"Why?"
"Don't you know?"
"No."
Clarette smiled grimly.
"When Henri escapes me, he always gets himself into trouble. He is not so very bad, but he is careless—and foolish. He tries to help the Germans and the French at the same time, to be accommodating, and so both have conceived a desire to shoot him. Well; when they shoot him he can no longer earn money to support me and his children."
"Are they really his children?" inquired young Jones.
"Who else may claim them, monsieur?"
"I thought they were the children of your first husband, the blacksmith."
Clarette glared at him, with lowering brow.