Through the remainder of the night there came from the road to those in
the château the roar and rumbling of the army in retreat. It moved
without panic, disorder, or haste, but unceasingly. Not for an instant
was there a breathing-spell. And when the sun rose, the three spies--the
two women and the chauffeur--who in the great château were now alone,
could see as well as hear the gray column of steel rolling past below
them.

The spies knew that the gray column had reached Claye, had stood within
fifteen miles of Paris, and then upon Paris had turned its back. They
knew also that the reverberations from the direction of Meaux, that each
moment grew more loud and savage, were the French "seventy-fives"
whipping the gray column forward. Of what they felt the Germans did not
speak. In silence they looked at each other, and in the eyes of Marie
was bitterness and resolve.

Toward noon Marie met Anfossi in the great drawing-room that stretched
the length of the terrace and from the windows of which, through the
park gates, they could see the Paris road.

"This, that is passing now," said Marie, "is the last of our rear-guard.
Go to your tower," she ordered, "and send word that except for
stragglers and the wounded our column has just passed through
Neufchelles, and that any moment we expect the French." She raised her
hand impressively. "From now," she warned, "we speak French, we think
French, we _are_ French!"

Anfossi, or Briand, as now he called himself, addressed her in that
language. His tone was bitter. "Pardon my lese-majesty," he said, "but