"Courage, my children! Our trouble is for the moment at an end. Our own brave soldiers have arrived. It is as I said—they are in pursuit, but part of them will camp here to-night. Alas! we have little or no food to offer them, for the barbarians stripped the village of everything."
Then Julie Ledru, hurriedly throwing on her cloak, said she would ascend with the Curé and give what stores she could from the Château.
"But it is no more, my daughter. You have forgotten how I told you yesterday that they have burned it to the ground."
"But my stores are hidden in the grotto in the garden, and there is a secret passage to it. I think, Father, they had not time, or did not take it, to explore, and we shall find things there. I have been putting them away since the war began."
So in the pearly dawn, a strange sight was to be seen in the trampled, desecrated garden of the Château behind its smoking ruins.
Led by Julie Ledru, the Commandant of the troops that had halted in the village found stores sufficient to help assuage the hunger of his men. He was profuse in his thanks.
"What can I do for you in exchange, Mademoiselle?" he asked, as he stood at the salute. Instantly Mademoiselle pointed to her charges, who, still shivering a little with fear, yet profoundly, poignantly interested in the extraordinary scene of desolation, in what but a few hours ago was one of the fairest spots in Belgium.
"These are my English children. Get them to their parents, Monsieur le Capitaine, and I shall be amply repaid."
The officer shook his head.