passes of the Vosges where Alsace lay, and Lorraine. Metz, Strassburg, Colmar, Muelhausen, beckoned from every tall tower, every gable, every spire. It was invasion! Armed France was riding toward the rising sun.

Sister Eila's pale, intelligent face was lifted to the distant horizon; her clear, exalted gaze made it plain to him that she, also, had begun to understand.

As for Asticot, he was finishing the core of his apple and watching details in the vast panorama out of his tiny mouse-eyes; and whether he understood or cared to understand no man might say. For the minds of little animals must remain inscrutable.

Near them, on the grassy plateau, soldiers were unloading portable sheds in sections and erecting them; others were leveling hedges, felling small, isolated trees, uprooting bushes, and clearing away a line of wire pasture fencing.

Evidently this plateau was to be a base for some of the airmen operating along the Vosges or possibly, also, north and east from Verdun.

As they moved forward he looked about for a British uniform, but saw none. A soldier informed them that there were no British troops attached to the army of General Pau as far as he knew; two or three cavalry officers politely confirmed the statement, taking Warner to be an Englishman.

It was not until, following the deeply trodden sheep-walk, they passed the silver birch woods that they had any news of Halkett.

A squadron of hussars was already bivouacked there; their wagons were coming across the fields from the Dreslin road; officers, men, and horses had taken advantage of the woods to escape observation from air-scouts; and three batteries of artillery were parked in the Foret de Sais, where the cannoniers had already begun to cover everything with green branches.

As they passed through the Foret de Sais, out of which a shepherd with his shaggy dogs was driving his flock, they overtook an officer of hussars on foot, sauntering along the same path, a lighted cigarette between his white-gloved fingers.

He stepped aside into the bracken, courteously, in deference to Sister Eila, and lifted his hand to his shako in salute. But when he caught sight of Warner he stepped forward with a quick, boyish smile and held out his hand.

"Do you remember me?--D'Aures? This is Monsieur Warner, is it not?"

They exchanged a handclasp; Warner presented him to Sister Eila.

"This is exceedingly nice," said the American cordially. "We--Sister Eila and I--are returning to the Chateau. I hope you will come with us."