She blushed—a dusky, painful blush of outraged pride, anger, surprise, and quick self-examination and reproach. But no, she had done nothing to deserve, to bring upon herself, this new, this inconceivably outrageous humiliation! But very soon the deep colour receded, leaving her pale as she had been red, and it was with a composed countenance and downcast eyes that she stepped forward to perform the last of the pious offices the Catholic living perform to the Catholic dead—that of sprinkling holy water on the coffin.
Taking the curiously shaped bénitier in her right hand, she raised it slowly in the air, and then, in startled surprise, she paused, for all at once there rose above the silent crowd, almost entirely composed of old women and little children, a long drawn-out, sibilant scream.
Only one of those now gathered there, in that wind-swept cemetery of Valoise, knew what that sinister sound portended; so well indeed did he know it that instinctively he made a movement as if to throw himself on the ground. But he restrained the impulse. And as Jeanne Rouannès waited uncertainly, the women round her gazed up into the sky from whence came the strange sound. Like her, they were all startled and surprised rather than afraid.
Then came a muffled sound of explosion; an acrid smell floated on the light wind, and the Herr Doktor, glancing round, saw that the missile had struck the further wall of the enclosure.
The priest raised his hand. 'I think it is only a stray shell,' he called out in a loud voice. 'Do not be frightened, my children. Go home quietly, and take to your cellars, in case others follow it.'
There followed a general sauve-qui-peut. Mothers and grandmothers took up their little children, and galloped down the stony way, wailing as they ran. Alone among the women there Jeanne Rouannès remained quietly standing in front of her father's bier. As for the old priest, he moved quickly to the aperture in the wall from whence the country below lay spread out map-wise, and the Herr Doktor followed him.
Both men bent down over the parapet, and then each straightened himself and looked at the other quickly, furtively, to see if what he had seen was indeed there, and no delusion bred of a weary and excited brain.
The Route Nationale, which followed the course of the river at the bottom of the town, was dark with moving masses of artillery, of motor wagons, horses, and men. The long sinuous coil was slow moving, yet there was an air of haste and of disorder about it. With an uneasy sense of surprise and discomfort the Herr Doktor gradually began to realise that they were his own countrymen hastening thus in the wrong direction—away from Paris, instead of towards it.
Even as the two, the Frenchman and the German, looked amazedly down, the dark, thick line halted, broke, and swerved; it was clear that in a few minutes the troops composing it would be over-running all Valoise.
The priest turned to the man standing by his side. 'The Germans have come back,' he said, and there was a note of deep sadness in his voice. 'They are in great force, and I trust, Monsieur, that you will help me to keep order in my poor town.'