And she supplemented her revelations with the vague news that the daughter had seemed very much upset by the information that she had received from the front.  Someone in the family was wounded.  Perhaps it was the brother, but she really didn’t know.  With so many surprises and strange things happening, it was difficult to keep track of everything.  Her husband, too, was in the army and she had her own affairs to worry about.

“Where can she have gone?” Julio asked himself all day long.  “Why does she wish to keep me in ignorance of her whereabouts?”

When his comrade told him that night about the transfer of the seat of government, with all the mystery of news not yet made public, Desnoyers merely replied: 

“They are doing the best thing. . . .  I, too, will go tomorrow if I can.”

Why remain longer in Paris?  His family was away.  His father, according to Argensola’s investigations, also had gone off without saying whither.  Now Marguerite’s mysterious flight was leaving him entirely alone, in a solitude that was filling him with remorse.

That afternoon, when strolling through the boulevards, he had stumbled across a friend considerably older than himself, an acquaintance in the fencing club which he used to frequent.  This was the first time they had met since the beginning of the war, and they ran over the list of their companions in the army.  Desnoyers’ inquiries were answered by the older man.  So-and-so? . . .  He had been wounded in Lorraine and was now in a hospital in the South.  Another friend? . . .  Dead in the Vosges.  Another? . . .  Disappeared at Charleroi.  And thus had continued the heroic and mournful roll-call.  The others were still living, doing brave things.  The members of foreign birth, young Poles, English residents in Paris and South Americans, had finally enlisted as volunteers.  The club might well be proud of its young men who had practised arms in times of peace, for now they were all jeopardizing their existence at the front.  Desnoyers turned his face away as though he feared to meet in the eyes of his friend, an ironical and questioning expression.  Why had he not gone with the others to defend the land in which he was living? . . .

“To-morrow I will go,” repeated Julio, depressed by this recollection.

But he went toward the South like all those who were fleeing from the war.  The following morning Argensola was charged to get him a railroad ticket for Bordeaux.  The value of money had greatly increased, but fifty francs, opportunely bestowed, wrought the miracle and procured a bit of numbered cardboard whose conquest represented many days of waiting.

“It is good only for to-day,” said the Spaniard, “you will have to take the night train.”

Packing was not a very serious matter, as the trains were refusing to admit anything more than hand-luggage.  Argensola did not wish to accept the liberality of Julio who tried to leave all his money with him.  Heroes need very little and the painter of souls was inspired with heroic resolution, The brief harangue of Gallieni in taking charge of the defense of Paris, he had adopted as his own.  He intended to keep up his courage to the last, just like the hardy general.