that way.” 

“What do you really think?” asked Lucy curiously. “They smile at us and are eager to sell things. But Larry, how can they feel friendly?” 

“I can’t fathom them,” said Larry, not much given to analyzing character at any time. “Most of them seem spiritless enough, but I’ve seen a few bitter looks, all the same, and some eyes that shone with hate at sight of us. I don’t trust one of them.” 

“Oh, they’ll have to take it out in hating us,” said Lucy easily. “They can’t do any worse now.” 

Lucy had had enough of plotting and conspiracy. She was determined to put German treachery out of her mind and live in confident simplicity once more. 

“Fed-up with the war, eh, Lucy?” Captain Beattie had remarked, when Lucy and the young Britisher met by chance in Cantigny soon after the armistice. “Well, you know, I rather am myself. Let’s cross the Channel and leave it all behind.” 

And that was what Lucy longed to do, putting the Atlantic in place of the Channel, in spite of trying to persuade herself of the contrary after Miss Pearse’s urging. All through the war she had looked forward to that day, the fighting ended, that would see the Gordon family on board the first ship bound for America. Even adventurous spirits have their homesick moments. Foreign sights and sounds had, while this mood lasted, lost their charm for her. She looked around her now at the old gabled houses of Coblenz, at the Germans passing, who paused to stare with blank curiosity at the Americans, already a familiar part of the city’s inhabitants, and she felt no sympathy with her surroundings. 

“I’m going to bury myself in that forest and work so hard at the hospital that I’ll forget I’m in Germany,” she told Larry, as they neared the house commandeered for General Gordon’s quarters. “You might come out and see me once in a while, though, Larry, and tell me how peace is getting on.” 

“I’ll be out every year or two and bring you the news,” Larry promised. “Maybe I’ll feel the need of a little rest cure myself. I’m pretty well exhausted.” 

Lucy laughed as she met the blue twinkling eyes above his tanned cheeks. An orderly opened the house door as Larry held out his hand in good-bye. 

The following day Lucy joined Miss Pearse and half a dozen other Red Cross workers to travel by motor-lorry to Badheim. The road ran 

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