"I am going where God wills. The Germans have turned me out. I am going to earn my living elsewhere."
He turned very pale. I had stopped for a minute to breathe.
"How!" said he, "they are turning you out of doors at your age—you, an old forester, an honest man, who never did harm to any one?"
"Yes; they do not want me in this country any longer. They have given me twenty-four hours in which to quit old Alsace, and I am on my way."
"And Marie-Rose and the grandmother?"
"They are at Graufthal, at Ykel's. The grandmother is dying. The others will bury her."
Hepp, with drooping head and eyes cast down, lifted up his hands, saying: "What a pity! what a pity!"
I made no reply, and wiped my face, which was covered with perspiration. After a moment's pause, without looking at me, he said:
"Ah! if I had been alone with my wife! But I have six children. I am their father. I could not let them die of hunger. You had a little money laid aside. I had not a sou."
Then, seeing this man with a good situation—for he was a German brigadier forester—seeing this man making excuses to a poor, wretched exile like me, I did not know any more than he did what to answer, and I said: