"Thank you, Sister Madeleine," I replied; and I could not refrain from adding, in the hope that she would grasp my double meaning: "You have _always_ given me such good advice. I shall never forget your kindness. But before coming in I must put away my tools."
Without daring to look her in the face, I turned down the path in the direction of the tool-shed. Five minutes later I left it, dressed in the gardener's earth-stained clothes, passed like a shadow to the rear of the building, and was over the wall in a trice.
I found myself in a field, and having not the slightest idea regarding the geography of Erquelinnes, went straight ahead at full speed. A quarter of an hour's steeplechasing across ditches and other natural obstacles brought me to a high road, and confronted me with the dilemma as to which way to turn. Without losing a moment's time, for I pictured the hue and cry my disappearance would soon be causing, I made off to the left. _Fausse route!_ In five minutes I came within sight of the lights of the first house of a village, undoubtedly Erquelinnes itself. With a vague idea at the back of my head of gaining the Franco-Belgian frontier, and--avoiding all small places, where curiosity is most rife--reaching Maubeuge, where I might find an asylum among my own people until an opportunity presented itself of getting back to the French lines, I struck off to the right, once more across open country. The dark cloak of night had now fallen, making my progress necessarily slow. On and on I crept in the darkness. How long I continued I cannot say, but it must have been for several hours, for a great weariness suddenly came over me and impelled me to seek sleep. What was apparently a small wood lay in my path at that moment. Groping my way from bole to bole, I divined, rather than saw, a dry and sheltered spot under the trees, and, throwing myself down, quickly fell asleep, amidst the calling of the night-jars.
I cannot tell you how long I slumbered--probably until two or three o'clock in the morning. But I was awakened by the sound of the snapping of dry twigs and muffled voices. I sprang to my feet and listened. Nearer and nearer came the stealthy footsteps. I retired as cautiously as I could; but though I trod ever so lightly, it was impossible to avoid the crackling of dead wood, which seemed to my hypersensitive ears like so many pistol-shots. Even the thumping of my heart appeared audible. One curious thing, however, I noticed: whenever, after a noisy retreat, I stopped to listen, there was a corresponding stoppage and a long silence on the part of my pursuers. But, thought I, was it at all certain they _were_ in pursuit? Would they not, in that case, have come on with a rush? "Suppose I crouch down and run the risk of them passing without seeing me?" I thought. Whilst I was reflecting; with my back to what was apparently a fairly large tree, those who were advancing, emboldened by the silence which had intervened, came on with hastened steps, and got so near that I could hear their heavy breathing. I stepped quickly behind my tree, but too late to serve my purpose, for the next moment a stern voice rapped out an oath almost in my ear and a flash of light from an electric torch struck me full in the face.