She wiped the goblet.
"And so, madam, you are running away?" resumed the sergeant.
"I couldn't help it."
"Across the fields? With no particular object?"
"Sometimes I run with all my might, and then I walk, and once in a while I fall."
"Poor countrywoman!" said the vivandière.
"They were fighting," stammered the woman. "I was in the middle of the firing. I don't know what they want. They killed my husband,—that was all I know about it."
The sergeant banged the butt of his musket on the ground, exclaiming,—
"What a beast of a war! In the name of all that is idiotic!"
The woman continued,—-