Such was the makeshift coffin of Doctor Rouannès.
The colour flamed up into the Herr Doktor's face. With a shock of shame and, yes, of naïve surprise, he realised how barbarous, how lamentable, even how grotesque, can be the minor consequences of Glorious War.
Behind the little cart and its untoward burden, Jeanne Rouannès, shrouded in black, and heavily veiled, walked alone, followed at a few paces by the two servants of the dead man. Suddenly the cart stopped, and out of the crowd there came forward eight very old men. Stooping down till their knees almost touched the ground, they lifted the white deal case on to their shoulders, and slowly, pantingly, began the task of bearing it up the stony path which led to the cemetery.
The Herr Doktor, shrinking back, instinctively held his breath; he feared that each dragging moment might bring with it the slipping of the awkward burden from some heaving shoulder, and at last the strain on his nerves became so great that he deliberately turned away, and stared, in wretched suspense, unseeingly before him.
It seemed as if hours instead of minutes passed by ere he heard the muttered exclamations of relief: 'Ça y est!' 'Enfin!' 'Oh, là, là!' which signified that the eight old men had reached level ground at last.
Then, and not till then, the onlooker left the embrasure in the wall where he had been hidden. But no one glanced his way, or seemed conscious of his alien presence, and with aching heart he gazed his fill at the mournful little procession which was now passing a few yards to his left.
The coffin bearers walked more firmly, their burden now better adjusted to their frail shoulders, and close behind them came Jeanne Rouannès.
She had thrown back her long black veil; her face looked as though it were of wax; alone her blue eyes, gleaming dry and bright, seemed alive.
Very soon the crowd surged up, forming a large semicircle, and the one stranger there fell back, on to the outer rim of it. But, even so, he could still see Jeanne Rouannès quite clearly. And when the rude case which served as her father's coffin had been placed on the trestles standing ready for it, the hard waxen look left her face, a long quivering sigh escaped her lips, and these same poor lips began to tremble piteously. As the tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, the Herr Doktor's filled in sympathy....
Suddenly their tear-dimmed eyes met, and though he did not know it, and was never to know it, she saw him, this German man, Max Keller, who loved her, as if for the first time—for the agony she was feeling unlocked the key to his heart, and made her see therein.