More than Henri's absence was troubling Sara Lee those days. Indeed she
herself laid all her anxiety to one thing, a serious one at that. With
all the marvels of Henri's buying, and Jean's, her money was not holding
out. The scope of the little house had grown with its fame. Now and
then there were unexpected calls, too--Marie's mother, starving in
Havre; sickness and death in the little town at the crossroads: a dozen
small emergencies, but adding to the demands on her slender income. She
had, as a matter of fact, already begun to draw on her private capital.

And during the days when no gray car appeared she faced the situation,
took stock, as it were, and grew heavy-eyed and wistful.

On the fifth day the gray car came again, but Jean drove it alone. He
disclaimed any need for sympathy over his wound, and with Rene's aid
carried in the supplies.

There was the business of checking them off, and the further business
of Sara Lee's paying for them in gold. She sat at the table, Jean
across, and struggled with centimes and francs and louis d'or, an
engrossed frown between her eyebrows.

Jean, sitting across, thought her rather changed. She smiled very seldom,
and her eyes were perhaps more steady. It was a young girl he and Henri
had brought out to the little house. It was a very serious and rather
anxious young woman who sat across from him and piled up the money he
had brought back into little stacks.