"Are you alone?"

"Yes--I'm not a native of Charleville. My husband and I have only been
married a year. He left the second of August and the baby was born the
tenth. She's only three weeks old."

No wonder the mother looked haggard--one hundred and fifty miles on
foot, with a newborn infant in her arms, fleeing for her life before the
barbarous hordes!

I pressed another cup of coffee with a drop of brandy in it upon her.
She looked appealingly at both of us and then drank.

"Was your husband good to you?" asked Madame Guix.

"Ah, yes, Madame."

"Do you love him well enough to endure another sacrifice like a true
wife and mother that you are?"

"Yes."

And then we told her that her baby bad gone--gone to a brighter Country
where war is unknown. She looked at us in amazement, and burying her
head on her arm, sobbed silently but submissively.

"Come, come, you must sleep--and when you are rested we will help you to
find room in a cart which will take you towards your parents."

She cast a long, loving look at her first born, and let herself be led