"We must be getting to Marbashe?"

"Hardly yet, _mon capitaine_. It was unlucky the _brigadier_ should be
at Thionville. I could have mended the spring on the lorry myself, but
it wants two men to tow in the car."

"This is Marbache!"

In the shelter of the hamlet the lights leapt forward and struck a
handful of houses, thickened and rounded with snow. Almost immediately
darkness swallowed them up, and a drift of snow flung up by the wind
burst in powder over the bonnet and on to the glass.

"The plain outside. Now we go down a long hill. We turn sharp to the
right here."

The car entered a tunnel of skeleton trees through which the flakes
drained and flickered, or broke in uneven gusts through the trunks. The
left lamp touched a little wooden hut which stood blinkered and
deserted. Just beyond it was a sharp turn in the road.

"What's that?"

A pale light hung in the dark ahead of them.

"Is it a car? No."

"Yes, lamps. With the beam broken by the snow."