Page:The Marne (Wharton 1918).djvu/79

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THE MARNE
71

Lorette; Jean on a submarine: poor little Félix, the youngest, of the fever at Salonika. Voilà. . . . The old lady? Ah, she and her sister went away . . . some charitable people took them, I don't know where. . . . I've got the address somewhere. . . ." He fumbled, and brought out a strip of paper on which was written the name of a town in the centre of France.

"There's where they were a year ago. . . . Yes, you may say: there's a family gone—wiped out. How often I've seen them all sitting there, laughing and drinking coffee under the arbour! They were not rich, but they were happy and proud of each other. That's over."

He went back to his hoeing.

After that, whenever Troy Belknap got back to Paris he hunted for the surviving Gantiers. For a long time he could get no trace of them; then