I explained to her as well as I could that I was alone in the world, poor myself, and that I could not see myself leaving all that I valued,—­my home; to have which I had made a supreme effort, and for which I had already a deep affection,—­to join the band of refugies, shelterless, on the road, or to look for safety in a city, which, if the Germans passed here, was likely to be besieged and bombarded.  I finally convinced her that my mind was made up.  I had decided to keep my face turned toward Fate rather than run away from it.  To me it seemed the only way to escape a panic—­a thing of which I have always had a horror.

Seeing that nothing could make me change my mind, we shook hands, wished each other luck, and, as she turned away, she said, in her pretty French:  “I am sorry it is disaster that brought us together, but I hope to know you better when days are happier”; and she went down the hill.

When I returned to the dining-room I found that, in spite of my orders, Amelie was busy putting my few pieces of silver, and such bits of china from the buffet as seemed to her valuable,—­her ideas and mine on that point do not jibe,—­into the waste-paper baskets to be hidden underground.

I was too tired to argue.  While I stood watching her there was a tremendous explosion.  I rushed into the garden.  The picket, his gun on his shoulder, was at the gate.

“What was that?” I called out to him.

“Bridge,” he replied.  “The English divisions are destroying the bridges on the Marne behind them as they cross.  That means that another division is over.”

I asked him which bridge it was, but of course he did not know.  While I was standing there, trying to locate it by the smoke, an English officer, who looked of middle age, tall, clean-cut, rode down the road on a chestnut horse, as slight, as clean-cut, and well groomed as himself.  He rose in his stirrups to look off at the plain before he saw me.  Then he looked at me, then up at the flags flying over the gate,—­saw the Stars and Stripes,—­smiled, and dismounted.

“American, I see,” he said.

I told him I was.

“Live here?” said he.

I told him that I did.

“Staying on?” he asked.

I answered that it looked like it.

He looked me over a moment before he said, “Please invite me into your garden and show me that view.”

I was delighted.  I opened the gate, and he strolled in and sauntered with a long, slow stride—­a long-legged stride—­out on to the lawn and right down to the hedge, and looked off.

“Beautiful,” he said, as he took out his field-glass, and turned up the map case which hung at his side.  “What town is that?” he asked, pointing to the foreground.

I told him that it was Mareuil-on-the-Marne.

“How far off is it?” he questioned.

I told him that it was about two miles, and Meaux was about the same distance beyond it.