“Ah, it is thou, Monsieur Scott!” exclaimed a deep voice.  “The master has not come but thou art thrice welcome in his place!”

It was Picard, no less than Antoine Picard himself, looming white and gigantic through the storm, and John could not doubt the genuine warmth in his voice.  He was in truth welcome and he knew it.  As Picard’s hands dropped from his shoulders he seized them in his and wrung them hard.

“Mademoiselle Julie!” he exclaimed.  “What of her?  Did she come?  Or have you only come in her place?”

“She is here, sir!  In the church with Suzanne, my daughter.  We arrived two hours ago.  I wanted to go on to the camp that we could see in the plain below, but Mademoiselle Lannes would not hear of it.  It was here that Monsieur Philip wished her to meet him, and if she went on he would miss her.  We expected to find food and rooms, but, my God, sir, the town is deserted!  Most of the houses have been shot to pieces by the artillery and if people are here we cannot find them.  Because of that we have taken shelter, for the present, in the church.”

But John in his eagerness was already pushing open one of the huge bronze doors, and Picard, brushing some of the snow from his clothes, followed him.  The door swung shut behind them both, and he stood beside one of the pews staring into the dusky interior.

But his eyes became used to the gloom, and soon it did not seem so somber as it was outside.  Instead the light from the stained-glass windows made the mists and shadows luminous.  A nave, the lofty pillars dividing it from the side aisles, the choir and the altar emerged slowly into view.  From the walls pictures of the Madonna and the saints, unstained and untouched, looked down upon him.  One of the candles near the altar had been lighted, and it burned with a steady, beckoning flame.

The cathedral, a great building for a small town, as happens so often in Europe, presented a warm and cheerful interior to John.  It seemed to him soon after the huge bronze door sank into place behind him that war, cold, desolation and loneliness were shut out.  The luminous glow streaming through the stained glass windows and the candle burning near the altar were beacons.

Then he saw Julie, sitting wrapped in a heavy cloak, in one of the pews before the choir, and the grim Suzanne, also shrouded in a heavy cloak, sat beside her.  John’s heart was in a glow.  He knew now that he loved his comrade Philip’s sister.  Two or three of the golden curls escaping from her hood, fell down her back, and they were twined about his heart.  He knew too that it was not the light from the stained windows, but Julie herself who had filled the church with splendor.  She was to John a young goddess, perfect in her beauty, one who could do no wrong.  His love had all the tenderness and purity of young love, the poetic love that comes only to youth.

But when he realized that Julie Lannes had become so much to him he felt a sudden shyness, and he let the gigantic Picard lead the way.  They had made no noise in opening and closing the door, and their boots had been soundless on the stone floor.