They spent that night in one of the limestone caves of the Semois. In spite of the milk, in spite of Dorothea's sheltering arms, the baby died of exhaustion in the cold hour before the dawn. Dorothea wept bitter tears, and left it lying covered with ferns, on a bed of moss; she could not bear to pile stones on the tender little limbs and ivory face. A turnip-field gave them a breakfast more sustaining than hazel nuts and blackberries, but for the most part they kept to the woods; they were afraid of the open country. By this time they had lost all sense of direction. The rain still fell hopelessly. There was no sun to guide them; the hills were all hidden in mist; and the Semois, when they came on it in its wild and twisting valley, seemed never to flow twice in the same direction. Yet they wandered on, because they had begun wandering and had not spirit to stop.
Towards sunset they came suddenly to the edge of a hill, and saw below them, deep buried in a cup-like hollow, a farm. From where they stood an orchard sloped steeply to the group of white buildings, beyond them the green meadow fell away to a brook; the opposite slope was a stubble field, crowned with a line of firs.
"Why," said Dorothea, "why—"
They had wandered in a circle and come back to their starting-point. It was the Ferme de la Croix.
Lettice, who had not spoken for hours, found her tongue. "Don't go down," she said, "we shall only find somebody else dead."
"We might find something to eat," said Dorothea, more hopeful. "The house does look all right, and I'm sure Madame Hasquin would give us the supper off her own plate, if she hadn't anything else. But oh, my good gracious! how we must have wandered! I'd hoped we were half-way to Mezières by now. And yet, you know, I did think the country seemed to be looking familiar somehow this last half-hour. Don't you come down, Lettice; you stay here with the things while I go and explore."
Lettice, who was possessed of a dumb devil that day, shifted her bundle from her left hand to her right and said nothing. Slipping from tree to tree down the orchard, Dorothea peeped at the house from under cover. All was still, except the joy-song of a hen which had just laid an egg. Live fowls and live Germans being incompatible, Dorothea came out of hiding and walked boldly up the pebbled path to the door. On either side bloomed roses, dahlias, lavender where the bees were humming. The evening sun came out, and shone peacefully on the white walls. Dorothea rapped. No answer; only a sandy cat ran out of the bushes and twined round her skirts. She knocked again, then pushed open the door and entered.
A spotless white passage with a dark, uneven, shiny floor and doors on either side, old and irregular. Dorothea opened the first. She saw a pleasant parlor, low-pitched, with lattices facing the sunset; a carved oak press; an eight-day clock, still ticking; a table laid for dinner with beef-steak, gray in its gray greasy gravy, stewed pears, pommes sautées, salad in a china bowl, golden country beer in a large decanter. Glasses stood half empty, knives and forks were crossed on half-eaten plates of meat, chairs had been pushed back anyhow. There was no living creature but the cat, who sprang up on the window ledge, with a low crooning purr, among the red geraniums in the sun.
A hand fell softly on Dorothea's shoulder, and she turned with a great start; but it was only Lettice, who had toiled after her with both bundles, and had come up noiseless behind, as her custom was.