A little girl ran out of the barrack, and her grandmother told her to go at once and take the American to the Red Cross.  Marie put her hand in Claude’s and led him off along one of the paths that wound among the rubbish.  She took him out of the way to show him a church,—­evidently one of the ruins of which they were proudest,—­where the blue sky was shining through the white arches.  The Virgin stood with empty arms over the central door; a little foot sticking to her robe showed where the infant Jesus had been shot away.

“Le bebe est casse, mais il a protege sa mere,” Marie explained with satisfaction.  As they went on, she told Claude that she had a soldier among the Americans who was her friend.  “Il est bon, il est gai, mon soldat,” but he sometimes drank too much alcohol, and that was a bad habit.  Perhaps now, since his comrade had stepped into a cellar hole Monday night while he was drunk, and had been drowned, her “Sharlie” would be warned and would do better.  Marie was evidently a well brought up child.  Her father, she said, had been a schoolmaster.  At the foot of the convent hill, she turned to go home.  Claude called her back and awkwardly tried to give her some money, but she thrust her hands behind her and said resolutely, “Non, merci.  Je n’ai besoin de rien,” and then ran away down the path.

As he climbed toward the top of the hill he noticed that the ground had been cleaned up a bit.  The path was clear, the bricks and hewn stones had been piled in neat heaps, the broken hedges had been trimmed and the dead parts cut away.  Emerging at last into the garden, he stood still for wonder; even though it was in ruins, it seemed so beautiful after the disorder of the world below.

The gravel walks were clean and shining.  A wall of very old boxwoods stood green against a row of dead Lombardy poplars.  Along the shattered side of the main building, a pear tree, trained on wires like a vine, still flourished,—­full of little red pears.  Around the stone well was a shaven grass plot, and everywhere there were little trees and shrubs, which had been too low for the shells to hit,—­or for the fire, which had seared the poplars, to catch.  The hill must have been wrapped in flames at one time, and all the tall trees had been burned.

The barrack was built against the walls of the cloister,—­three arches of which remained, like a stone wing to the shed of planks.  On a ladder stood a one-armed young man, driving nails very skillfully with his single hand.  He seemed to be making a frame projection from the sloping roof, to support an awning.  He carried his nails in his mouth.  When he wanted one, he hung his hammer to the belt of his trousers, took a nail from between his teeth, stuck it into the wood, and then deftly rapped it on the head.  Claude watched him for a moment, then went to the foot of the ladder and held out his two hands.  “Laissez-moi,” he exclaimed.

The one aloft spat his nails out into his palm, looked down, and laughed.  He was about Claude’s age, with very yellow hair and moustache and blue eyes.  A charming looking fellow.