The snow began to drive, whipped by a bitter wind, and he drew the heavy blue overcoat closely about him.  The shuddering which was not of the snow and the cold, passed, but his heart was ice.  The abandoned town over which Germans and French had fought oppressed him like a nightmare.  What had become of Julie?  Why had Philip asked her to meet him at such a place?  There was the hospital, but it was in the plain below, where lights now shone faintly through the heavy gray air and the driving snow.

Surely Lannes could not have made any mistake!  John had learned to trust his judgment thoroughly and Philip, too, knew the country so well.  If he had sent for Julie to come to Chastel he must have had a good reason for it, although the snow was bound to delay the coming of the Arrow to meet her.  If she had reached Chastel she would remain there, and not go to the hospital in the plain below.  She trusted her brother as implicitly as John did.

John, taking thought with himself, concluded that she must be now in the village.  It was not possible that Chastel, silent as it was and desolate as it seemed, could be entirely deserted.  Although leaving ruin behind, the fury of battle had passed and some of the people would return to their homes.  Chastel lay behind the French lines, a great hospital camp was not far away, and the fear of further German invasion could not be present now.

He put one hand in his overcoat pocket over the butt of the automatic, and then, remembering how General Vaugirard whistled, he too whistled, not for want of thought but to encourage himself, to make his heart beat a little less violently, and to hear a cheerful sound where there was nothing else but the soft swish of the snow and the desolate moaning of the wind among the ruins.

He walked down the main street, and unconsciously stopped whistling.  Then the awful silence and desolation brooded over him again.  The storm was thickening, and the lights in the plain below were entirely gone now.  He was not yet able to find any proof of human life in Chastel, and, after all, the fighting in the town might have been so recent and so fierce that not one of the inhabitants yet dared to return.  The thought made his heart throb painfully.  What, then, had become of Julie?

He stopped before the cathedral, and looked up at the lofty Gothic spire which seemed to tower above the whirling snow.  As well as he could see some damage had been done to the roof by shells, but the beautiful stained-glass windows were uninjured.  He stood there gazing, and he knew in his heart that he was looking for a sign, like that which he and Lannes had seen on the Arc de Triomphe when the fortunes of France seemed lost forever.

A stalwart figure suddenly emerged from the white gloom and heavy hands were laid upon him.  John’s own fingers in his overcoat pocket tightened over the automatic, but the hands on his shoulders were those of friendship.