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“How long will you be?” said Lacaze yawning luxuriously. “I mean, it is getting late, and I must be up at five.”

“A quarter of an hour,” said his wife, and bent to her work.

The night was stifling.

Madeleine’s younger brother was killed that fateful August. Ere September was old, Jean had been taken prisoner. Of René, no news reached her.

For the matter of that, she heard naught of Lacaze, either. He had not told her his regiment. He never wrote. The man might have been dead ... might have....

He came to see her at last, one dark December morning. ...

When he went back, he took a shirt with him.

Twice more he came to see her, and each time took back a shirt. He swore by these garments—called them his mascots, his charms—declared he could never be killed while she sat on his shoulders....

The idea stuck.

Madeleine began to believe her linen was preserving his life.

She tried to be grateful.

Two shirts remained to be strapped. Setting to work one Sunday, she found her chemise was gone. She had used all its stuff. Her impulse, of course, was to purchase a piece of fresh linen. Without a thought she would have done so, but for his idle words. As it was....