Into the little churches, scattered over the wide countries between Charleroi and Erquelinnes, she would turn aside, indeed; but, then, that was only to say a prayer for him; that was not loss to him, but gain.

So she walked on until she reached the frontier of France.  She began to get a little giddy; she began to see the blue sky and the green level always swirling round her as if some one were spinning them to frighten her, but still she would not be afraid; she went on, and on, and on, till she set her last step on the soil of Flanders.

Here a new, strange, terrible, incomprehensible obstacle opposed her:  she had no papers; they thrust her back and spoke to her as if she were a criminal.  She could not understand what they could mean.  She had never heard of these laws and rules.  She vaguely comprehended that she must not enter France, and stunned and heartbroken she dropped down under a tree, and for the first time sobbed as if her very life would weep itself away.

She could see nothing, understand nothing.  There were the same road, the same hedges, the same fields, the same white cottages, and peasants in blue shirts and dun-hued oxen in the wagons.  She saw no mark, no difference, ere they told her where she stood was Belgium, and where they stood was France, and that she must not pass from one into the other.

The men took no notice of her.  They went back into their guard-house, and smoked and drank.  A cat sunned herself under a scarlet bean.  The white clouds sailed on before a southerly sky.  She might die here—­he there—­and nothing seemed to care.

After a while an old hawker came up; he was travelling with wooden clocks from the Black Forest.  He stopped and looked at her, and asked her what she ailed.

She knelt down at his feet in the dust.

“Oh, help me!” she cried to him.  “Oh, pray, help me!  I have walked all the way from Brussels—­that is my country—­and now they will not let me pass that house where the soldiers are.  They say I have no papers.  What papers should I have?  I do not know.  When one has done no harm, and does not owe a sou anywhere, and has walked all the way—­Is it money that they want?  I have none; and they stole my silver clasps in Brussels; and if I do not get to Paris I must die—­die without seeing him again—­ever again, dear God!”

She dropped her head upon the dust and crouched and sobbed there, her courage broken by this new barrier that she had never dreamed would come between herself and Paris.

The old hawker looked at her thoughtfully.  He had seen much of men and women, and knew truth from counterfeit, and he was moved by the child’s agony.

He stooped and whispered in her ear,—­

“Get up quick, and I will pass you.  It is against the law, and I may go to prison for it.  Never mind; one must risk something in this world, or else be a cur.  My daughter has stayed behind in Marbais sweethearting; her name is on my passport, and her age and face will do for yours.  Get up and follow me close, and I will get you through.  Poor little soul!  Whatever your woe is it is real enough, and you are such a young and pretty thing.  Get up, the guards are in their house, they have not seen; follow me, and you must not speak a word; they must take you for a German, dumb as wood.”