Corbeille had been the objective of our proposed canoe journey.  There had been abundant warrant then in the very constitution of things for my psychic shivers at the first broaching of that canoe-trip.

Our escape had been by a narrow margin.  If that telegram, “Left Corbeille and gone to Melun,” had missed us, Robert le Marchand’s first shot might have meant death, not to his enemy but to his own life and soul.  On the eve of the great war he might have embraced his dearest one cold and lifeless.  But instead of that somber ending, here she was, warm, radiant and laughing—­doubly precious by the trials through which she had passed and the death from which she had been delivered.

Chapter XIV

No-Man’s-Land

The movements of the 231ier Regiment d’Infanterie were publicly announced.  It was scheduled to entrain on the morrow for the front between Metz and Nancy.  Robert le Marchand needed not to go.  Pronounced unfit by the regimental doctor, his name had been placed upon the hospital list.  Amidst the bustle of preparation for departure he spent the day in quietude, and Marie played nurse to the invalid.

Her little tale about being a Red Cross worker told at the Gare du Nord turned out to be the truth and not the fable that she had fancied.  Robert’s recovery was so rapid that the doctor was astonished.  He was understanding, however; also he was a very kindly doctor.  He came and smiled and nodded his approval.

Then he went away, still leaving Robert on the sick list.

A long season of such delightful convalescence was now his for the taking.  Golden days they promised to be to him and to Marie, but to France those early August days held portents of defeat and disaster.  So one gathered from the ugly rumors from the frontier.  The great battle raging in the north had its miniature in their souls.  Theirs to choose days of ease and dalliance or the call to duty.

When the 231st regiment formed into line the afternoon of August 7th, the sergeant, radiant and happy, was with them again.  But the tears in his eyes?  That perplexed his comrades.  Those who knew the secret let the romance lose none of its glamour in the telling until Marie became, forsooth, the heroine of the regiment.

At four o’clock the regimental band struck up the Marseillaise and the regiment moved down the road.  The sergeant’s feet kept time with his marching men, while his eyes turned to the blue figure on a balcony, whose hand was fluttering a limp white handkerchief.  She was striving her best to wave a cheerful farewell.  The repeated strains:  “Ye sons of France awake to glory,” came each time more faintly as the regiment moved steadily away.  There is always pain in such a growing distance.  But it was not all pain to the tear-stained girl upon the balcony.  She had her part in that glory.  Had she not, too, made her sacrifice.