The night before, it seemed, some one, for purposes unknown, had fired a bullet through the window of her house.

It was proof of the rapidity with which the actual presence of war works indifference to sudden shocks among a people that this woman could discuss the incident quietly.

Hostile gun butts had splintered her front door; why not a stray bullet or two through her back window?
So we interpreted her attitude.
It was she who advised us not to try to ford the Sambre at Merbes-le- Chateau, but to go off at an angle to La Buissiere, where she had heard one bridge still stood.

She said nothing of a fight at that place.

It is possible that she knew nothing of it, though the two towns almost touched.