Father."

"Proceed, my big boy," nodded the priest. "You are saying nothing
wrong. I was a man before I was a priest. It is all natural, what you
are saying, and all according to God's law--no sin in it. Proceed. Did
your happiness do you good?"

Pierre shook his head doubtfully. The look of dejection came back to
his face. He frowned as if something puzzled and hurt him. "Yes and no!
That is the strange thing. It made me thankful--that goes without
saying. But it did not make me any stronger in my heart. Perhaps it was
too sweet. I thought too much of it. I could not bear to think of
anything else. The idea of the war was hateful, horrible, disgusting.
The noise and the dirt of it, the mud in the autumn and the bitter cold
in the winter, the rats and the lice in the dugouts! And then the fury
of the charge, and the everlasting killing, killing, or being killed!
The danger had seemed little or nothing to me when I was there. But at
a distance it was frightful, unendurable. I knew that I could never
stand up to it again. Besides, already I had done my share--enough for
two or three men. Why must I go back into that hell? It was not fair.
Life was too dear to be risking it all the time. I could not endure it.
France? France? Of course I love France. But my farm, and my life with
Josephine and the children mean more to me. The thing that made me a
good soldier is broken inside me. It is beyond mending."

His voice sank lower and lower. Father Courcy looked at him gravely.

"But your farm is a part of France. You belong to France. He that
saveth his life shall lose it!"