When I came into Lille rockets were rising above the city. English soldiers were firing off Verey lights. Above the houses of the city in darkness rose also gusts of cheering. It is strange that when I heard them I felt like weeping. They sounded rather ghostly, like the voices of all the dead who had fallen before this night of Armistice.
I went to my billet at Madame Chéri's house, from which I had been absent some days. I had the key of the front door now, and let myself into the hall. The dining-room door was open, and I heard the voices of the little French family, laughing, crying, hysterical. Surely hysterical!
"O mon Dieu! O mon petit Toto! Comme tu es grandi! Comme tu es maigre!"
I stood outside the door, understanding the thing that had happened.
In the centre of the room stood a tall, gaunt boy in ragged clothes, in the embrace of Madame Chéri, and with one hand clutched by Hélène, and the other by the little Madeleine, her sister. It was Edouard who had come back.
He had unloosed a pack from his shoulder, and it lay on the carpet beside him, with a little flag on a broken stick. He was haggard, with high cheek-bones prominent through his white, tightly-drawn skin, and his eyes were sunk in deep sockets. His hair was in a wild mop of black, disordered locks. He stood there, with tears
