“To the King, old friend.”

Jean took the letter and went out.

Down below, Sara Lee sat with Henri’s ragged tunic on her lap and stitched carefully.  Sometime, she reflected, she would be mending worn garments for another man, now far away.  A little flood of tenderness came over her.  So helpless these men!  There was so much to do for them!  And soon, please God, she would be helping other tired and weary men, with food, and perhaps a word—­when she had acquired some French—­and perhaps a thread and needle.

She dined alone that night, as usual.  Henri did not appear, though she had sent what she suspected was his only tunic back to him neatly mended at five o’clock.  As a matter of fact Henri was sound asleep.  He had meant to rest only for an hour a body that was crying aloud with fatigue.  But Jean, coming in quietly, had found him sleeping like a child, and had put his own blanket over him and left him.  Henri slept until morning, when Jean, coming up from his vigil outside the American girl’s door, found him waking and rested, and rang for coffee.

Jean sat down on the edge of his bed and put on his shoes and puttees.  He was a taciturn man, but now he had something to say that he did not like to say.  And Henri knew it.

“What is it?” he asked, his arms under his head.  “Come, let us have it!  It is, of course, about the American lady.”

“It is,” Jean said bluntly.  “You cannot mix women and war.”

“And you think I am doing that?”

“I am not an idiot,” Jean growled.  “You do not know what you are doing.  I do.  She is young and lonely.  You are young and not unattractive to women.  Already she turns pale when I so much as ask if she has heard from you.”

“You asked her that?”

“You were gone much longer than—­”

“And you thought I might send her word, and not you!” Henri’s voice was offended.  He lay back while the boy brought in the morning coffee and rolls.

“Let me tell you something,” he said when the boy had gone.  “She is betrothed to an American.  She wears a betrothal ring.  I am to her—­the French language!”

But, though Henri laughed, Jean remained grave and brooding.  For Henri had not said what Sara Lee already was to him.

It was later in the morning that Henri broached the subject again.  They were in the courtyard of an old house, working over the engine of the car.

“I think I have found a location for the young American lady,” he said.

Jean hammered for a considerable time at a refractory rim.

“And where?” he asked at last.

Henri named the little town.  Like Henri’s family name, it must not be told.  Too many things happened there, and perhaps it is even now Henri’s headquarters.  For that portion of the line has changed very little.

Jean fell to renewed hammering.

“If you will be silent I shall explain a plan,” Henri said in a cautious tone.  “She will make soup, with help which we shall find.  And if coming in for refreshments a soldier shall leave a letter for me it is natural, is it not?”