The battalion bugles were blowing and the men were falling in on the square by the church. The transports had hooked in and were waiting in the little Rue des Fermes. Half Myonville was there by the church, crowded against the fronts of the little white houses and under the pollarded limes, laughing and exchanging banter with the soldiers and wishing them good luck.

“Where’s the C.O.?”

The adjutant, glancing at his watch and rather worried, threw this question at Haines the doctor, who came up jamming a packet of sandwiches into his haversack.

“He left me at the mess. Said he had forgotten something at his billet.”

“It’s three minutes to nine. Sergeant-Major!”

“Sir?”

“Send the colonel’s horse along to his billet, the café down by the school.”

“Never known him late,” said James to the doctor, “not by ten seconds.”

Tod had gone back to his billet, for an overmastering impulse had taken him there. Claire had hidden herself and he had not seen her to say “good-bye” when he had left the house at half-past seven. And suddenly the thought had shocked him, the thought of “I shall never see her again,” and his heart had answered—“I must.”

The café door was locked. Tod went round to the gate that led into the yard, and came face to face with Josephine.

“Mademoiselle.”

Josephine understood.

“She is in her room.”

“I have a minute, no more. Josephine, you can trust me.”

“I trust you,” she said, and walked away towards the orchard.

Tod stood in the little brick-paved yard, looking up at the house all green with the leaves of the great pear tree. A little smoke rose from one of the chimneys. Claire’s window, with its white lace curtains, was half closed.

“Claire,” he called softly, “Mademoiselle Claire.”

Then he saw her at the window. She was dressed, and he had a glimpse of her white blouse and the top of her black apron with the blue pansies.

“Monsieur——!”

She had gone pale at the sound of his voice, and she was trembling.

“It is au revoir, I had not seen you.”

“Je ne descende pas,” she said; “I cannot, monsieur.”

She looked down at him for a moment with a sudden tragic radiance that was near to tears. And then her hand dropped something, a little book bound with a slip of blue ribbon. It was a little Testament that had belonged to her mother. Tod picked it up.

“God bless you for ever and ever,” he said.

And then he turned and ran.

He was buttoning that little brown book into the breast pocket of his tunic, when an orderly met him with his horse.

“All right, Smith. Thanks. Now then, Punch, old boy.”

He swung into the saddle and rode down the street to the church. The church clock struck nine as he reached the battalion, those brown men in their fighting kit standing steady, eyes to the front.

And Tod smiled. It was a brave smile. He was the soldier again.

“Nearly late, James.”

“It never happens, sir.”

“All ready?”

“All ready, sir.”

“Then we’ll move off.”

So Tod rode out of Myonville at the head of his men, and Claire went to the school and sat calmly through the morning under the eyes of the children.

“Is it all true?” her heart kept saying. “Why did he ever come to me?”

And yet she knew that she would not have had it otherwise.