Mrs. Galland had settled down conscientiously to play solitaire, a favorite pastime of hers; but she failed to win, as she complained to Marta, because of her stupid way this morning of missing the combination cards.

“I really believe I need new glasses,” she declared.

“Let me help you,” said Marta.  Welcome idea!  Why hadn’t she thought of it before?  It was something to do.

“But, Marta—­there you are, covering up the jack of spades, the very card I need—­though it will not help now.  I’ve lost again!” exclaimed Mrs. Galland at length.  “Why, Marta, you miss worse than I do!”

“Do I?  Do I?” asked Marta in blank surprise and irritation.  “Please let me try once alone.  I’ll not miss this time.  Correct me if I do.”

She played with the deliberation and accuracy of Feller should he have to make a little ammunition for his automatic go a long way, and Mrs. Galland did not observe a single error.

“Hurrah!  I won!” Marta cried triumphantly, with some of her old vivacity.

Then she drew away from the table wearily.  The strain of concentrating her mind had been worse than that of the battle; or, rather, it had merely added another strain to a tortured brain after a sleepless night.  For her ears had been constantly alert.  The demon had moved one of his claws to fresh ground; the inferno on the La Tir side of the frontier had shifted to a valley beyond the Galland estate, where the firing appeared to come from the Brown side.  Breaking from the leash of silence, guns, automatics, rifles—­each one straining for a speed record—­roared and crashed and rattled in greedy chorus, while the clock ticked perhaps a hundred times.  Thus famished savages might boll their food in a time limit.  Thereafter, for a while, the battle was desultory.

Then came another outburst from Dellarme’s men, which she interpreted as the response to another rush by the Grays; and this yelping of the demon was not that of the hound after the hare, as in the valley, but of the hare with his back to the wall.  When it was over there was no cheer.  What did this mean?  Oh, that slow minute-hand, resting so calmly between hitches of destiny, now pointing to a quarter after eleven!  For half a century, it seemed to her, Marta had endured watching its snail pace.  Now inaction was no longer bearable.  Without warning to her mother she bolted out of the kitchen.  Mrs. Galland sprang up to follow, but Minna barred the way.

“One is enough!” she said firmly, and Mrs. Galland dropped back into her chair.

In the front rooms Marta found havoc beyond her imagination.  A portion of the ceiling had been blown out by a shell entering at an up-stairs window; the hardwood floors were littered with plaster and window-glass and ripped into splinters in places.

“How can we ever afford repairs!” she thought.