“I can give you a franc. I have not too much myself. Where have you come from?”
“I don't know. None of us knew where we were.”
He thanked her, observed that he was very hungry, and rode on. She found a night's lodging at a seed-chandler's who had no seeds to sell.
“They will not need them this year,” he said. “The Prussians are riding over the corn.”
The next morning the indomitable little woman went on her way towards Sedan in a forage-cart which was going to the front. She told the corporal in charge that she was attached to the Baron de Mélide's field hospital and must get to her work.
“You will not like it when you get there, my brave lady,” said the man, good-humouredly, making room for her.
“I shall like it better than doing nothing here,” she replied.
And so they set forth through the country heavy with harvest. It was the second of September. The corn was ripe, the leaves were already turning; for it had been a dry summer, and since April hardly any rain had fallen.
It was getting late in the afternoon when they met a man in a dog-cart driving at a great pace. He pulled up when he saw them. His face was the colour of lead, his eyes were startlingly bloodshot.
“This parishioner has been badly scared,” muttered the soldier who was driving Mademoiselle Brun.