CHAPTER XXII

Alice Parcot had been helping to carry food and bedding into the cellar against a siege and bombardment, for it was reported that the French were about to attack the Germans. She was just going up the stairs when the door was thrown open and an officer with a guard of two soldiers burst in. Professor Tudesq appeared below, emerging from his study in a rage at the noise. The officer’s answer to the protestations of the old man was to inform him that his house had been selected for the billeting of twenty soldiers an…