“Marie very frankly told him that an officer had requested permission to leave the equipment there, and had slept in the house.  Beyond that she knew nothing, nor did she know what his luggage contained.

“’I shall report this to my commander.  I know not what he will do, but giving aid to the enemy is a serious matter,’ he warned.  Then the soldiers went away.  That day neither the Padre nor Marie left the house.  Late in the afternoon an officer entered and questioned them sharply, finally leaving, apparently satisfied with their answers.  The two were not disturbed again.

“Next day the Padre went to his church and Marie went out to do her marketing.  She was unmolested, though soldiers frequently spoke to her jokingly, to all of which she smiled and made some bright reply.

“That night as she sat thinking in her room in the dark, her conversation with Captain Grivelet suddenly came back to her.  He had been about to tell her something of importance, something that he wished her to do for her people.

“‘The cellar!’ exclaimed the child.

“Snatching up a candle, she hurried below and holding the light above her head, surveyed the low-ceilinged cellar keenly.

“‘I see nothing,’ murmured the girl.  ’But surely there is something here.  It could not have been in the equipment that the Germans carried away with them, for they searched the Captain’s belongings and found nothing.  That I plainly saw with my own eyes.’

“Marie gave up her quest and, returning to her room, went to bed.  The greater part of the night she lay awake, disturbed now and then by vollies of rifle shots, which she interpreted with a shudder.  Some of her neighbors were meeting a terrible fate, a fate that yet might be hers or her uncle’s, or both.

“On the following morning, after a soldier had visited their home and again searched it, Marie, still troubled by her failure to find that which the French captain had started to confide in her, locked the door after the Padre’s departure for his church, and once more went to the cellar.

“This time her search was thorough, but she discovered nothing.  Sitting down in the middle of the cellar, with her candle placed on the floor at one side, she gazed about her.  A shadow cast by the candlelight on the cellar wall seemed to make it appear that one of the stones projected outward further than the others.

“Marie got up to examine the stone.  Closer examination verified this surmise.  She uttered a little exclamation when, upon taking hold of the stone, it moved.  Marie pulled and the stone came out easily.

“‘Oh!’ cried the child.

“There, before her eyes, tucked into the opening, was a telephone.  The child stared at it with wide open eyes.  This, plainly, was what the French captain wished to tell her about when he was interrupted by the bugle summons and called away to a service from which he did not return.  But what was it that he wished her to do with the telephone?