The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Amazing Interlude, by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Published：2026-07-30 00:12:58 Source: what to look for in bead kits for kids Author: Dollhouses

THE AMAZING INTERLUDE

By Mary Roberts Rinehart

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
THE KINNEYS

Contents

I II III IV V
VI VII VIII IX X
XI XII XIII XIV XV
XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX
XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV
XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX

Illustrations

Officers stopping in to fight their paper and pin battles.

Henri explained the method.

"That I should have hurt you so!" he said softly.

That Henri might be living, somewhere—that some day the Belgians mightgo home again.

I

The stage on which we play our little dramas of life and love has formost of us but one setting. It is furnished out with approximately thesame things. Characters come, move about and make their final exitsthrough long-familiar doors. And the back drop remains approximatelythe same from beginning to end. Palace or hovel, forest or sea, it isthe background for the moving figures of the play.

So Sara Lee Kennedy had a back drop that had every appearance ofpermanency. The great Scene Painter apparently intended that thereshould be no change of set for her. Sara Lee herself certainly expectednone.

But now and then amazing things are done on this great stage of ours:lights go down; the back drop, which had given the illusion of solidity,reveals itself transparent. A sort of fairyland transformation takesplace. Beyond the once solid wall strange figures move on—a new miseen scène, with the old blotted out in darkness. The lady, whom we leftknitting by the fire, becomes a fairy—Sara Lee became a fairy, of asort—and meets the prince. Adventure, too; and love, of course. Andthen the lights go out, and it is the same old back drop again, and thelady is back by the fire—but with a memory.

This is the story of Sara Lee Kennedy's memory—and of something more.

The early days of the great war saw Sara Lee playing her part in thesetting of a city in Pennsylvania. An ugly city, but a wealthy one. Itis only fair to Sara Lee to say that she shared in neither quality. Shewas far from ugly, and very, very far from rich. She had started herpart with a full stage, to carry on the figure, but one by one they hadgone away into the wings and had not come back. At nineteen she wasalone knitting by the fire, with no idea whatever that the back drop wasof painted net, and that beyond it, waiting for its moment, was theforest of adventure. A strange forest, too—one that Sara Lee wouldnot have recognised as a forest. And a prince of course—but a princeas strange and mysterious as the forest.

The end of December, 1914, found Sara Lee quite contented. If it wasresignation rather than content, no one but Sara Lee knew the difference.Knitting, too; but not for soldiers. She was, to be candid, knitting anafghan against an interesting event which involved a friend of hers.

Sara Lee rather deplored the event—in her own mind, of course, for inher small circle young unmarried women accepted the major events of lifewithout question, and certainly without conversation. She never, forinstance, allowed her Uncle James, with whom she lived, to see herworking at the afghan; and even her Aunt Harriet had supposed it to be asweater until it assumed uncompromising proportions.

Sara Lee's days, up to the twentieth of December, 1914, had been muchalike. In the mornings she straightened up her room, which she hadcopied from one in a woman's magazine, with the result that it gavesomehow the impression of a baby's bassinet, being largely dotted Swissand ribbon. Yet in a way it was a perfect setting for Sara Lee herself.It was fresh and virginal, and very, very neat and white. A resignedlittle room, like Sara Lee, resigned to being tucked away in a cornerand to having no particular outlook. Peaceful, too.

Sometimes in the morning between straightening her room and going to themarket for Aunt Harriet, Sara Lee looked at a newspaper. So she knewthere was a war. She read the headings, and when the matter came up formention at the little afternoon bridge club, as it did now and then afterthe prizes were distributed, she always said "Isn't it horrible!" andchanged the subject.

On the night of the nineteenth of December Sara Lee had read her chapterin the Bible—she read it through once each year—and had braided downher hair, which was as smooth and shining and lovely as Sara Lee herself,and had raised her window for the night when Aunt Harriet came in. SaraLee did not know, at first, that she had a visitor. She stood lookingout toward the east, until Aunt Harriet touched her on the arm.

"What in the world!" said Aunt Harriet. "A body would suppose it wasAugust."

"I was just thinking," said Sara Lee.

"You'd better do your thinking in bed. Jump in and I'll put out yourlight."

So Sara Lee got into her white bed with the dotted Swiss valance, anddrew the covers to her chin, and looked a scant sixteen. Aunt Harriet,who was an unsentimental woman, childless and diffident, found hersuddenly very appealing there in her smooth bed, and did an unexpectedthing. She kissed her. Then feeling extremely uncomfortable she putout the light and went to the door. There she paused.

"Thinking!" she said. "What about, Sara Lee?"

Perhaps it was because the light was out that Sara Lee became articulate.Perhaps it was because things that had been forming in her young mind forweeks had at last crystallized into words. Perhaps it was because of apicture she had happened on that day, of a boy lying wounded somewhereon a battlefield and calling "Mother!"

"About—over there," she said rather hesitatingly. "And about Anna."

"Over there?"

"The war," said Sara Lee. "I was just thinking about all those womenover there—like Anna, you know. They—they had babies, and goteverything ready for them. And then the babies grew up, and they're allgetting killed."

"It's horrible," said Aunt Harriet. "Do you want another blanket? It'scold to-night."

Sara Lee did not wish another blanket.

"I'm a little worried about your Uncle James," said Aunt Harriet, at thedoor. "He's got indigestion. I think I'll make him a mustard plaster."

She prepared to go out then, but Sara Lee spoke from her white bed.

"Aunt Harriet," she said, "I don't think I'll ever get married."

"I said that too, once," said Aunt Harriet complacently. "What's gotinto your head now?"

"I don't know," Sara Lee replied vaguely. "I just—What's the use?"

Aunt Harriet was conscious of a hazy impression of indelicacy. Comingfrom Sara Lee it was startling and revolutionary. In Aunt Harriet'sworld young women did not question their duty, which was to marry,preferably some one in the neighborhood, and bear children, who would bewheeled about that same neighborhood in perambulators and who wouldultimately grow up and look after themselves.

"The use?" she asked tartly.

"Of having babies, and getting to care about them, and then—There willalways be wars, won't there?"

"You turn over and go to sleep," counseled Aunt Harriet. "And stoplooking twenty years or more ahead." She hesitated. "You haven'tquarreled with Harvey, have you?"

Sara Lee turned over obediently.

"No. It's not that," she said. And the door closed.

Perhaps, had she ever had time during the crowded months that followed,Sara Lee would have dated certain things from that cold frosty night inDecember when she began to question things. For after all that was whatit came to. She did not revolt. She questioned.

She lay in her white bed and looked at things for the first time. Thesky had seemed low that night. Things were nearer. The horizon wasclose. And beyond that peaceful horizon, to the east, something wasgoing on that could not be ignored. Men were dying. Killing and dying.Men who had been waited for as Anna watched for her child.

Downstairs she could hear Aunt Harriet moving about. The street wasquiet, until a crowd of young people—she knew them by theirvoices—went by, laughing.

"It's horrible," said Sara Lee to herself. There was a change in her,but she was still inarticulate. Somewhere in her mind, but notformulated, was the feeling that she was too comfortable. Her peace wasa cheap peace, bought at no price. Her last waking determination was tofinish the afghan quickly and to knit for the men at the war.

Uncle James was ill the next morning. Sara Lee went for the doctor, butAnna's hour had come and he was with her. Late in the afternoon he came,however looking a bit gray round the mouth with fatigue, but triumphant.He had on these occasions always a sense of victory; even, in a way, afeeling of being part of a great purpose. He talked at such times of therace, as one may who is doing his best by it.

"Well," he said when Sara Lee opened the door, "it's a boy. Eightpounds. Going to be red-headed, too." He chuckled.

"A boy!" said Sara Lee. "I—don't you bring any girl babies any more?"

The doctor put down his hat and glanced at her.

"Wanted a girl, to be named for you?"

"No. It's not that. It's only—" She checked herself. He wouldn'tunderstand. The race required girl babies. "I've put a blue bow on myafghan. Pink is for boys," she said, and led the way upstairs.

Very simple and orderly was the small house, as simple and orderly asSara Lee's days in it. Time was to come when Sara Lee, having left it,ached for it with every fiber of her body and her soul—for its brightcurtains and fresh paint, its regularity, its shining brasses and growingplants, its very kitchen pans and green-and-white oilcloth. She was toache, too, for her friends—their small engrossing cares, their kindlyinterest, their familiar faces.

Time was to come, too, when she came back, not to the little house, itis true, but to her friends, to Anna and the others. But they had notgrown and Sara Lee had. And that is the story.

Uncle James died the next day. One moment he was there, an uneasyfigure, under the tulip quilt, and the next he had gone away entirely,leaving a terrible quiet behind him. He had been the center of thelittle house, a big and cheery and not over-orderly center. Followedhis going not only quiet, but a wretched tidiness. There was nothingfor Sara Lee to do but to think.

And, in the way of mourning women, things that Uncle James had saidwhich had passed unheeded came back to her. One of them was when hehad proposed to adopt a Belgian child, and Aunt Harriet had offeredhorrified protest.

"All right," he had said. "Of course, if you feel that way aboutit—! But I feel kind of mean, sometimes, sitting here doing nothingwhen there's such a lot to be done."

Then he had gone for a walk and had come back cheerful enough but ratherquiet.

There was that other time, too, when the German Army was hurling itself,wave after wave, across the Yser—only of course Sara Lee knew nothingof the Yser then—and when it seemed as though the attenuated Alliedline must surely crack and give. He had said then that if he were onlytwenty years younger he would go across and help.

"And what about me?" Aunt Harriet had asked. "But I suppose I wouldn'tmatter."

"You could go to Jennie's, couldn't you?"

There had followed one of those absurd wrangles as to whether or not AuntHarriet would go to Jennie's in the rather remote contingency of UncleJames' becoming twenty years younger and going away.

And now Uncle James had taken on the wings of the morning and was indeedgone away. And again it became a question of Jennie's. Aunt Harriet,rather dazed at first, took to arguing it pro and con.

"Of course she has room for me," she would say in her thin voice."There's that little room that was Edgar's. There's nobody in it now.But there's only room for a single bed, Sara Lee."

Sara Lee was knitting socks now, all a trifle tight as to heel. "Iknow," she would say. "I'll get along. Don't you worry about me."

Always these talks ended on a note of exasperation for Aunt Harriet. ForSara Lee's statement that she could manage would draw forth a plaintiveburst from the older woman.

"If only you'd marry Harvey," she would say. "I don't know what's comeover you. You used to like him well enough."

"I still like him."

"I've seen you jump when the telephone bell rang. Your Uncle James oftenspoke about it. He noticed more than most people thought." She followedSara Lee's eyes down the street to where Anna was wheeling her babyslowly up and down. Even from that distance Sara Lee could see the bitof pink which was the bow on her afghan. "I believe you're afraid."

"Afraid?"

"Of having children," accused Aunt Harriet fretfully.

Sara Lee colored.

"Perhaps I am," she said; "but not the sort of thing you think. I justdon't see the use of it, that's all. Aunt Harriet, how long does ittake to become a hospital nurse?"

"Mabel Andrews was three years. It spoiled her looks too. She used tobe a right pretty girl."

"Three years," Sara Lee reflected. "By that time—"

The house was very quiet and still those days. There was an interludeof emptiness and order, of long days during which Aunt Harrietalternately grieved and planned, and Sara Lee thought of many things.At the Red Cross meetings all sorts of stories were circulated; theBelgian atrocity tales had just reached the country, and were spreadinglike wildfire. There were arguments and disagreements. A girl namedSchmidt was militant against them and soon found herself a small islandof defiance entirely surrounded by disapproval. Mabel Andrews came onceto a meeting and in businesslike fashion explained the Red Crossdressings and gave a lesson in bandaging. Forerunner of the manyfirst-aid classes to come was that hour of Mabel's, and made memorableby one thing she said.

"You might as well all get busy and learn to do such things," she statedin her brisk voice. "One of our internesis over there, and he sayswe'll be in it before spring."

After the meeting Sara Lee went up to Mabel and put a hand on her arm.

"Are you going?" she asked.

"Leaving day after to-morrow. Why?"

"I—couldn't I be useful over there?"

Mabel smiled rather grimly. "What can you do?"

"I can cook."

"Only men cooks, my dear. What else?"

"I could clean up, couldn't I? There must be something. I'd doanything I could. Don't they have people to wash dishes and—all that?"

Mabel was on doubtful ground there. She knew of a woman who had beenpermitted to take over her own automobile, paying all her expenses andbuying her own tires and gasoline.

"She carries supplies to small hospitals in out-of-the-way places," shesaid. "But I don't suppose you can do that, Sara Lee, can you?"

However, she gave Sara Lee a New York address, and Sara Lee wrote andoffered herself. She said nothing to Aunt Harriet, who had by that timeelected to take Edgar's room at Cousin Jennie's and was putting UncleJames' clothes in tearful order to send to Belgium. After a time shereceived a reply.

"We have put your name on our list of volunteers," said the letter,"but of course you understand that only trained workers are needed now.France and England are full of untrained women who are eager to help."

It was that night that Sara Lee became engaged to Harvey.

Sara Lee's attitude toward Harvey was one that she never tried to analyze.When he was not with her she thought of him tenderly, romantically. Thiswas perhaps due to the photograph of him on her mantel. There was a dashabout the picture rather lacking in the original, for it was a profile,and in it the young man's longish hair, worn pompadour, the slight thrustforward of the head, the arch of the nostrils,—gave him a sort of tenseeagerness, a look of running against the wind. From the photographHarvey might have been a gladiator; as a matter of fact he was a bondsalesman.

So during the daytime Sara Lee looked—at intervals—at the photograph,and got that feel of drive and force. And in the evenings Harvey came,and she lost it. For, outside of a frame, he became a rather sturdyfigure, of no romance, but of a comforting solidity. A kindly young man,with a rather wide face and hands disfigured as to fingers by much earlybaseball. He had heavy shoulders, the sort a girl might rely on tocarry many burdens. A younger and tidier Uncle James, indeed—the samecheery manner, the same robust integrity, and the same small ambition.

To earn enough to keep those dependent on him, and to do it fairly;to tell the truth and wear clean linen and not run into debt; and tomarry Sara Lee and love and cherish her all his life—this was Harvey.A plain and likable man, a lover and husband to be sure of. But—

He came that night to see Sara Lee. There was nothing unusual aboutthat. He came every night. But he came that night full of determination.That was not unusual, either, but it had not carried him far. He had noidea that his picture was romantic. He would have demanded it back hadhe so much as suspected it. He wore his hair in a pompadour becauseof the prosaic fact that he had a cow-lick. He was very humble abouthimself, and Sara Lee was to him as wonderful as his picture was to her.

Sara Lee was in the parlor, waiting for him. The one electric lamp waslighted, so that the phonograph in one corner became only a bit ofreflected light. There was a gas fire going, and in front of it was awhite fur rug. In Aunt Harriet's circle there were few orientals. TheEncyclopaedia Britannica, not yet entirely paid for, stood against thewall, and a leather chair, hollowed by Uncle James' solid body, was bythe fire. It was just such a tidy, rather vulgar and homelike room asno doubt Harvey would picture for his own home. He had of course neverseen the white simplicity of Sara Lee's bedroom.

Sara Lee, in a black dress, admitted him. When he had taken off hisulster and his overshoes—he had been raised by women—and came in,she was standing by the fire.

"Raining," he said. "It's getting colder. May be snow before morning."

Then he stopped. Sometimes the wonder of Sara Lee got him in the throat.She had so much the look of being poised for flight. Even in herquietest moments there was that about her—a sort of repressedeagerness, a look of seeing things far away. Aunt Harriet said thatthere were times when she had a "flighty" look.

And that night it was that impression of elusiveness that stoppedHarvey's amiable prattle about the weather and took him to her with hisarms out.

"Sara Lee!" he said. "Don't look like that!"

"Like what?" said Sara Lee prosaically.

"I don't know," he muttered. "You—sometimes you look as though—"Then he put his arms round her. "I love you," he said. "I'll be goodto you, Sara Lee, if you'll have me." He bent down and put his cheekagainst hers. "If you'll only marry me, dear."

A woman has a way of thinking most clearly and lucidly when the man hasstopped thinking. With his arms about her Harvey could only feel. Hewas trembling. As for Sara Lee, instantly two pictures flashed throughher mind, each distinct, each clear, almost photographic. One was ofAnna, in her tiny house down the street, dragged with a nursing baby.The other was that one from a magazine of a boy dying on a battlefieldand crying "Mother!"

Two sorts of maternity—one quiet, peaceful, not always beautiful,but the thing by which and to which she had been reared; the othervicarious, of all the world.

"Don't you love me—that way?" he said, his cheek still against hers.

"I don't know."

"You don't know!"

It was then that he straightened away from her and looked without seeingat the blur of light which was the phonograph. Sara Lee, glancing up,saw him then as he was in the photograph, face set and head thrustforward, and that clean-cut drive of jaw and backward flow of heavy hairthat marked him all man, and virile man.

She slipped her hand into his.

"I do love you, Harvey," she said, and went into his arms with thecomplete surrender of a child.

He was outrageously happy. He sat on the arm of Uncle James' chair whereshe was almost swallowed up, and with his face against hers he made hissimple plans. Now and then he kissed the little hollow under her ear,and because he knew nothing of the abandon of a woman in a great passionhe missed nothing in her attitude. Into her silence and passivity heread the reflection of his own adoring love and thought it hers.

To be fair to Sara Lee, she imagined that her content in Harvey'sdevotion was something more, as much more as was necessary. For in SaraLee's experience marriage was a thing compounded of affection, habit,small differences and a home. Of passion, that passion which later shewas to meet and suffer from, the terrible love that hurts and agonizes,she had never even dreamed.

Great days were before Sara Lee. She sat by the fire and knitted, andbehind the back drop on the great stage of the world was preparing,unsuspected, the mise en scène.

II

About the middle of January Mabel Andrews wrote to Sara Lee fromFrance, where she was already installed in a hospital at Calais.

The evening before the letter came Harvey had brought round theengagement ring. He had made a little money in war stocks, and intothe ring he had put every dollar of his profits—and a great love, andgentleness, and hopes which he did not formulate even to himself.

It was a solitaire diamond, conventionally set, and larger, far larger,than the modest little stone on which Harvey had been casting anxiousglances for months.

"Do you like it, honey?" he asked anxiously.

Sara Lee looked at it on her finger.

"It is lovely! It—it's terrible!" said poor Sara Lee, and cried on hisshoulder.

Harvey was not subtle. He had never even heard of Mabel Andrews, andhe had a tendency to restrict his war reading to the quarter column inthe morning paper entitled "Salient Points of the Day's War News."

What could he know, for instance, of wounded men who were hungry? Whichis what Mabel wrote about.

"You said you could cook," she had written. "Well, we need cooks, andsomething to cook. Sometime they'll have it all fixed, no doubt, butjust now it's awful, Sara Lee. The British have money and food, plentyof it. But here—yesterday I cut the clothes off a wounded Belgian boy.He had been forty-eight hours on a railway siding, without even soup orcoffee."

It was early in the war then, and between Ypres and the sea stretched along thin line of Belgian trenches. A frantic Belgian Government, thrustout of its own land, was facing the problem, with scant funds and with nomatérielof any sort, for feeding that desolate little army. France hadher own problems—her army, non-productive industrially, and the greatand constantly growing British forces quartered there, paying for whatthey got, but requiring much. The world knows now of the starvation ofGerman-occupied Belgium. What it does not know and may never know is ofthe struggle during those early days to feed the heroic Belgian Army intheir wet and almost untenable trenches.

Hospital trains they could improvise out of what rolling stock remainedto them. Money could be borrowed, and was. But food? Clothing?Ammunition? In his little villa on the seacoast the Belgian King knewthat his soldiers were hungry, and paced the floor of his tinyliving-room; and over in an American city whose skyline was as pointedwith furnace turrets as Constantinople's is with mosques, over thereSara Lee heard that call of hunger, and—put on her engagement ring.

Later on that evening, with Harvey's wide cheerful face turned adoringlyto her, Sara Lee formulated a question:

"Don't you sometimes feel as though you'd like to go to France and fight?"

"What for?"

"Well, they need men, don't they?"

"I guess they don't need me, honey. I'd be the dickens of a lot of use!Never fired a gun in my life."

"You could learn. It isn't hard."

Harvey sat upright and stared at her.

"Oh, if you want me to go—" he said, and waited.

Sara Lee twisted her ring on her finger.

"Nobody wants anybody to go," she said not very elegantly. "I'djust—I'd rather like to think you wanted to go."

That was almost too subtle for Harvey. Something about him was ratherreminiscent of Uncle James on mornings when he was determined not togo to church.

"It's not our fight," he said. "And as far as that goes, I'm not sosure there isn't right on both sides. Or wrong. Most likely wrong.I'd look fine going over there to help the Allies, and then making up mymind it was the British who'd spilled the beans. Now let's talk aboutsomething interesting—for instance, how much we love each other."

It was always "we" with Harvey. In his simple creed if a girl accepteda man and let him kiss her and wore his ring it was a reciprocal loveaffair. It never occurred to him that sometimes as the evening draggedtoward a close Sara Lee was just a bit weary of his arms, and that shesought, after he had gone, the haven of her little white room, and closedthe door, and had to look rather a long time at his photograph beforeshe was in a properly loving mood again.

But that night after his prolonged leave-taking Sara Lee went upstairsto her room and faced the situation.

She was going to marry Harvey. She was committed to that. And she lovedhim; not as he cared, perhaps, but he was a very definite part of herlife. Once or twice when he had been detained by business she had missedhim, had put in a lonely and most unhappy evening.

Sara Lee had known comparatively few men. In that small and simplecircle of hers, with its tennis court in a vacant lot, its one or twoinexpensive cars, its picnics and porch parties, there was none of theusual give and take of more sophisticated circles. Boys and girls pairedoff rather early, and remained paired by tacit agreement; there wascomparatively little shifting. There were few free lances among the men,and none among the girls. When she was seventeen Harvey had made itknown unmistakably that Sara Lee was his, and no trespassing. And fortwo years he had without intentional selfishness kept Sara Lee forhimself.

That was how matters stood that January night when Sara Lee wentupstairs after Harvey had gone and read Mabel's letter, with Harvey'sphotograph turned to the wall. Under her calm exterior a little flameof rebellion was burning in her. Harvey's perpetual "we," his attitudetoward the war, and Mabel's letter, with what it opened before her, hadset the match to something in Sara Lee she did not recognize—a strainof the adventurer, a throw-back to some wandering ancestor perhaps. Butmore than anything it had set fire to the something maternal that is inall good women.

Yet, had Aunt Harriet not come in just then, the flame might have died.And had it died a certain small page of the history of this war wouldnever have been written.

Aunt Harriet came in hesitatingly. She wore a black wrapper, and herface, with her hair drawn back for the night, looked tight and old.

"Harvey gone?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I thought I'd better come in. There's something—I can tell you inthe morning if you're tired."

"I'm not tired," said Sara Lee.

Aunt Harriet sat down miserably on a chair.

"I've had a letter from Jennie," she stated. "The girl's gone, and thechildren have whooping cough. She'd like me to come right away."

"To do the maid's work!" said Sara Lee indignantly. "You mustn't do it,that's all! She can get somebody."

But Aunt Harriet was firm. She was not a fair-weather friend, and sinceJennie was good enough to offer her a home she felt she ought to go atonce.

"You'll have to get married right away," she finished. "Goodness knowsit's time enough! For two years Harvey has been barking like a watchdogin front of the house and keeping every other young man away."

Sara Lee smiled.

"He's only been lying on the doormat, Aunt Harriet," she observed. "Idon't believe he knows how to bark."

"Oh, he's mild enough. He may change after marriage. Some do. But,"she added hastily, "he'll be a good husband. He's that sort."

Suddenly something that had been taking shape in Sara Lee's small head,quite unknown to her, developed identity and speech.

"But I'm not going to marry him just yet," she said.

Aunt Harriet's eyes fell on the photograph with its face to the wall,and she started.

"You haven't quarreled with him, have you?"

"No, of course not! I have something else I want to do first. That'sall. Aunt Harriet, I want to go to France."

Aunt Harriet began to tremble, and Sara Lee went over and put her youngarms about her.

"Don't look like that," she said. "It's only for a little while. I'vegot to go. I just have to, that's all!"

"Go how?" demanded Aunt Harriet.

"I don't know. I'll find some way. I've had a letter from Mabel.Things are awful over there."

"And how will you help them?" Her face worked nervously. "Is it goingto help for you to be shot? Or carried off by the Germans?" Theatrocity stories were all that Aunt Harriet knew of the war, and allshe could think of now. "You'll come back with your hands cut off."

Sara Lee straightened and looked out where between the white curtainsthe spire of the Methodist Church marked the east.

"I'm going," she said. And she stood there, already poised for flight.

There was no sleep in the little house that night. Sara Lee could hearthe older woman moving about in her lonely bed, where the spring stillsagged from Uncle James' heavy form, and at last she went in and creptin beside her. Toward morning Aunt Harriet slept, with the girl's armacross her; and then Sara Lee went back to her room and tried to plan.

She had a little money, and she had heard that living was cheap abroad.She could get across then, and perhaps keep herself. But she must domore than that, to justify her going. She must get money, and thendecide how the money was to be spent. If she could only talk it overwith Uncle James! Or, with Harvey. Harvey knew about business and money.

But she dared not go to Harvey. She was terribly frightened when sheeven thought of him. There was no hope of making him understand; andno chance of reasoning with him, because, to be frank, she had noreasons. She had only instinct—instinct and a great tenderness towardsuffering. No, obviously Harvey must not know until everything wasarranged.

That morning the Methodist Church packed a barrel for the Belgians.There was a real rite of placing in it Mrs. Augustus Gregory's oldsealskin coat, now a light brown and badly worn, but for years the onlyone in the neighborhood. Various familiar articles appeared, to bethrust into darkness, only to emerge in surroundings never dreamed ofin their better days—the little Howard boy's first trouser suit; theclothing of a baby that had never lived; big Joe Hemmingway's dress suit,the one he was married in and now too small for him. And here and therethings that could ill be spared, brought in and offered with resolutecheerfulness.

Sara Lee brought some of Uncle James' things, and was at once set towork. The women there called Sara Lee capable, but it was to take othersurroundings to bring out her real efficiency.

And it was when bending over a barrel, while round her went on thatpitying talk of women about a great calamity, that Sara Lee got hergreat idea; and later on she made the only speech of her life.

That evening Harvey went home in a quiet glow of happiness. He had hada good day. And he had heard of a little house that would exactly suitSara Lee and him. He did not notice his sister's silence when he spokeabout it. He was absorbed, manlike, in his plans.

"The Leete house," he said in answer to her perfunctory question. "WillLeete has lost his mind and volunteered for the ambulance service inFrance. Mrs. Leete is going to her mother's."

"Maybe he feels it's his duty. He can drive a car, and they have nochildren."

"Duty nothing!" He seemed almost unduly irritated. "He's tired of thecommission business, that's all. Y'ought to have heard the fellows inthe office. Anyhow, they want to sub-let the house, and I'm going totake Sara Lee there to-night."

His sister looked at him, and there was in her face something of theexpression of the women that day as they packed the barrel. But shesaid nothing until he was leaving the house that night. Then she puta hand on his arm. She was a weary little woman, older than Harvey,and tired with many children. She had been gathering up small overshoesin the hall and he had stopped to help her.

"You know, Harvey, Sara Lee's not—I always think she's different,somehow."

"Well, I guess yes! There's nobody like her."

"You can't bully her, you know."

Harvey stared at her with honestly perplexed eyes.

"Bully!" he said. "What on earth makes you say that?"

Then he laughed.

"Don't you worry, Belle," he said. "I know I'm a fierce and domineeringperson, but if there's any bullying I know who'll do it."

"She's not like the other girls you know," she reiterated ratherhelplessly.

"Sure she's not! But she's enough like them to need a house to live in.And if she isn't crazy about the Leete place I'll eat it."

He banged out cheerfully, whistling as he went down the street. Hestopped whistling, however, at Sara Lee's door. The neighborhoodpreserved certain traditions as to a house of mourning. It loweredits voice in passing and made its calls of condolence in dark clothesand a general air of gloom. Pianos near by were played only with thewindows closed, and even the milkman leaving his bottles walked ontiptoe and presented his monthly bill solemnly.

So Harvey stopped whistling, rang the bell apologetically, and—faced anew and vivid Sara Lee, flushed and with shining eyes, but woefullyfrightened.

She told him almost at once. He had only reached the dining room ofthe Leete house, which he was explaining had a white wainscoting whenshe interrupted him. The ladies of the Methodist Church were going tocollect a certain amount each month to support a soup kitchen as nearthe Front as possible.

"Good work!" said Harvey heartily. "I suppose they do get hungry, poordevils. Now about the dining room—"

"Harvey dear," Sara Lee broke in, "I've not finished. I—I'm goingover to run it."

"You are not!"

"But I am! It's all arranged. It's my plan. They've all wanted to dosomething besides giving clothes. They send barrels, and they never hearfrom them again, and it's hard to keep interested. But with me there,writing home and telling them, 'To-day we served soup to this man, andthat man, perhaps wounded.' And—and that sort of thing—don't you seehow interested every one will be? Mrs. Gregory has promised twenty-fivedollars a month, and—"

"You're not going," said Harvey in a flat tone. "That's all. Don'ttalk to me about it."

Sara Lee flushed deeper and started again, but rather hopelessly.There was no converting a man who would not argue or reason, who basedeverything on flat refusal.

"But somebody must go," she said with a tightening of her voice."Here's Mabel Andrews' letter. Read it and you will understand."

"I don't want to read it."

Nevertheless he took it and read it. He read slowly. He did nothingquickly except assert his masculine domination. He had all the faultsof his virtues; he was as slow as he was sure, as unimaginative as hewas faithful.

He read it and gave it back to her.

"I don't think you mean it," he said. "I give you credit for too muchsense. Maybe some one is needed over there. I guess things are prettybad. But why should you make it your affair? There are about a millionwomen in this country that haven't got anything else to do. Let them go."

"Some of them will. But they're afraid, mostly."

"Afraid! My God, I should think they would be afraid! And you're askingme to let you go into danger, to put off our wedding while you wanderabout over there with a million men and no women and—"

"You're wrong, Harvey dear," said Sara Lee in a low voice. "I am notasking you at all. I am telling you that I am going."

Sara Lee's leaving made an enormous stir in her small community. Opinionwas divided. She was right according to some; she was mad according toothers. The women of the Methodist Church, finding a real field ofactivity, stood behind her solidly. Guaranties of funds came in in asteady flow, though the amounts were small; and, on the word going aboutthat she was to start a soup kitchen for the wounded, housewives sentin directions for making their most cherished soups.

Sara Lee, going to a land where the meat was mostly horse and wherevegetables were scarce and limited to potatoes, Brussels sprouts andcabbage, found herself the possessor of recipes for making such sick-roomdainties as mushroom soup, cream of asparagus, clam broth with whippedcream, and from Mrs. Gregory, the wealthy woman of the church—greenturtle and consomme.

She was very busy and rather sad. She was helping Aunt Harriet to closethe house and getting her small wardrobe in order. And once a day shewent to a school of languages and painfully learned from a fierce andkindly old Frenchman a list of French nouns and prefixes like this: Lelivre, le crayon, la plume, la fenêtre, and so on. By the end of tendays she could say: "La rose sent-elle bon?"

Considering that Harvey came every night and ran the gamut of theemotions, from pleading and expostulation at eight o'clock to blackfury at ten, when he banged out of the house, Sara Lee was amazinglycalm. If she had moments of weakness, when the call from overseas wasless insistent than the call for peace and protection—if the nightlydrawn picture of the Leete house, with tile mantels and a white bathroom,sometimes obtruded itself as against her approaching homelessness, SaraLee made no sign.

She had her photograph taken for her passport, and when Harvey refusedone she sent it to him by mail, with the word "Please" in the corner.Harvey groaned over it, and got it out at night and scolded it wildly;and then slept with it under his pillows, when he slept at all.

Not Sara Lee, and certainly not Harvey, knew what was calling her. Andeven later, when waves of homesickness racked her with wild remorse, sheknew that she had had to go and that she could not return until she haddone the thing for which she had been sent, whatever that might be.

III

The first thing that struck Sara Lee was the way she was saying hernightly prayers in all sorts of odd places. In trains and in hotels and,after sufficient interval, in the steamer. She prayed under these novelcircumstances to be made a better girl, and to do a lot of good overthere, and to be forgiven for hurting Harvey. She did this every night,and then got into her narrow bed and studied French nouns—because shehad decided that there was no time for verbs—and numbers, which puther to sleep.

"Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq," Sara Lee would begin, and go on, rockinggently in her berth as the steamer rolled, "Vingt, vingt-et-un,vingt-deux, trente, trente-et-un—" Her voice would die away. Thebook on the floor and Harvey's picture on the tiny table, Sara Lee wouldsleep. And as the ship trembled the light over her head would shine onHarvey's ring, and it glistened like a tear.

One thing surprised her as she gradually met some of her fellowpassengers. She was not alone on her errand. Others there were onboard, young and old women, and men, too, who had felt the call of mercyand were going, as ignorant as she, to help. As ignorant, but not sofriendless. Most of them were accredited somewhere. They had definiteobjectives. But what was more alarming—they talked in big figures.Great organizations were behind them. She heard of the rehabilitationof Belgium, and portable hospitals, and millions of dollars, and RedCross trains.

Not once did Sara Lee hear of anything so humble as a soup kitchen. Thewar was a vast thing, they would observe. It could only be touched bygreat organizations. Individual effort was negligible.

Once she took her courage in her hands.

"But I should think," she said, "that even great organizations depend onthe—on individual efforts."

The portable hospital woman turned to her patronizingly.

"Certainly, my dear," she said. "But coördinated—coördinated."

It is hard to say just when the lights went down on Sara Lee's quietstage and the interlude began. Not on the steamer, for after three daysof discouragement and good weather they struck a storm; and Sara Lee'sfine frenzy died for a time, of nausea. She did not appear again untilthe boat entered the Mersey, a pale and shaken angel of mercy, not atall sure of her wings, and most terribly homesick.

That night Sara Lee made a friend, one that Harvey would have approvedof, an elderly Englishman named Travers. He was standing by the railin the rain looking out at the blinking signal lights on both sides ofthe river. The ship for the first time had abandoned its policy ofdarkness and the decks were bathed in light.

Overhead the yardarm blinkers were signaling, and directly over SaraLee's head a great white searchlight swept the water ahead. The windwas blowing a gale, and the red and green lights of the pilot boat swungin great arcs that seemed to touch the waves on either side.

Sara Lee stood beside Mr. Travers, for companionship only. He hadpreserved a typically British aloofness during the voyage, and he hadnever spoken to her. But there was something forlorn in Sara Lee thatnight as she clutched her hat with both hands and stared out at theshore lights. And if he had been silent during the voyage he had notbeen deaf. So he knew why almost every woman on the ship was makingthe voyage; but he knew nothing about Sara Lee.

"Bad night," said Mr. Travers.

"I was wondering what they are trying to do with that little boat."

Mr. Travers concealed the surprise of a man who was making hisseventy-second voyage.

"That's the pilot boat," he explained. "We are picking up a pilot."

"But," marveled Sara Lee rather breathlessly, "have we come all the waywithout any pilot?"

He explained that to her, and showed her a few moments later how thepilot came with incredible rapidity up the swaying rope ladder and overthe side.

To be honest, he had been watching for the pilot boat, not to see whatto Sara Lee was the thrilling progress of the pilot up the ladder, butto get the newspapers he would bring on with him. It is perhapsexplanatory of the way things went for Sara Lee from that time on thathe quite forgot his newspapers.

The chairs were gone from the decks, preparatory to the morning landing,so they walked about and Sara Lee at last told him her story—theladies of the Methodist Church, and the one hundred dollars a month shewas to have, outside of her traveling expenses, to found and keep goinga soup kitchen behind the lines.

"A hundred dollars a month," he said. "That's twenty pounds. Humph!Good God!"

But this last was under his breath.

Then she told him of Mabel Andrews' letter, and at last read it to him.He listened attentively. "Of course," she said when she had put theletter back into her bag, "I can't feed a lot, even with soup. But if Ionly help a few, it's worth doing, isn't it?"

"Very much worth doing," he said gravely. "I suppose you are not, byany chance, going to write a weekly article for one of your newspapersabout what you are doing?"

"I hadn't thought of it. Do you think I should?"

Quite unexpectedly Mr. Travers patted her shoulder.

"My dear child," he said, "now and then I find somebody who helps torevive my faith in human nature. Thank you."

Sara Lee did not understand. The touch on the shoulder had made herthink suddenly of Uncle James, and her chin quivered.

"I'm just a little frightened," she said in a small voice.

"Twenty pounds!" repeated Mr. Travers to himself. "Twenty pounds!"And aloud: "Of course you speak French?"

"Very little. I've had six lessons, and I can count—some."

The sense of unreality which the twenty pounds had roused in Mr. Travers'cautious British mind grew. No money, no French, no objective, just agreat human desire to be useful in her own small way—this was a new typeto him. What a sporting chance this frail bit of a girl was taking! Andhe noticed now something that had escaped him before—a dauntlessness,a courage of the spirit rather than of the body, that was in the verypoise of her head.

"I'm not afraid about the language," she was saying. "I have a phrasebook. And a hungry man, maybe sick or wounded, can understand a bowl ofsoup in any language, I should think. And I can cook!"

It was a perplexed and thoughtful Mr. Travers who sipped hisScotch-and-soda in the smoking room before retiring, he took the problemto bed with him and woke up in the night saying: "Twenty pounds!Good God!"

In the morning they left the ship. He found Sara Lee among the K's,waiting to have her passport examined, and asked her where she wasstopping in London. She had read somewhere of Claridge's—in a novelprobably.

"I shouldn't advise Claridge's," he said, reflecting rather grimly onthe charges of that very exclusive hotel. "Suppose you let me make asuggestion."

So he wrote out the name of a fine old English house on TrafalgarSquare, where she could stay until she went to France. There would bethe matter of a passport to cross the Channel. It might take a day ortwo. Perhaps he could help her. He would give himself the pleasure ofcalling on her very soon.

Sara Lee got on the train and rode up to London. She said to herselfover and over: "This is England. I am really in England." But it didnot remove the sense of unreality. Even the English grass, bright greenin midwinter, only added to the sense of unreality.

She tried, sitting in the strange train with its small compartments, tothink of Harvey. She looked at her ring and tried to recall some ofthe tender things he had said to her. But Harvey eluded her. She couldnot hear his voice. And when she tried to see him it was Harvey of thewide face and the angry eyes of the last days that she saw.

Morley's comforted her. The man at the door had been there for fortyyears, and was beyond surprise. He had her story in twenty-four hours,and in forty-eight he was her slave. The elderly chambermaid motheredher, and failed to report that Sara Lee was doing a small washing inher room and had pasted handkerchiefs over the ancient walnut of herwardrobe.

"Going over, are you?" she said. "Dear me, what courage you've got,miss! They tell me things is horrible over there."

"That's why I'm going," replied Sara Lee, and insisted on helping tomake up the bed.

"It's easier when two do it," she said casually.

Mr. Travers put in a fretful twenty-four hours before he came to see her.He lunched at Brooks', and astounded an elderly member of the House byputting her problem to him.

"A young girl!" exclaimed the M. P. "Why, deuce take it, it's no placefor a young girl."

"An American," explained Mr. Travers uncomfortably. "She's perfectlyable to look after herself."

"Probably a correspondent in disguise. They'll go to any lengths."

"She's not a correspondent."

"Let her stay in Boulogne. There's work there in the hospitals."

"She's not a nurse. She's a—well, she's a cook. Or so she says."

The M. P. stared at Mr. Travers, and Mr. Travers stared back defiantly.

"What in the name of God is she going to cook?"

"Soup," said Mr. Travers in a voice of suppressed irritation. "She'sgot a little money, and she wants to establish a soup kitchen behindthe Belgian trenches on a line of communication. I suppose," hecontinued angrily, "even you will admit that the Belgian Army needs allthe soup it can get."

"I don't approve of women near the lines."

"Neither do I. But I'm exceedingly glad that a few of them have thecourage to go there."

"What's she going to make soup out of?"

"I'm not a cooking expert. But I know her and I fancy she'll manage."

It ended by the M. P. agreeing to use his influence with the War Officeto get Sara Lee to France. He was very unwilling. The spy question waslooming large those days. Even the Red Cross had unwittingly spread itsprotection over more than one German agent. The lines were beingdrawn in.

"I may possibly get her to France. I don't know, of course," he said inthat ungracious tone in which an Englishman often grants a favor whichhe will go to any amount of trouble to do. "After that it's up to her."

Mr. Travers reflected rather grimly that after that it was apparently upto him.

Sara Lee sat in her room at Morley's Hotel and looked out at the life ofLondon—policemen with chin straps; schoolboys in high silk hats andEton suits, the hats generally in disreputable condition; clerks dressedas men at home dressed for Easter Sunday church; and men in uniforms.Only a fair sprinkling of these last, in those early days. On the firstafternoon there was a military funeral. A regiment of Scots, in kilts,came swinging down from the church of St. Martin in the Fields, tall andwonderful men, grave and very sad. Behind them, on a gun carriage, wasthe body of their officer, with the British flag over the casket and hissword and cap on the top.

Sara Lee cried bitterly. It was not until they had gone that sheremembered that Harvey had always called the Scots men in women'spetticoats. She felt a thrill of shame for him, and no amount oflooking at his picture seemed to help.

Mr. Travers called the second afternoon and was received by August atthe door as an old friend.

"She's waiting in there," he said. "Very nice young lady, sir. Verykind to everybody."

Mr. Travers found her by a window looking out. There was a recruitingmeeting going on in Trafalgar Square, the speakers standing on themonument. Now and then there was a cheer, and some young fellowsheepishly offered himself. Sara Lee was having a mad desire to goover and offer herself too. Because, she reflected, she had been inLondon almost two days, and she was as far from France as ever. Notknowing, of course, that three months was a fair time for the slowmethods then in vogue.

There was a young man in the room, but Sara Lee had not noticed him.He was a tall, very blond young man, in a dark-blue Belgian uniform witha quaint cap which allowed a gilt tassel to drop over his forehead. Hesat on a sofa, curling up the ends of a very small mustache, his legs,in cavalry boots, crossed and extending a surprising distance beyondthe sofa.

The lights were up now, beyond the back drop, the stage darkened. Anew scene with a vengeance, a scene laid in strange surroundings, withmen, whole men and wounded men and spying men—and Sara Lee and thisyoung Belgian, whose name was Henri and whose other name, because ofwhat he suffered and what he did, we may not know.

IV

Henri sat on his sofa and watched Sara Lee. Also he shamelessly listenedto the conversation, not because he meant to be an eavesdropper butbecause he liked Sara Lee's voice. He had expected a highly inflectedBritish voice, and instead here was something entirely different—thatis, Sara Lee's endeavor to reconcile the English "a" with her normalwestern Pennsylvania pronunciation. She did it quite unintentionally,but she had a good ear and it was difficult, for instance, to say"rather" when Mr. Travers said "rawther."

Henri had a good ear too. And the man he was waiting for did not come.Also he had been to school in England and spoke English rather betterthan most British. So he heard a conversation like this, the gaps beingwhat he lost:

MR. TRAVERS: —— to France, anyhow. After that ——

SARA LEE: Awfully sorry to be —— But what shall I do if I do get over?The chambermaid up-stairs —— very difficult.

MR. TRAVERS: The proper and sensible thing is —— home.

SARA LEE: To America? But I haven't done anything yet.

Henri knew that she was an American. He also realized that she was onthe verge of tears. He glared at poor Mr. Travers, who was doing hisbest, and lighted a French cigarette.

"There must be some way," said Sara Lee. "If they need help—and Ihave read you Mabel Andrews' letter—then I should think they'd beglad to send me."

"They would be, of course," he said. "But the fact is—there's beensome trouble about spies, and—"

Henri's eyes narrowed.

"Spies! And they think I'm a spy?"

"My dear child," remonstrated Mr. Travers, slightly exasperated,"they're not thinking about you at all. The War Office has never heardof you. It's a general rule."

Sara Lee was not placated.

"Let them cable home and find out about me. I can give them references.Why, all sorts of prominent people are sending me money. They musttrust me, or they wouldn't."

There were no gaps for Henri now. Sara Lee did not care who heard her,and even Mr. Travers had slightly raised his voice. Henri was dividedbetween a conviction that he ought to go away and a mad desire to joinin the conversation, greatly augmented when Sara Lee went to the windowand wiped her eyes.

"If you only spoke French—" began Mr. Travers.

Sara Lee looked over her shoulder. "But of course I do!" she said."And German and—and Yiddish, and all sorts of languages. Every spydoes."

Henri smiled appreciatively.

It might all have ended there very easily. Sara Lee might have foughtthe War Office single-handed and won out, but it is extremely unlikely.The chances at that moment were that she would spend endless days andhours in anterooms, and tell her story and make her plea a hundred times.And then—go back home to Harvey and the Leete house, and after a time,like Mrs. Gregory, speak rather too often of "the time I went abroad."

But Sara Lee was to go to France, and even further, to the fragment ofunconquered Belgium that remained. And never so long as she lived, wouldshe be able to forget those days or to speak of them easily. So shestood by the window trying not to cry, and a little donkey drawing acoster's cart moved out in front of the traffic and was caught by a motorbus. There was only time for the picture—the tiny beast lying thereand her owner wringing his hands. Such of the traffic as could get byswerved and went on. London must move, though a thousand willing littlebeasts lay dying.

And Sara moved too. One moment she was there by the window. And thenext she had given a stifled cry and ran out.

"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Travers, and got up slowly.

Henri was already up and at the window. What he saw was Sara Lee makingher way through the stream of vehicles, taking a dozen chances for herlife. Henri waited until he saw her crouched by the donkey, its headon her knee. Then he, too, ran out.

That is how Henri, of no other name that may be given, met Sara LeeKennedy, of Pennsylvania—under a London motor bus. And that, I think,will be the picture he carries of her until he dies, her soft eyes fullof pity, utterly regardless of the dirt and the crowd and anexpostulating bobby, with that grotesque and agonized head on her knees.

Henri crawled under the bus, though the policeman was extremely anxiousto keep him out. And he ran a practiced eye over the injured donkey.

"It's dying," said Sara Lee with white lips.

"It will die," replied Henri, "but how soon? They are very strong,these little beasts."

The conductor of the bus made a suggestion then, one that froze theblood round Sara Lee's heart: "If you'll move away and let us run overit proper it'll be out of its trouble, miss."

Sara Lee raised haggard eyes to Henri.

"Did you hear that?" she said. "They'd do it too!"

The total result of a conference between four policemen, the costermonger,and, by that time, Mr. Travers—was to draw the animal off the streetand into the square. Sara Lee stuck close by. So, naturally, didHenri. And when the hopeless condition of Nellie, as they learned shewas named, became increasingly evident, Henri behaved like a man and asoldier.

He got out his revolver and shot her in the brain.

"A kindness," he explained, as Sara Lee would have caught his hand."The only way, mademoiselle."

Mr. Travers had the usual British hatred of a crowd and publicity,coupled with a deadly fear of getting into the papers, except throughan occasional letter to the Times. He vanished just before the shot,and might have been seen moving rapidly through the square, turningover in his mind the difficulty of trying to treat young American girlslike rational human beings.

But Henri understood. He had had a French mother, and there is a leavenof French blood in the American temperament, old Huguenot, some of it.So Americans love beauty and obey their impulses and find life good todo things rather than to be something or other more or less important.And so Henri could quite understand how Sara Lee had forgotten herselfwhen Mr. Travers could not. And he understood, also, when Sara Lee,having composed the little donkey's quiet figure, straightened up withtears in her eyes.

"It was very dear of you to come out," she said. "And—of course it wasthe best thing."

She held out her hand. The crowd had gone. Traffic was moving again,racing to make up for five lost precious moments. The square was dark,that first darkness of London, when air raids were threatened but hadnot yet taken place. From the top of the Admiralty, near by, aflashlight shot up into the air and began its nightly process of brushingthe sky. Henri took her hand and bent over it.

"You are very brave, mademoiselle," he said, and touched her hand withhis lips.

The amazing interlude had commenced.

V

Yet for a day or two nothing much was changed. Mr. Travers sent SaraLee a note that he was taking up her problem with the Foreign Office;and he did indeed make an attempt. He also requested his wife to askSara Lee to tea.

Sara Lee was extremely nervous on the day she went. She wore a blackjacket suit with a white collar, and she carried Aunt Harriet's minkfurs, Aunt Harriet mourning thoroughly and completely in black astrachan.She had the faculty of the young American girl of looking smart withoutmuch expense, and she appeared absurdly young.

She followed the neat maid up a wide staircase to a door with a screenjust inside, and heard her name announced for the first time in her life.Sara Lee took a long breath and went inside, to a most discouraging halfhour.

Mr. Travers was on the hearth rug. Mrs. Travers was in a chair, a portlywoman with a not unkindly face, but the brusque manner many Englishwomenacquire after forty. She held Sara Lee's hand and gave her a completeif smiling inspection.

"And it is you who are moving heaven and earth to get to the Front!You—child!"

Sara Lee's heart fell, but she smiled also.

"But I am older than I look," she said. "And I am very strong."

Mrs. Travers looked helplessly at her husband, while she rang the bellfor tea. That was another thing Sara Lee had read about but neverseen—that ringing for tea. At home no one served afternoon tea; butat a party, when refreshments were coming, the hostess slipped out tothe kitchen and gave a whispered order or two.

"I shall be frank with you," said Mrs. Travers. "I think it quiteimpossible. It is not getting you over. That might be done. And ofcourse there are women over there—young ones too. But the armyobjects very seriously to their being in danger. And of course onenever knows—" Her voice trailed off vaguely. She implied, however,that what one never knows was best unknown.

"I have a niece over there," she said as the tea tray came in. "Hermother was fool enough to let her go. Now they can't get her back."

"Oh, dear!" said Sara Lee. "Can't they find her?"

"She won't come. Little idiot! She's in Paris, however. I daresayshe is safe enough."

Mrs. Travers made the tea thoughtfully. So far Mr. Travers had hardlyspoken, but he cheered in true British fashion at the sight of the tea.Sara Lee, exceedingly curious as to the purpose of a very small standsomewhat resembling a piano stool, which the maid had placed at her knee,learned that it was to hold her muffin plate.

"And now," said Mr. Travers, "suppose we come to the point. Theredoesn't seem to be a chance to get you over, my child. Same answereverywhere. Place is full of untrained women. Spies have been usingRed Cross passes. Result is that all the lines are drawn as tight aspossible."

Sara Lee stared at him with wide eyes.

"But I can't go back," she said. "I—well, I just can't. They'reraising the money for me, and all sorts of people are giving things.A—a friend of mine is baking cakes and sending on the money. Shehas three children, and—"

She gulped.

"I thought everybody wanted to get help to the Belgians," she said.

A slightly grim smile showed itself on Mrs. Travers' face.

"I'm afraid you don't understand. It is you we want to help. NeitherMr. Travers nor I feel that a girl so young as you, and alone, has anyplace near the firing line. And that, I fancy, is where you wish to go.As to helping the Belgians, we have four in the house now. They do notbelong to the same social circles, so they prefer tea in their own rooms.You are quite right about their needing help too. They cannot even makeup their own beds."

"They are not all like that," broke in Mr. Travers hastily.

"Of course not. But I merely think that Miss—er—Kennedy should knowboth sides of the picture."

Somewhat later Sara Lee was ushered downstairs by the neat maid, whostood on the steps and blew a whistle for a taxi—Sara Lee had come ina bus. She carried in her hand the address of a Belgian commission ofrelief at the Savoy Hotel, and in her heart, for the first time, a doubtof her errand. She gave the Savoy address mechanically and, huddled ina corner, gave way to wild and fearful misgivings.

Coming up she had sat on top of the bus and watched with wide curious,eyes the strange traffic of London. The park had fascinated her—thelittle groups of drilling men in khaki, the mellow tones of a bugle, andhere and there on the bridle paths well-groomed men and women onhorseback, as clean-cut as the horses they rode, and on the surface ascareless of what was happening across the Channel. But she saw nothingnow. She sat back and twisted Harvey's ring on her finger, and sawherself going back, her work undone, her faith in herself shattered.And Harvey's arms and the Leete house ready to receive her.

However, a ray of hope opened for her at the Savoy—not much, a prospect.

The Savoy was crowded. Men in uniform, a sprinkling of anxious-facedwives and daughters, and more than a sprinkling of gaily dressedand painted women, filled the lobby or made their way slowly up anddown the staircase. It was all so utterly different from what she hadexpected—so bright, so full of life. These well-fed people they seemedhappy enough. Were they all wrong back home? Was the war the ghastlything they thought it?

Long months afterward Sara Lee was to learn that the Savoy was notLondon. She was to learn other things—that America knew more, througha free press, of war conditions than did England. And she was tolearn what never ceased to surprise her—the sporting instinct of theBritish which made their early slogan "Business as usual." Businessand pleasure—but only on the surface. Underneath was a dogged andobstinate determination to make up as soon as possible for thehumiliation of the early days of the war.

Those were the transition days in England. The people were slowlyawaking to the magnitude of the thing that was happening to them. Certainelements of the press, long under political dominion, were preparing tocome out for a coalition ministry. The question of high-explosiveshells as against shrapnel was bitterly fought, some of the men at homestanding fast for shrapnel, as valuable against German artillery as agarden hose. Men coming back from the Front were pleading for real help,not men only, not Red Cross, not food and supplies, but for somethingmore competent than mere man power to hold back the deluge.

But over it all was that surface cheerfulness, that best-foot-forwardattitude of London. And Sara Lee saw only that, and lost faith. Shehad come far to help. But here was food in plenty and bands playingand smiling men in uniform drinking tea and playing for a little. That,too, Sara Lee was to understand later; but just then she did not. Athome there was more surface depression. The atrocities, the plight ofthe Belgians, the honor list in the Illustrated London News—that wasthe war to Sara Lee. And here!

But later on, down in a crowded dark little room, things were different.She was one of a long line, mostly women. They were unhappy and desolateenough, God knows. They sat or stood with a sort of weary resignation.Now and then a short heavy man with an upcurled mustache came out andtook in one or two. The door closed. And overhead the band playedmonotonously.

It was after seven when Sara Lee's turn came. The heavy-set man spoketo her in French, but he failed to use a single one of the words shehad memorized.

"Don't you speak any English?" she asked helplessly.

"I do; but not much," he replied. Though his French had been rapid hespoke English slowly. "How can we serve you, mademoiselle?"

"I don't want any assistance. I—I want to help, if I can."

"Here?"

"In France. Or Belgium."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We have many offers of help. What we need, mademoiselle, is notworkers. We have, at our base hospital, already many English nurses."

"I am not a nurse."

"I am sorry. The whole world is sorry for Belgium, and many would work.What we need"—he shrugged his shoulders again—"is food, clothing,supplies for our brave little soldiers."

Sara Lee looked extremely small and young. The Belgian sat down on achair and surveyed her carefully.

"You English are doing a—a fine work for us," he observed. "We aregrateful. But of course the"—he hesitated—"the pulling up of anentire people—it is colossal."

"But I am not English," said Sara Lee. "And I have a little money. Iwant to make soup for your wounded men at a railway station or—anyplace. I can make good soup. And I shall have money each month to buywhat I need."

Only then was Sara Lee admitted to the crowded little room.

Long afterward, when the lights behind the back drop had gone down andSara Lee was back again in her familiar setting, one of the clearestpictures she retained of that amazing interlude was of that crowdedlittle room in the Savoy, its single littered desk, its two typewriterscreating an incredible din, a large gentleman in a dark-blue militarycape seeming to fill the room. And in corners and off stage, so tospeak, perhaps a half dozen men, watching her curiously.

The conversation was in French, and Sara Lee's acquaintance of thepassage acted as interpreter. It was only when Sara Lee found that aconsiderable discussion was going on in which she had no part that shelooked round and saw her friend of two nights before and of the littledonkey. He was watching her intently, and when he caught her eyehe bowed.

Now men, in Sara Lee's mind, had until now been divided into the ones athome, one's own kind, the sort who married one's friends or oneself, thekind who called their wives "mother" after the first baby came, and wereeasily understood, plain men, decent and God-fearing and self-respecting;and the men of that world outside America, who were foreigners. Onemight like foreigners, but they were outsiders.

So there was no self-consciousness in Sara Lee's bow and smile. Lateron Henri was to find that lack of self and sex consciousness one of themaddening mysteries about Sara Lee. Perhaps he never quite understoodit. But always he respected it.

More conversation, in an increasing staccato. Short contributions fromthe men crowded into corners. Frenzied beating of the typewritingmachines, and overhead and far away the band. There was no air in theroom. Sara Lee was to find out a great deal later on about the contemptof the Belgians for air. She loosened Aunt Harriet's neckpiece.

So far Henri had not joined in the discussion. But now he came forwardand spoke. Also, having finished, he interpreted to Sara Lee.

"They are most grateful," he explained. "It is a—a practical idea,mademoiselle. If you were in Belgium"—he smiled rather mirthlessly—"ifyou were already in the very small part of Belgium remaining to us, wecould place you very usefully. But—the British War Office is mostcareful, just now. You understand—there are reasons."

Sara Lee flushed indignantly.

"They can watch me if they want to," she said. "What trouble can I make?I've only just landed. You—you'd have to go a good ways to find anyone who knows less than I do about the war."

"There is no doubt of that," he said, unconscious of offense. "But theWar Office—" He held out his hands.

Sara Lee, who had already caught the British "a" and was rather overdoingit, had a wild impulse to make the same gesture. It meant so much.

More conversation. Evidently more difficulties—but with Henri nowholding the center of the stage and speaking rapidly. The heavy-set manretired and read letters under an electric lamp. The band upstairs washaving dinner. And Henri argued and wrangled. He was quite passionate.The man in the military cape listened and smiled. And at last he nodded.

Henri turned to Sara Lee.

"You Americans are all brave," he said. "You like—what is it yousay?—taking a chance, I think. Would you care to take such a chance?"

"What sort of a chance?"

"May I visit you this evening at your hotel?"

Just for an instant Sara Lee hesitated. There was Harvey at home. Hewould not like her receiving a call from any man. And Harvey did notlike foreigners. He always said they had no respect for women. Itstruck her suddenly what Harvey would call Henri's bowing and his kissingher hand, and his passionate gesticulations when he was excited. Hewould call it all tomfool nonsense.

And she recalled his final words, his arms so close about her that shecould hardly breathe, his voice husky with emotion.

"Just let me hear of any of those foreigners bothering you," he said,"and I'll go over and wipe out the whole damned nation."

It had not sounded funny then. It was not funny now.

"Please come," said Sara Lee in a small voice.

The other gentlemen bowed profoundly. Sara Lee, rather at a loss, gavethem a friendly smile that included them all. And then she and Henriwere walking up the stairs and to the entrance, Henri's tall figure thetarget for many women's eyes. He, however, saw no one but Sara Lee.

Henri, too, called a taxicab. Every one in London seemed to ride intaxis. And he bent over her hand, once she was in the car, but he didnot kiss it.

"It is very kind of you, what you are doing," he said. "But, then, youAmericans are all kind. And wonderful."

Back at Morley's Hotel Sara Lee had a short conversation with Harvey'spicture.

"You are entirely wrong, dear," she said. She was brushing her hair atthe time, and it is rather a pity that it was a profile picture and thatHarvey's pictured eyes were looking off into space—that is, a pieceof white canvas on a frame, used by photographers to reflect the lightinto the eyes. For Sara Lee with her hair down was even lovelier thanwith it up. "You were wrong. They are different, but they are kind andpolite. And very, very respectful. And he is coming on business."

She intended at first to make no change in her frock. After all, it wasnot a social call, and if she did not dress it would put things on theright footing.

But slipping along the corridor after her bath, clad in a kimono andslippers and extremely nervous, she encountered a young woman on herway to dinner, and she was dressed in that combination of street skirtand evening blouse that some Englishwomen from the outlying districtsstill affect. And Sara Lee thereupon decided to dress. She called inthe elderly maid, who was already her slave, and together they went overher clothes.

It was the maid, perhaps, then who brought into Sara Lee's life thestrange and mad infatuation for her that was gradually to become adominant issue in the next few months. For the maid chose a white dress,a soft and young affair in which Sara Lee looked like the heart of a rose.

"I always like to see a young lady in white, miss," said the maid."Especially when there's a healthy skin."

So Sara Lee ate her dinner alone, such a dinner as a healthy skin andbody demanded. And she watched tall young Englishwomen with fineshoulders go out with English officers in khaki, and listened to a babelof high English voices, and—felt extremely alone and very subdued.

Henri came rather late. It was one of the things she was to learn abouthim later—that he was frequently late. It was only long afterward thatshe realized that such time as he spent with her was gained only at thecost of almost superhuman effort. But that was when she knew Henri'sstory, and his work. She waited for him in the reception room, where aman and a woman were having coffee and talking in a strange tongue.Henri found her there, at something before nine, rather downcast andworried, and debating about going up to bed. She looked up, to find himbowing before her.

"I thought you were not coming," she said.

"I? Not come? But I had said that I would come, mademoiselle. I maysit down?"

Sara Lee moved over on the velvet sofa, and Henri lowered his long bodyonto it. Lowered his voice, too, for the man and woman were staring athim.

"I'm afraid I didn't quite understand about this afternoon," began SaraLee. "You spoke about taking a chance. I am not afraid of danger, ifthat is what you mean."

"That, and a little more, mademoiselle," said Henri. "But now that I amhere I do not know."

His eyes were keen. Sara Lee had suddenly a strange feeling that hewas watching the couple who talked over their coffee, and that, oddlyenough, the couple were watching him. Yet he was apparently giving hisundivided attention to her.

"Have you walked any to-day?" he asked her unexpectedly.

Sara Lee remembered the bus, and, with some bitterness, the two taxis.

"I haven't had a chance to walk," she said.

"But you should walk," he said. "I—will you walk with me? Just aboutthe square, for air?" And in a lower tone: "It is not necessary thatthose two should know the plan, mademoiselle."

"I'll get my coat and hat," Sara Lee said, and proceeded to do so in abrisk and businesslike fashion. When she came down Henri was emergingfrom the telephone booth. His face was impassive. And again when intime Sara Lee was to know Henri's face better than she had ever knownHarvey's, she was to learn that the masklike look he sometimes woremeant danger—for somebody.

They went out without further speech into the clear cold night. Henri,as if from custom, threw his head back and scanned the sky. Then theywent on and crossed into the square.

"The plan," Henri began abruptly, "is this: You will be providedto-morrow with a passport to Boulogne. You will, if you agree, take themidnight train for Folkestone. At the railway station here you willbe searched. At Folkestone a board, sitting in an office on the quay,will examine your passport."

"Does any one in Boulogne speak English?" Sara Lee inquired nervously.Somehow that babel of French at the Savoy had frightened her. Herlittle phrase book seemed pitifully inadequate for the great thingsin her mind.

"That hardly matters," said Henri, smiling faintly. "Because I thinkyou shall not go to Boulogne."

"Not go!" She stopped dead, under the monument, and looked up at him.

"The place for you to go, to start from, is Calais," Henri explained.He paused, to let pass two lovers, a man in khaki and a girl. "ButCalais is difficult. It is under martial law—a closed city. FromBoulogne to Calais would be perhaps impossible."

Sara Lee was American and her methods were direct.

"How can I get to Calais?"

"Will you take the chance I spoke of?"

"For goodness' sake," said Sara Lee in an exasperated tone, "how can Itell you until I know what it is?"

Henri told her. He even, standing under a street lamp, drew a smallsketch for her, to make it clear. Sara Lee stood close, watching him,and some of the lines were not as steady as they might have been. Andin the midst of it he suddenly stopped.

"Do you know what it means?" he demanded.

"Yes, of course."

"And you know what date this is?"

"The eighteenth of February."

But he saw, after all, that she did not entirely understand.

"To-night, this eighteenth of February, the Germans commence a blockadeof this coast. No vessels, if they can prevent them, will leave theharbors; or if they do, none shall reach the other side!"

"Oh!" said Sara Lee blankly.

"We are eager to do as you wish, mademoiselle. But"—he commencedslowly to tear up the sketch—"it is too dangerous. You are too young.If anything should go wrong and I had—No. We will find another way."

He put the fragments of the sketch in his pocket.

"How long is this blockade to last?" Sara Lee asked out of bitterdisappointment.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Who can say? A week! A year! Not at all!"

"Then," said Sara Lee with calm deliberation, "you might as well get outyour pencil and draw another picture—because I'm going."

Far enough away now, the little house at home and the peace that dwelttherein; and Harvey; and the small white bedroom; and the daily round ofquiet duties. Sara Lee had set her face toward the east, and the landof dying men. And as Henri looked down at her she had again that poisedand eager look, almost of flight, that had brought into Harvey's lovefor her just a touch of fear.

VI

Sara Lee Kennedy was up at dawn the next morning. There was a veryserious matter to decide, for Henri's plan had included only such handluggage as she herself could carry.

Sara Lee carefully laid out on the bed such articles as she could notpossibly do without, and was able to pack into her suitcase less thana fourth of them. She had fortunately brought a soft wool sweater,which required little room. Undergarments, several blouses, the sweaterand a pair of heavy shoes—that was her equipment, plus such smalltoilet outfit as is necessary when a young woman uses no make-up andregards cold cream only as a remedy for chapped hands.

The maid found her in rather a dismal mood.

"Going across, miss!" she said. "Fancy that!"

"It's a secret," cautioned Sara Lee. "I am really not sure I am going.I am only trying to go."

The maid, who found Sara Lee and the picture of Harvey on her dressingtable both romantic and appealing, offered to pack. From the firstmoment it was evident that she meant to include the white dress. Indeedshe packed it first.

"You never know what's going to happen over there," she asserted. "Theydo say that royalties are everywhere, going about like common people.You'd better have a good frock with you."

She had an air of subdued excitement, and after she had established thefact that not only the white frock but slippers and hose also would goin she went to the door and glanced up and down the passage. Then sheclosed the door.

"There was queer goings-on here last night, miss," she said cautiously."Spies!"

"Oh, no!" cried Sara Lee.

"Spies," she repeated. "A man and a woman, pretending to be Belgianrefugees. They took them away at daylight. I expect by now they'vebeen shot."

Sara Lee ate very little breakfast that morning. All through Englandit was confidently believed that spies were shot on discovery, a theorythat has been persistent—and false, save at the battle line—sincethe beginning of the war. And Henri's plan assumed new proportions.Suppose she made her attempt and failed? Suppose they took her for aspy, and that tomorrow's sun found her facing a firing squad? Not,indeed, that she had ever heard of a firing squad, as such. But shehad seen spies shot in the movies. They invariably stood in front ofa brick wall, with the hero in the center.

So she absent-mindedly ate her kippered herring, which had been stronglyrecommended by the waiter, and tried to think of what a spy would do, soshe might avoid any suspicious movements. It struck her, too, that warseemed to have made the people on that side of the ocean extremely readywith weapons. They would be quite likely to shoot first and askquestions afterwards—which would be too late to be helpful.

She remembered Henri, for instance, and the way, without a word, he hadshot the donkey.

That day she wrote Harvey a letter.

"Dearest:" it began; "I think I am to leave for France to-night. Things seem to be moving nicely, and I am being helped by the Belgian Relief Commission. It is composed of Belgians and is at the Savoy Hotel."

Here she stopped and cried a little. What if she should never seeHarvey again—never have his sturdy arms about her? Harvey gained bydistance. She remembered only his unfailing kindness and strength andhis love for her. He seemed, here at the edge of the whirlpool, a sortof eddy of peace and quiet. Even then she had no thought of going backuntil her work was done, but she did an unusual thing for her, unusedto demonstration of any sort. She kissed his ring.

Followed directions about sending the money from the church society,a description of Morley's and Trafalgar Square, an account of tea atthe Travers', and of the little donkey—without mention, however, ofHenri. She felt that Harvey would not understand Henri.

But at the end came the passage which poor Harvey read and re-readwhen the letter came, and alternately ground his teeth over and kissed.

"I do love you, Harvey dear. And I am coming back to you. I have felt that I had to do what I am doing, but I am coming back. That's a promise. Unless, of course, I should take sick, or something like that, which isn't likely."

There was a long pause in the writing here, but Harvey could not knowthat.

"I shall wear your ring always; and always, Harvey, it will mean to me that I belong to you. With dearest love.

"SARA LEE"

Then she added a postscript, of course.

"The War Office is not letting people cross to Calais just now. But I am going to do it anyhow. It is perfectly simple. And when I get over I shall write and tell you how.

"S.L."

It was the next day that an indignant official in the censor's officeread that postscript, and rose in his wrath and sent a thirdUndersomething-or-other to look up Sara Lee at Morley's. But by thistime she was embarked on the big adventure; and by the time a cablereached Calais there was no trace of Sara Lee.

During the afternoon she called up Mr. Travers at his office, and rathergathered that he did not care to use the telephone during business hours.

"I just wanted to tell you that you need not bother about me any more,"she said. "I am being sent over and I think everything is all right."

He was greatly relieved. Mrs. Travers had not fully indorsed hisencomiums of the girl. She had felt that no really nice girl wouldtravel so far on so precarious an errand, particularly when she wasalone. And how could one tell, coming from America, how her sympathiesreally lay? She might be of German parentage—the very worst sort,because they spoke American. It was easy enough to change a name.

Nevertheless, Mr. Travers felt a trifle low in his mind when he hung upthe receiver. He said twice to himself: "Twenty pounds!" And at lasthe put four sovereigns in an envelope and sent them to her anonymouslyby messenger. Sara Lee guessed whence they came, but she respected themanner of the gift and did not thank him. It was almost the first goldmoney she had ever seen.

She was very carefully searched at the railway station that night andfound that her American Red Cross button, which had come with her dollarsubscription to the association, made the matron inspector ratherkindly inclined. Nevertheless, she took off Sara Lee's shoes, and ranover the lining of her coat, and quite ruined the maid's packing of thesuitcase.

"You are going to Boulogne?" asked the matron inspector.

Sara Lee did not like to lie.

"Wherever the boat takes me," she said with smile.

The matron smiled too.

"I shouldn't be nervous, miss," she said. "It's a chance, of course,but they have not done much damage yet."

It was after midnight then, and a cold fog made the station a gloomything of blurred yellow lights and raw chill. A few people moved about,mostly officers in uniform. Half a dozen men in civilian clotheseyed her as she passed through the gates; Scotland Yard, but she did notknow. And once she thought she saw Henri, but he walked away into theshadows and disappeared. The train, looking as absurdly small and lightas all English trains do, was waiting out in the shed. There were noporters, and Sara Lee carried her own bag.

She felt quite sure she had been mistaken about Henri, for of coursehe would have come and carried it for her.

The train was cold and quiet. When it finally moved out it was underway before she knew that it was going. And then suddenly Sara Lee'sheart began to pound hard.

It was a very cold and shivering Sara Lee who curled up, alone in hercompartment, and stared hard at Harvey's ring to keep her courage up.But a curious thing had happened. Harvey gave her no moral support.He brought her only disapproval. She found herself remembering none ofthe loving things he had said to her, but only the bitter ones.

Perhaps it was the best thing for her, after all. For a sort of doggeddetermination to go through with it all, at any cost, braced her to herfinal effort.

So far it had all been busy enough, but not comfortable. She was cold,and she had eaten almost nothing all day. As the hours went on and thetrain slid through the darkness she realized that she was rather faint.The steam pipes, only warm at the start, were entirely cold by oneo'clock, and by two Sara Lee was sitting on her feet, with a heavy coatwrapped about her knees.

The train moved quietly, as do all English trains, with no jars andlittle sound. There were few lights outside, for the towns of EasternEngland were darkened, like London, against air attacks. So when shelooked at the window she saw only her own reflection, white andwide-eyed, above Aunt Harriet's fur neckpiece.

In the next compartment an officer was snoring, but she did not closeher eyes. Perhaps, for that last hour, some of the glow that had broughther so far failed her. She was not able to think beyond Folkestone, saveoccasionally, and that with a feeling that it should not be made sodifficult to do a kind and helpful thing.

At a quarter before three the train eased down. In the same proportionSara Lee's pulse went up. A long period of crawling along, a stop ortwo, but no resultant opening of the doors; and at last, in a cold rainand a howling wind from the channel, the little seaport city.

More officers than she had suspected, a few women, got out. The latterSara Lee's experience on the steamer enabled her to place; buyers mostly,and Americans, on their way to Paris, blockade or no blockade, becausethe American woman must be well and smartly gowned and hatted. A manwith a mourning band on his sleeve carried a wailing child.

The officers lighted cigarettes. The civilians formed a line on thejetty under the roof of the shed, and waited, passports in hand, beforea door that gleamed with yellow light. Faces looked pale and anxious.The blockade was on, and Germany had said that no ships would crossthat night.

As if defiantly the Boulogne boat, near at hand, was ablaze, on the shoreside at least, with lights. Stewards came and went. Beyond it lay theharbor, dark and mysterious save where, from somewhere across, aflashlight made a brave effort to pierce the fog.

One of the buyers ahead of Sara Lee seemed exhilarated by the dangerahead.

"They'll never get us," she said. "Look at that fog!"

"It's lifting, dearie," answered a weary voice behind her. "The wind iscarrying it away."

When Sara Lee's turn came she was ready. A group of men in civilianclothes, seated about a long table, looked her over carefully. Herpassports moved deliberately from hand to hand. A long business, andthe baby wailing harder than ever. But the office was at least warm.Some of her failing courage came back as she moved, following her papers,round the table. They were given back to her at last, and she went out.She had passed the first ordeal.

Suitcase in hand she wandered down the stone jetty. The Boulogne boatshe passed, and kept on. At the very end, dark and sinister, lay anotherboat. It had no lights. The tide was in, and its deck lay almost flushwith the pier. Sara Lee walked on toward it until a voice spoke to herout of the darkness and near at hand.

"Your boat is back there, madam."

"I know. Thank you. I am just walking about."

The petty officer—he was a petty officer, though Sara Lee had neverheard the term—was inclined to be suspicious. Under excuse of lightinghis pipe he struck a match, and Sara Lee's young figure stood out in fullrelief. His suspicions died away with the flare.

"Bad night, miss," he offered.

"Very," said Sara Lee, and turned back again.

This time, bewildered and uneasy, she certainly saw Henri. But heignored her. He was alone, and smoking one of his interminablecigarettes. He had not said he was crossing, and why had he not spokento her? He wandered past down the pier, and she lost him in the shadows.When he came back he paused near her, and at last saluted and spoke.

"Pardon," he said. "If you will stand back here you will find lesswind."

"Thank you."

He carried her suitcase back, and stooping over to place it at her feethe said: "I shall send him on board with a message to the captain. WhenI come back try again."

He left her at once. The passengers for Boulogne were embarking now.A silent lot, they disappeared into the warmth and brightness of thelittle boat and were lost. No one paid any attention to Sara Leestanding in the shadows.

Soon Henri came back. He walked briskly and touched his cap as hepassed. He went aboard the Boulogne steamer, and without a backwardglance disappeared.

Sara Lee watched him out of sight, in a very real panic. He had beensomething real and tangible in that shadowy place—something familiarin an unfamiliar world. But he was gone. She threw up her head.

So once more Sara Lee picked up her suitcase and went down the pier.Now she was unchallenged. What lurking figure might be on the dark deckof the Calais boat she could not tell. That was the chance she was totake. The gangway was still out, and as quietly as possible she wentaboard. The Boulogne boat had suddenly gone dark, and she heard thechurning of the screw. With the extinction of the lights on the otherboat came at last deeper night to her aid. A few steps, a stumble, agasp—and she was on board the forbidden ship.

She turned forward, according to her instructions, where the overheaddeck made below an even deeper shadow. Henri had said that there werecabins there, and that the chance was of finding an unlocked one. Ifthey were all locked she would be discovered at dawn, and arrested. AndSara Lee was not a war correspondent. She was not accustomed to arrest.Indeed she had a deep conviction that arrest in her case would mean death.False, of course, but surely it shows her courage.

As she stood there, breathless and listening, the Boulogne boat movedout. She heard the wash against the jetty, felt the rolling of itswaves. But being on the landward side she could not see the faintgleam of a cigarette that marked Henri's anxious figure at the rail.So long as the black hulk of the Calais boat was visible, and longafter indeed, Henri stood there, outwardly calm but actually shaken bymany fears. She had looked so small and young; and who could know whatdeviltry lurked abroad that night?

He had not gone with her because it was necessary that he be in Boulognethe next morning. And also, the very chance of getting her across layin her being alone and unobserved.

So he stood by the rail and looked back and said a wordless little prayerthat if there was trouble it come to his boat and not to the other.Which might very considerably have disturbed the buyers had they knownof it and believed in prayer.

Sara Lee stood in the shadows and listened. There were voices overhead,from the bridge. A door opened onto the deck and threw out a ray oflight. Some one came out and went on shore, walking with brisk ringingsteps. And then at last she put down her bag and tried door after door,without result.

The man who had gone ashore called another. The gangway was drawn in.The engines began to vibrate under foot. Sara Lee, breathless andterrified, stood close to a cabin door and remained immovable. At onemoment it seemed as if a seaman was coming forward to where she stood.But he did not come.

The Calais boat was waiting until the other steamer had got well out ofthe harbor. The fog had lifted, and the searchlight was moving overthe surface. It played round the channel steamer without touching it.But none of this was visible to Sara Lee.

At last the lights of the quay began to recede. The little boat rockedslightly in its own waves as it edged away. It moved slowly throughthe shipping and out until, catching the swell of the channel, it shotahead at top speed.

For an hour Sara Lee stood there. The channel wind caught her and toreat her skirts until she was almost frozen. And finally, in sheerdesperation, she worked her way round to the other side. She saw noone. Save for the beating heart of the engine below it might have beena dead ship.

On the other side she found an open door and stumbled into the tiny darkdeck cabin, as chilled and frightened a philanthropist as had evercrossed that old and tricky and soured bit of seaway. And there, to befrank, she forgot her fright in as bitter a tribute of seasickness aseven the channel has ever exacted.

She had locked herself in, and she fell at last into an exhausted sleep.When she wakened and peered out through the tiny window it was graywinter dawn. The boat was quiet, and before her lay the quay of Calaisand the Gare Maritime. A gangway was out and a hurried survey showedno one in sight.

Sara Lee picked up her suitcase and opened the door. The fresh morningair revived her, but nevertheless it was an extremely pale young womanwho, obeying Henri's instructions, went ashore that morning in the graydawn unseen, undisturbed and unquestioned. But from the moment sheappeared on the gangway until the double glass doors of the GareMaritime closed behind her this apparently calm young woman did notbreathe at all. She arrived, indeed, with lungs fairly collapsed andher heart entirely unreliable.

A woman clerk was asleep at a desk. Sara Lee roused her to halfwakefulness, no interest and extremely poor English. A drowsy porterled her up a staircase and down an endless corridor. Then at last hewas gone, and Sara Lee turned the key in her door and burst into tears.

VII

Now up to this point Sara Lee's mind had come to rest at Calais. Shemust get there; after that the other things would need to be worriedover. Henri had already in their short acquaintance installed himselfas the central figure of this strange and amazing interlude—not as agood-looking young soldier surprisingly fertile in expedients, but as asort of agent of providence, by whom and through whom things were done.

And Henri had said she was to go to the Gare Maritime at Calais and makeherself comfortable—if she got there. After that things would bearranged.

Sara Lee therefore took a hot bath, though hardly a satisfactory one,for there was no soap and she had brought none. She learned later onto carry soap with her everywhere. So she soaked the chill out of herslim body and then dressed. The room was cold, but a great exultationkept her warm. She had run the blockade, she had escaped the WarOffice—which, by the way, was looking her up almost violently bythat time, via the censor. It had found the trunk she left at Morley's,and cross-questioned the maid into hysteria—and here she was,safe in France, the harbor of Calais before her, and here and therestrange-looking war craft taking on coal. Destroyers, she learned later.Her ignorance was rather appalling at first.

It was all unreal—the room with its cold steam pipes, the heavy windowhangings, the very words on the hot and cold taps in the bathroom. Agreat vessel moved into the harbor. As it turned she saw its nameprinted on its side in huge letters, and the flag, also painted, of aneutral country—a hoped-for protection against German submarines. Itbrought home to her, rather, the thing she had escaped.

After a time she thought of food, but rather hopelessly. Her attemptsto get savonfrom a stupid boy had produced nothing more useful thana flow of unintelligible French and no soap whatever. She tried apantomime of washing her hands, but to the boy she had appeared to bemerely wringing them. And, as a great many females were wringing theirhands in France those days, he had gone away, rather sorry for her.

When hunger drove her to the bell again he came back and found her withher little phrase book in her hands, feverishly turning the pages. Shecould find plenty of sentences such as "Garçon, vous avez renversé duvin sur ma robe," but not an egg lifted its shining pate above thepages. Not cereal. Not fruit. Not even the word breakfast.

Long, long afterward Sara Lee found a quite delightful breakfasthidden between two pages that were stuck together. But it was then fartoo late.

"Donnez-moi," began Sara Lee, and turned the pages rapidly, "this; doyou see?" She had found roast beef.

The boy observed stolidly, in French, that it was not ready until noon.She was able to make out, from his failing to depart, that there was noroast beef.

"Good gracious!" she said, ravenous and exasperated. "Go and get mesome bread and coffee, anyhow." She repeated it, slightly louder.

That was the tableau that Henri found when, after a custom that may bewar or may be Continental, he had inquired the number of her room andmade his way there.

There was a twinkle in his blue eyes as he bowed before her—and a vastrelief too.

"So you are here!" he said in a tone of satisfaction. He had put in anextremely bad night, even for him, by whom nights were seldom wasted ina bed. While he was with her something of her poise had communicateditself to him. He had felt the confidence, in men and affairs, thatAmerican girls are given as a birthright. And her desire for servicehe had understood as a year or two ago he could not have understood.But he had stood by the rail staring north, and cursing himself forhaving placed her in danger during the entire crossing.

There was nothing about him that morning, however to show his badhours. He was debonnaire and smiling.

"I am famishing," said Sara Lee. "And there are no eggs in thisbook—none whatever."

"Eggs! You wish eggs?"

"I just want food. Almost anything will do. I asked for eggs becausethey can come quickly."

Henri turned to the boy and sent him off with a rapid order. Then:"May I come in?" he said.

Sara Lee cast an uneasy glance over the room. It was extremely tidy,and unmistakably it was a bedroom. But though her color rose she askedhim in. After all, what did it matter? To have refused would havelooked priggish, she said to herself. And as a matter of fact one ofthe early lessons she learned in France was learned that morning—thatthough convention had had to go, like many other things in the war, menwho were gentlemen ignored its passing.

Henri came in and stood by the center table.

"Now, please tell me," he said. "I have been most uneasy. On the quaylast night you looked—frightened."

"I was awfully frightened. Nothing happened. I even slept."

"You were very brave."

"I was very seasick."

"I am sorry."

Henri took a turn up and down the room.

"But," said Sara Lee slowly, "I—I—can't be on your hands, you know.You must have many things to do. If you are going to have to order mymeals and all that, I'm going to be a dreadful burden."

"But you will learn very quickly."

"I'm stupid about languages."

Henri dismissed that with a gesture. She could not, he felt, be stupidabout anything. He went to the window and looked out. The destroyerswere still coaling, and a small cargo was being taken off the boat atthe quay. The rain was over, and in the early sunlight an officer inblue tunic, red breeches and black cavalry boots was taking the air, hishead bent over his chest. Not a detail of the scene escaped him.

"I have agreed to find the right place for you," he said thoughtfully."There is one, but I think—" He hesitated. "I do not wish to placeyou again in danger."

"You mean that it is near the Front?"

"Very near, mademoiselle."

"But I should be rather near, to be useful."

"Perhaps, for your work. But what of you? These brutes—they shellfar and wide. One can never be sure."

He paused and surveyed her whimsically.

"Who allowed you to come, alone, like this?" he demanded. "Is there noone who objected?"

Sara Lee glanced down at her ring.

"The man I am going to marry. He is very angry."

Henri looked at her, and followed her eyes to Harvey's ring. He saidnothing, however, but he went over and gave the bell cord a violent jerk.

"You must have food quickly," he said in a rather flat voice. "You arelooking tired and pale."

A sense of unreality was growing on Sara Lee. That she should be alonein France with a man she had never seen three days before; that she knewnothing whatever about that man; that, for the present at least, she wasutterly and absolutely dependent on him, even for the food she ate—itwas all of a piece with the night's voyage and the little room at theSavoy. And it was none of it real.

When the breakfast tray came Henri was again at the window and silent.And Sara Lee saw that it was laid for two. She was a little startled,but the businesslike way in which the young officer drew up two chairsand held one out for her made protest seem absurd. And the flat-facedboy, who waited, looked unshocked and uninterested.

It was not until she had had some coffee that Henri followed up hisline of thought.

"So—the fiance did not approve? It is not difficult to understand.There is always danger, for there are German aëroplanes even in remoteplaces. And you are very young. You still wish to establish yourself,mademoiselle?"

"Of course!"

"Would it be a comfort to cable your safe arrival in France to thefiancé?" When he saw her face he smiled. And if it was a rather heroicsmile it was none the less friendly. "I see. What shall I say? Orwill you write it?"

So Sara Lee, vastly cheered by two cups of coffee, an egg, and a veryconsiderable portion of bread and butter, wrote her cable. It was tobe brief, for cables cost money. It said, "Safe. Well. Love." AndHenri, who seemed to have strange and ominous powers, sent it almostimmediately. Total cost, as reported to Sara Lee, two francs. He tookthe money she offered him gravely.

"We shall cable quite often," he said. "He will be anxious. And Ithink he has a right to know."

The "we" was entirely unconscious.

"And now," he said, when he had gravely allowed Sara Lee to pay her halfof the breakfast, "we must arrange to get you out of Calais. And that,mademoiselle, may take time."

It took time. Sara Lee, growing accustomed now to little rooms entirelyfilled with men and typewriters, went from one office to another, walkingalong the narrow pavements with Henri, through streets filled withsoldiers. Once they drew aside to let pass a procession of Belgianrefugees, those who had held to their village homes until bombardmenthad destroyed them—stout peasant women in short skirts and with hugebundles, old men, a few young ones, many children. The terror of theearly flight was not theirs, but there was in all of them a sort ofsodden hopelessness that cut Sara Lee to the heart. In an irregularcolumn they walked along, staring ahead but seeing nothing. Even thechildren looked old and tired.

Sara Lee's eyes filled with tears.

"My people," said Henri. "Simple country folk, and going to England,where they will grieve for the things that are gone—their fields andtheir sons. The old ones will die, quickly, of homesickness. It isdifficult to transplant an old tree."

The final formalities seemed to offer certain difficulties. Henri, wholiked to do things quickly and like a prince, flushed with irritation.He drew himself up rather haughtily in reply to one question, and glanceduneasily at the girl. But it was all as intelligible as Sanskrit to her.

It was only after a whispered sentence to the man at the head of thetable that the paper was finally signed.

As they went down to the street together Sara Lee made a little protest.

"But I simply must not take all your time," she said, looking upanxiously. "I begin to realize how foolhardy the whole thing is. I meantwell, but—it is you who are doing everything; not I."

"I shall not make the soup, mademoiselle," he replied gravely.

VIII

Here were more things to do. Sara Lee's money must be exchanged at abank for French gold. She had three hundred dollars, and it had beengiven her in a tiny brown canvas bag. And then there was the matter ofgoing from Calais toward the Front. She had expected to find a train,but there were no trains. All cars were being used for troops. Shestared at Henri in blank dismay.

"No trains!" she said blankly. "Would an automobile be very expensive?"

"They are all under government control, mademoiselle. Even the petrol."

She stopped in the street.

"Then I shall have to go back."

Henri laughed boyishly.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "I have been requested to take you to a placewhere you may render us the service we so badly need. For the presentthat is my duty, and nothing else. So if you will accept the offer ofmy car, which is a shameful one but travels well, we can continue ourjourney."

Long, long afterward, Sara Lee found a snapshot of Henri's car, takenby a light-hearted British officer. Found it and sat for a long timewith it in her hand, thinking and remembering that first day she saw it,in the sun at Calais. A long low car it was, once green, but nowroughly painted gray. But it was not the crude painting, significantas it was, that brought so close the thing she was going to. It wasthat the car was but a shell of a car. The mud guards were crumpled upagainst the side. Body and hood were pitted with shrapnel. A door hadbeen shot away, and the wind shield was but a frame set round withbroken glass. Even the soldier-chauffeur wore a patch over one eye,and his uniform was ragged.

"Not a beautiful car, mademoiselle, as I warned you! But a fast one!"

Henri was having a double enjoyment. He was watching Sara Lee's faceand his chauffeur's remaining eye.

"But fast; eh, Jean?" he said to the chauffeur. The man nodded andsaid something in French. It was probably the thing Henri had hoped for,and he threw back his head and laughed.

"Jean is reminding me," he said gayly, "that it is forbidden to officersto take a lady along the road that we shall travel." But when he sawhow Sara Lee flushed he turned to the man.

"Mademoiselle has come from America to help us, Jean," he said quietly."And now for Dunkirk."

The road from Dunkirk to Calais was well guarded in those days. FromNieuport for some miles inland only the shattered remnant of the BelgianArmy held the line. For the cry "On to Paris!" the Germans hadsubstituted "On to Calais!"

So, on French soil at least, the road was well guarded. A few miles inthe battered car, then a slowing up, a showing of passports, the clatterof a great chain as it dropped to the road, a lowering of leveled rifles,and a salute from the officer—that was the method by which theyadvanced.

Henri sat with the driver and talked in a low tone. Sometimes he satquiet, looking ahead. He seemed, somehow, older, more careworn. Hisboyishness had gone. Now and then he turned to ask if she wascomfortable, but in the intervals she felt that he had entirely forgottenher. Once, at something Jean said, he got out a pocket map and wentover it carefully. It was a long time after that before he turned tosee if she was all right.

Sara Lee sat forward and watched everything. She saw little evidence ofwar, beyond the occasional sentries and chains. Women were walking alongthe roads. Children stopped and pointed, smiling, at the battered car.One very small boy saluted, and Henri as gravely returned the salute.

Some time after that he turned to her.

"I find that I shall have to leave you in Dunkirk," he said. "A matterof a day only, probably. But I will see before I go that you arecomfortable."

"I shall be quite all right, of course."

But something had gone out of the day for her.

Sara Lee learned one thing that day, learned it as some women do learn,by the glance of an eye, the tone of a voice. The chauffeur adoredHenri. His one unbandaged eye stole moments from the road to glanceat him. When he spoke, while Henri read his map, his very voice betrayedhim. And while she pondered the thing, woman-fashion they drew intothe square of Dunkirk, where the statue of Jean Bart, pirate andprivateer stared down at this new procession of war which passed dailyand nightly under his cold eyes.

Jean and a porter carried in her luggage. Henri and a voluble andsmiling Frenchwoman showed her to her room. She felt like an island ofsilence in a rapid-rolling sea of French. The Frenchwoman threw openthe door.

A great room with high curtained windows; a huge bed with a faded giltcanopy and heavy draperies; a wardrobe as vast as the bed; and for atoilet table an enormous mirror reaching to the ceiling and with amarble shelf below—that was her room.

"I think you will be comfortable here, mademoiselle."

Sara Lee, who still clutched her small bag of gold, shook her head.

"Comfortable, yes," she said. "But I am afraid it is very expensive."

Henri named an extremely low figure—an exact fourth, to be accurate,of its real cost. A surprising person Henri, with his worn uniform andhis capacity for kindly mendacity. And seeing something in theFrenchwoman's face that perhaps he had expected, he turned to heralmost fiercely:

"You are to understand, madame, that this lady has been placed in mycare by authority that will not be questioned. She is to have everydeference."

That was all, but was enough. And from that time on Sara Lee Kennedy,of Ohio, was called, in the tiny box downstairs which constituted theoffice, "Mademoiselle La Princesse."

Henri did a characteristic and kindly thing for Sara Lee before he leftthat evening on one of the many mysterious journeys that he was to makeduring the time Sara Lee knew him. He came to her door, menus in hand,and painstakingly ordered for her a dinner for that night, and thethree meals for the day following.

He made no suggestion of dining with her that evening. Indeed, watchinghim from her small table, Sara Lee decided that he had put her entirelyout of his mind. He did not so much as glance at her. Save the cashierat her boxed-in desk and money drawer, she was the only woman in thatroom full of officers. Quite certainly Henri was the only man who didnot find some excuse for glancing in her direction.

But finishing early, he paused by the cashier's desk to pay for his meal,and then he gave Sara Lee the stiffest and most ceremonious of bows.

She felt hurt. Alone in her great room, the curtains drawn by order ofthe police, lest a ray of light betray the town to eyes in the air, shewent carefully over the hours she had spent with Henri that day,looking for a cause of offense. She must have hurt him or he wouldsurely have stopped to speak to her.

Perhaps already he was finding her a burden. She flushed with shamewhen she remembered about the meals he had had to order for her, andshe sat up in her great bed until late, studying by candlelight suchphrases as:

"Il y a une erreur dans la note," and "Garçon, quels fruitsavez-vous?"

She tried to write to Harvey that night, but she gave it up at last.There was too much he would not understand. She could not write franklywithout telling of Henri, and to this point everything had centeredabout Henri. It all rather worried her, because there was nothing shewas ashamed of, nothing she should have had to conceal. She had yet tolearn, had Sara Lee, that many of the concealments of life are basednot on wrongdoing but on fear of misunderstanding.

So she got as far as: "Dearest Harvey: I am here in a hotel atDunkirk"—and then stopped, fairly engulfed in a wave of homesickness.Not so much for Harvey as for familiar things—Uncle James in his chairby the fire, with the phonograph playing "My Little Gray Home in theWest"; her own white bedroom; the sun on the red geraniums in thedining-room window; the voices of happy children wandering home fromschool.

She got up and went to the window, first blowing out the candle.Outside, the town lay asleep, and from a gate in the old wall a sentrywith a bugle blew a quiet "All's well." From somewhere near, on topof the mairieperhaps, where eyes all night searched the sky for danger,came the same trumpet call of safety for the time, of a little longerfor quiet sleep.

For two days the girl was alone. There was no sign of Henri. She hadnothing to read, and her eyes, watching hour after hour the panoramathat passed through the square under her window, searched vainly forhis battered gray car. In daytime the panorama was chiefly of motorlorries—she called them trucks—piled high with supplies, oftenfodder for the horses in that vague district beyond ammunition and food.Now and then a battery rumbled through, its gunners on the limbers,detached, with folded arms; and always there were soldiers.

Sometimes, from her window, she saw the market people below, in theirstriped red-and-white booths, staring up at the sky. She would look up,too, and there would be an aëroplane sliding along, sometimes so lowthat one could hear the faint report of the exhaust.

But it was the ambulances that Sara Lee looked for. Mostly they cameat night, a steady stream of them. Sometimes they moved rapidly.Again, one would be going very slowly, and other machines would circleimpatiently round it and go on. A silent, grim procession in themoonlight it was, and it helped the girl to bear the solitude of thosetwo interminable days.

Inside those long gray cars with the red crosses painted on the tops—asymbol of mercy that had ceased to protect—inside those cars werewounded men, men who had perhaps lain for hours without food or care.Surely, surely it was right that she had come. The little she could domust count in the great total. She twisted Harvey's ring on her fingerand sent a little message to him.

"You will forgive me when you know, dear," was the message. "It is soterrible! So pitiful!"

Yet during the day the square was gay enough. Officers in spurs clankedacross, wide capes blowing in the wind. Common soldiers bought fruitand paper bags of fried potatoes from the booths. Countless dogs foughtunder the feet of passers-by, and over all leered the sardonic face ofJean Bart, pirate and privateer.

Sara Lee went out daily, but never far. And she practiced French withthe maid, after this fashion:

"Draps de toile," said the smiling maid, putting the linen sheets onthe bed.

Sara Lee would repeat it some six times.

"Taies d'oreiller," when the pillows came. So Sara Lee called pillowsby the name of their slips from that time forward! Came a bright hourwhen she rang the bell for the boy and asked for matches, which shecertainly did not need, with entire success.

On the second night Sara Lee slept badly. At two o'clock she heard asound in the hall, and putting on her kimono, opened the door. On astiff chair outside, snoring profoundly, sat Jean, fully dressed.

The light from her candle roused him and he was wide awake in an instant.

"Why, Jean!" she said. "Isn't there any place for you to sleep?"

"I am to remain here, mademoiselle," he replied in English.

"But surely—not because of me?"

"It is the captain's order," he said briefly.

"I don't understand. Why?"

"All sorts of people come to this place, mademoiselle. But few ladies.It is best that I remain here."

She could not move him. He had remained standing while she spoke to him,and now he yawned, striving to conceal it. Sara Lee felt veryuncomfortable, but Jean's attitude and voice alike were firm. Shethanked him and said good night, but she slept little after that.

Lying there in the darkness, a warm glow of gratitude to Henri, and afeeling of her safety in his care, wrapped her like a mantle. Shewondered drowsily if Harvey would ever have thought of all the smallthings that seemed second nature to this young Belgian officer.

She rather thought not.

IX

While she was breakfasting the next morning there was a tap at the door,and thinking it the maid she called to her to come in.

But it was Jean, an anxious Jean, twisting his cap in his hands.

"You have had a message from the captain, mademoiselle?"

"No, Jean."

"He was to have returned during the night. He has not come,mademoiselle."

Sara Lee forgot her morning negligée in Jean's harassed face.

"But—where did he go?"

Jean shrugged his shoulders and did not reply.

"Are you worried about him?"

"I am anxious, mademoiselle. But I am often anxious; and—he alwaysreturns."

He smiled almost sheepishly. Sara Lee, who had no subtlety but a greatdeal of intuition, felt that there was a certain relief in the smile, asthough Jean, having had no message from his master, was pleased thatshe had none. Which was true enough, at that. Also she felt that Jean'sone eye was inspecting her closely, which was also true. A new factorhad come into Henri's life—by Jean's reasoning, a new and dangerousone. And there were dangers enough already.

Highly dangerous, Jean reflected in the back of his head as he backedout with a bow. A young girl unafraid of the morning sun and sittingat a little breakfast table as fresh as herself—that was a picture fora war-weary man.

Jean forgot for a moment his anxiety for Henri's safety in his fear forhis peace of mind. For a doubt had been removed. The girl was straight.Jean's one sophisticated eye had grasped that at once. A good girl,alone, and far from home! And Henri, like all soldiers, woman-hungryfor good women, for unpainted skins and clear eyes and the freshness andbloom of youth.

All there, behind that little breakfast table which might so pleasantlyhave been laid for two.

Jean took a walk that morning, and stood staring for twenty minutes intoa clock maker's window, full of clocks. After which he drew out hiswatch and looked at the time!

At two in the afternoon Sara Lee saw Henri's car come into the square.It was, if possible, more dilapidated than before, and he came like agray whirlwind, scattering people and dogs out of his way. Almostbefore he had had time to enter the hotel Sara Lee heard him in thehall, and the next moment he was bowing before her.

"I have been longer than I expected," he explained. "Have you beenquite comfortable?"

Sara Lee, however, was gazing at him with startled eyes. He was dirty,unshaven, and his eyes looked hollow and bloodshot. From his neck tohis heels he was smeared with mud, and his tidy tunic was torn intoragged holes.

"But you—you have been fighting!" she gasped.

"I? No, mademoiselle. There has been no battle." His eyes left herand traveled over the room. "They are doing everything for you? Theyare attentive?"

"Everything is splendid," said Sara Lee. "If you won't tell me how yougot into that condition, at least you can send your coat down to me tomend."

"My tunic!" He looked at it smilingly. "You would do that?"

"I am nearly frantic for something to do."

He smiled, and suddenly bending down he took her hand and kissed it.

"You are not only very beautiful, mademoiselle, but you are very good."

He went away then, and Sara Lee got out her sewing things. The tuniccame soon, carefully brushed and very ragged. But it was not Jean whobrought it; it was the Flemish boy.

And upstairs in a small room with two beds Sara Lee might have beensurprised to find Jean, the chauffeur, lying on one, while Henri shavedhimself beside the other. For Jean, of the ragged uniform and the patchover one eye, was a count of Belgium, and served Henri because he lovedhim. And because, too, he was no longer useful in that little armywhere lay his heart.

Sometime a book will be written about the Jeans of this war, the greatfriendships it has brought forth between men. And not the least of itsstories will be that of this Jean of the one eye. But its place is nothere.

And perhaps there will be a book about the Henris, also. But not for along time, and even then with care. For the heroes of one department ofan army in the field live and die unsung. Their bravest exploits areburied in secrecy. And that is as it must be. But it is a fine tale togo untold.

After he had bathed and shaved, Henri sat down at a tiny table and wrote.He drew a plan also, from a rough one before him. Then he took a matchand burned the original drawing until it was but charred black ashes.When he had finished Jean got up from the bed and put on his overcoat.

"To the King?" he said.

"To the King, old friend."

Jean took the letter and went out.

Down below, Sara Lee sat with Henri's ragged tunic on her lap andstitched carefully. Sometime, she reflected, she would be mending worngarments for another man, now far away. A little flood of tendernesscame over her. So helpless these men! There was so much to do for them!And soon, please God, she would be helping other tired and weary men,with food, and perhaps a word—when she had acquired some French—andperhaps a thread and needle.

She dined alone that night, as usual. Henri did not appear, though shehad sent what she suspected was his only tunic back to him neatly mendedat five o'clock. As a matter of fact Henri was sound asleep. He hadmeant to rest only for an hour a body that was crying aloud with fatigue.But Jean, coming in quietly, had found him sleeping like a child, andhad put his own blanket over him and left him. Henri slept until morning,when Jean, coming up from his vigil outside the American girl's door,found him waking and rested, and rang for coffee.

Jean sat down on the edge of his bed and put on his shoes and puttees.He was a taciturn man, but now he had something to say that he did notlike to say. And Henri knew it.

"What is it?" he asked, his arms under his head. "Come, let us have it!It is, of course, about the American lady."

"It is," Jean said bluntly. "You cannot mix women and war."

"And you think I am doing that?"

"I am not an idiot," Jean growled. "You do not know what you are doing.I do. She is young and lonely. You are young and not unattractive towomen. Already she turns pale when I so much as ask if she has heardfrom you."

"You asked her that?"

"You were gone much longer than—"

"And you thought I might send her word, and not you!" Henri's voice wasoffended. He lay back while the boy brought in the morning coffee androlls.

"Let me tell you something," he said when the boy had gone. "She isbetrothed to an American. She wears a betrothal ring. I am to her—theFrench language!"

But, though Henri laughed, Jean remained grave and brooding. For Henrihad not said what Sara Lee already was to him.

It was later in the morning that Henri broached the subject again. Theywere in the courtyard of an old house, working over the engine of the car.

"I think I have found a location for the young American lady," he said.

Jean hammered for a considerable time at a refractory rim.

"And where?" he asked at last.

Henri named the little town. Like Henri's family name, it must not betold. Too many things happened there, and perhaps it is even now Henri'sheadquarters. For that portion of the line has changed very little.

Jean fell to renewed hammering.

"If you will be silent I shall explain a plan," Henri said in a cautioustone. "She will make soup, with help which we shall find. And if comingin for refreshments a soldier shall leave a letter for me it is natural,is it not?"

"She will suspect, of course."

"I think not. And she reads no French. None whatever."

Yet Jean's suspicions were not entirely allayed. The plan had itsadvantages. It was important that Henri receive certain reports, andalready the hotel whispered that Henri was of the secret service. Itbrought him added deference, of course, but additional danger.

So Jean accepted the plan, but with reservation. And it was not longafterward that he said to Sara Lee, in French: "There is a spider onyour neck, mademoiselle."

But Sara Lee only said, "I'm sorry, Jean; you'll have to speak Englishto me for a while, I'm afraid."

And though he watched her for five minutes she did not put her handto her neck.

However, that was later on. That afternoon Henri spent an hour with theMinister of War. And at the end of that time he said: "Thank you, Baron.I think you will not regret it. America must learn the truth, and howbetter than through those friendly people who come to us to help?"

It is as well to state, however, that he left the Minister of War withthe undoubted impression that Miss Sara Lee Kennedy was a spinster ofuncertain years.

Sara Lee packed her own suitcase that afternoon, doing it rathernervously because Henri was standing in the room by the window waitingfor it. He had come in as matter-of-factly as Harvey had entered theparlor at Aunt Harriet's, except that he carried in his arms some sixtowels, a cake of soap and what looked suspiciously like two sheets.

"The house I have under consideration," he said, "has little torecommend it but the building, and even that—The occupants have goneaway, and—you are not a soldier."

Sara Lee eyed the bundle.

"I don't need sheets," she expostulated.

"There are but two. And Jean has placed blankets in the car. You musthave a pillow also."

He calmly took one of the hotel pillows from the bed.

"What else?" he asked calmly. "Cigarettes? But no, you do not smoke."

Sara Lee eyed him with something very like despair.

"Aren't you ever going to let me think for myself?"

"Would you have thought of these?" he demanded triumphantly. "You—youthink only of soup and tired soldiers. Some one must think of you."

And there was a touch of tenderness in his voice. Sara Lee felt it andtrembled slightly. He was so fine, and he must not think of her thatway. It was not real. It couldn't be. Men were lonely here, whereeverything was hard and cruel. They wanted some of the softness of life,and all of kindness and sweetness that she could give should be Henri's.But she must make it clear that there could never be anything more.

There was a tightness about her mouth as she folded the white frock.

"I know that garment," he said boyishly. "Do you remember the night youwore it? And how we wandered in the square and made the plan that hasbrought us together again?"

Sara Lee reached down into her suitcase and brought up Harvey's picture.

"I would like you to see this," she said a little breathlessly. "It isthe man I am to marry."

For a moment she thought Henri was not going to take it. But he came,rather slowly, and held out his hand for it. He went with it to thewindow and stood there for some time looking down at it.

"When are you going to marry him, mademoiselle?"

"As soon as I go back."

Sara Lee had expected some other comment, but he made none. He put thephotograph very quietly on the bed before her, and gathered up the linenand the pillow in his arms.

"I shall send for your luggage, mademoiselle. And you will find me atthe car outside, waiting."

And so it was that a very silent Henri sat with Jean going out to thatstrange land which was to be Sara Lee's home for many months. And avery silent Sara Lee, flanked with pillow and blankets, who sat backalone and tried to recall the tones of Harvey's voice.

And failed.

X

From Dunkirk to the Front, the road, after the Belgian line was passed,was lightly guarded. Henri came out of a reverie to explain to Sara Lee.

"We have not many men," he said. "And those that remain are holding theline. It is very weary, our army."

Now at home Uncle James had thought very highly of the Belgian Army. Hehad watched the fight they made, and he had tried to interest Sara Leein it. But without much result. She had generally said: "Isn't itwonderful!" or "horrible," as the case might be, and put out of her mindas soon as possible the ringing words he had been reading. But she hadnot forgotten, she found. They came back to her as she rode through thatdeserted countryside. Henri, glancing back somewhat later, found her intears.

He climbed back at once into the rear of the car and sat down beside her.

"You are homesick, I think?"

"Yes. But not for myself. I am just homesick for all the people whohave lost their homes. You—and Jean, and all the rest."

"Some day I shall tell you about my home and what has happened to it,"he said gravely. "Not now. It is not pleasant. But you must rememberthis: We are going back home, we Belgians." And after a little pause:"Just as you are."

He lapsed into silence after that, and Sara Lee, stealing a glance athim, saw his face set and hard. She had a purely maternal impulse toreach over and pat his hand.

Jean did not like Henri's shift to the rear of the car. He drove witha sort of irritable feverishness, until Henri leaned over and touchedhim on the shoulder.

"We have mademoiselle with us, Jean," he said in French.

"It is not difficult to believe," growled Jean. But he slackened hispace somewhat.

So far the road had been deserted. Now they had come up to a stream oftraffic flowing slowly toward the Front. Armored cars, looking tall andtop-heavy, rumbled and jolted along. Many lorries, one limousinecontaining a general, a few Paris buses, all smeared a dingy gray andfilled with French soldiers, numberless and nondescript open machines,here and there a horse-drawn vehicle—these filled the road. In andout among them Jean threaded his way, while Sara Lee grew crimson withthe effort to see it all, and Henri sat very stiff and silent.

At a crossroads they were halted by troops who had fallen out for a rest.The men stood at ease, and stared their fill at Sara Lee. Save for afew weary peasants, most of them had seen no women for months. But theywere respectful, if openly admiring. And their admiration of her wasnothing to Sara Lee's feeling toward them. She loved them all—boyswith their first straggly beards on their chins; older men, looking wornand tired; French and Belgian; smiling and sad. But most of all, forUncle James' sake, she loved the Belgians.

"I cannot tell you," she said breathlessly to Henri. "It is like adream come true. And I shall help. You look doubtful sometimes, butI am sure."

"You are heaven sent," Henri replied gravely.

They turned into a crossroad after a time, and there in a little villageSara Lee found her new home. A strange village indeed, unoccupied andlargely destroyed. Piles of bricks and plaster lined the streets.Broken glass was everywhere. Jean blew out a tire finally, because ofthe glass, and they were obliged to walk the remainder of the way.

"A poor place, mademoiselle," Henri said as they went along. "A peacefullittle town, and quite beautiful, once. And it harbored no troops. Buteverything is meat for the mouths of their guns."

Sara Lee stopped and looked about her. Her heart was beating fast, buther lips were steady enough.

"And it is here that I—"

"A little distance down the street. You must see before you decide."

Steady, passionless firing was going on, not near, but far away, likelow thunder before a summer storm. She was for months to live, to eatand sleep and dream to that rumbling from the Ypres salient, to wakenwhen it ceased or to look up from her work at the strange silence. Butit was new to her then, and terrible.

"Do they still shell this—this town?" she asked, rather breathlessly.

"Not now. They have done their work. Of course—" he did not finish.

Sara Lee's heart slowed down somewhat. After all, she had asked to benear the Front. And that meant guns and such destruction as was allabout her. Only one thing troubled her.

"It is rather far from the trenches, isn't it?"

He smiled slightly.

"Far! It is not very far. Not so far as I would wish, mademoiselle.But, to do what you desire, it is the best I have to offer."

"How far away are the trenches?"

"A quarter of a mile beyond those poplar trees." He indicated on a slightrise a row of great trees broken somewhat but not yet reduced to thetwisted skeletons they were to become later on. In a long line theyfaced the enemy like sentinels, winter-quiet but dauntless, and behindthem lay the wreck of the little village, quiet and empty.

"Will the men know I am here?" Sara Lee asked anxiously.

"But, yes, mademoiselle. At night they come up from the trenches, andfresh troops take their places. They come up this street and go on towherever they are to rest. And when they find that a house of—mercyis here—and soup, they will come. More than you wish."

"Belgian soldiers?"

"Only Belgian soldiers. That is as you want it to be, I think."

"If only I spoke French!"

"You will learn. And in the meantime, mademoiselle, I have taken theliberty of finding you a servant—a young peasant woman. And you willalso have a soldier always on guard."

Something that had been in the back of Sara Lee's mind for some timesuddenly went away. She had been thinking of Aunt Harriet and the Ladies'Aid Society of the Methodist Church. She had, in fact, been wonderinghow they would feel when they learned that she was living alone, theonly woman among thousands of men. It had, oddly enough, never occurredto her before.

"You have thought of everything," she said gratefully.

But Henri said nothing. He had indeed thought of everything with avengeance, with the net result that he was not looking at Sara Lee morethan he could help.

These Americans were strange. An American girl would cross the seas,and come here alone with him—a man and human. And she would take forgranted that he would do what he was doing for love of his kind—whichwas partly true; and she would be beautiful and sweet and amiable andquite unself-conscious. And then she would go back home, warm of heartwith gratitude, and marry the man of the picture.

The village had but one street, and that deserted and in ruins. Behindits double row of houses, away from the enemy, lay the fields, a muddycanal and more poplar trees. And from far away, toward Ypres, therecame constantly that somewhat casual booming of artillery which markedthe first winter of the war.

The sound of the guns had first alarmed, then interested Sara Lee. Itwas detached then, far away. It meant little to her. It was only later,when she saw some of the results of the sounds she heard, that theybecame significant. But this is not a tale of the wounding of men.There are many such. This is the story of a little house of mercy, andof a girl with a dauntless spirit, and of two men who loved her. Onlythat.

The maid Henri had found was already in the house, sweeping. Henripresented her to Sara Lee, and he also brought a smiling little Belgianboy, in uniform and with a rifle.

"Your staff, mademoiselle!" he said. "And your residence!"

Sara Lee looked about her. With the trifling exception that there wasno roof, it was whole. And the roof was not necessary, for the floorsof the upper story served instead. There was a narrow passage with aroom on either side, and a tiny kitchen behind.

Henri threw open a door on the right.

"Your bedroom," he said. "Well furnished, as you will see. It shouldbe, since there has been brought here all the furniture not destroyedin the village."

His blacker mood had fallen away before her naive delight. He wentabout smiling boyishly, showing her the kettles in the kitchen; thesupply, already so rare, of firewood; the little stove. But he stiffenedsomewhat when she placed her hand rather timidly on his arm.

"How am I ever to thank you?" she asked.

"By doing much good. And by never going beyond the poplar trees."

She promised both very earnestly.

But she was a little sad as she followed Henri about, he volublyexpatiating on such advantages as plenty of air owing to the absence ofa roof; and the attraction of the stove, which he showed much like asalesman anxious to make a sale. "Such a stove!" he finishedcontentedly. "It will make soup even in your absence, mademoiselle!Our peasants eat much soup; therefore it is what you would call atrained stove."

Before Sara Lee's eyes came a picture of Harvey and the Leete house,its white dining room, its bay window for plants, its comfortable charmand prettiness. And Harvey's face, as he planned it for her anxious,pleading, loving. She drew a long breath. If Henri noticed herabstraction he ignored it. He was all over the little house. One momenthe was instructing Marie volubly, to her evident confusion. On René,the guard, he descended like a young cyclone, with warnings formademoiselle's safety and comfort. He was everywhere, sitting on thebed to see if it was soft, tramping hard on the upper floor to discoverif any plaster might loosen below, and pausing in that process to lookkeenly at a windmill in the field behind.

When he came down it was to say: "You are not entirely alone in thevillage, after all, mademoiselle. The miller has come back. I shallvisit him now and explain."

He found Sara Lee, however, still depressed. She was sitting in a lowchair in the kitchen gazing thoughtfully at the stove.

"I am here," she said. "And here is the house, and a stove,and—everything. But there are no shops; and what shall I make my soupout of?"

Henri stared at her rather blankly.

"True!" he said. "Very true. And I never thought of it!"

Then suddenly they both laughed, the joyous ringing laugh of ridiculousyouth, which can see its own absurdities and laugh at them.

Henri counted off on his fingers.

"I thought of water," he said, "and a house, and firewood, and kettlesand furniture. And there I ceased thinking."

It was dusk now. Marie lifted the lid from the stove, and a warm redglow of reflected light filled the little kitchen. It was warm andcozy; the kettle sang like the purring of a cat. And something elsethat had troubled Sara Lee came out.

"I wonder," she said, "if you are doing all this only because I—well,because I persuaded you." Which she had not. "Do the men really needme here?"

"Need you, mademoiselle?"

"Do they need what little I can give? They were smiling, all the onesI saw."

"A Belgian soldier always smiles. Even when he is fighting." His voicehad lost its gayety and had taken on a deeper note. "Mademoiselle, Ihave brought you here, where I can think of no other woman who wouldhave the courage to come, because you are needed. I cannot promise youentire safety"—his mouth tightened—"but I can promise you work andgratitude. Such gratitude, mademoiselle, as you may never know again."

That reassured her. But in her practical mind the matter of suppliesloomed large. She brought the matter up again directly.

"It is to be hot chocolate and soup?" he asked.

"Both, if I find I have enough money. Soup only, perhaps."

"And soup takes meat, of course."

"It should, to be strengthening."

Henri looked up, to see Jean in the doorway smiling grimly.

"It is very simple," Jean said to him in French. "You have no otherduties of course; so each day you shall buy in the market place atDunkirk, with American money. And I shall become a delivery boy andbring out food for mademoiselle, and whatever is needed."

Henri smiled back at him cheerfully. "An excellent plan, Jean," he said."Not every day, but frequently."

Jean growled and disappeared.

However, there was the immediate present to think of, and while Jeanthawed his hands at the fire and Sara Lee was taking housewifely stockof her new home, Henri disappeared.

He came back in a half hour, carrying in a small basket butter, eggs,bread and potatoes.

"The miller!" he explained cheerfully to Sara Lee. "He has still a fewhens, and hidden somewhere a cow. We can have milk—is there a pailfor Marie to take to the mill?—and bread and an omelet. That is ameal!"

There was but one lamp, which hung over the kitchen stove. The roomacross from Sara Lee's bedroom contained a small round dining table andchairs. Sara Lee, enveloped in a large pinafore apron, made theomelet in the kitchen. Marie brought a pail of fresh milk. Henri, witha towel over his left arm, and in absurd mimicry of a Parisian waiter,laid the table; and Jean, dour Jean, caught a bit of the infection, andfinding four bottles set to work with his pocketknife to fit candlesinto their necks.

Standing in corners, smiling, useless against the cheerful English thatflowed from the kitchen stove to the dining room and back again, wereRené and Marie. It was of no use to attempt to help. Did the fire burnlow, it was the young officer who went out for fresh wood. But Renécould not permit that twice. He brought in great armfuls of firewoodand piled them neatly by the stove.

Henri was absurdly happy again. He would come to the door gravely, withSara Lee's little phrase book in hand, and read from it in a solemn tone:

"'Shall we have duck or chicken?' 'Where can we get a good dinner at amoderate price?' 'Waiter, you have spilled wine on my dress.' 'Willyou have a cigar?' 'No, thank you. I prefer a pipe.'"

And Sara Lee beat up the eggs and found, after a bad moment, some saltin a box, and then poured her omelet into the pan. She was very anxiousthat it be a good omelet. She must make good her claim as a cook orHenri's sublime faith in her would die.

It was a divine omelet. Even Jean said so. They sat, the three of them,in the cold little dining room and never knew that it was cold, and theyate prodigious quantities of omelet and bread and butter, and bully beefout of a tin, and drank a great deal of milk.

Even Jean thawed at last, under the influence of food and Sara Lee.Before the meal was over he was planning how to get her supplies to herand making notes on a piece of paper as to what she would need at once.They adjourned to Sara Lee's bedroom, where Marie had kindled a fire inthe little iron stove, and sat there in the warmth with two candles,still planning. By that time Sara Lee had quite forgotten that at homeone did not have visitors in one's bedroom.

Suddenly Henri held up his hand.

"Listen!" he said.

That was the first time Sara Lee had ever heard the quiet shuffling stepof tired men, leaving their trenches under cover of darkness. Henrithrew his military cape over her shoulders and she stood in the darkdoorway, watching.

The empty street was no longer empty. From gutter to gutter flowed astream of men, like a sluggish river which narrowed where a fallen housepartly filled the way; not talking, not singing, just moving, bent undertheir heavy and mud-covered equipment. Here and there the clack ofwooden sabots on the cobbles told of one poor fellow not outfitted withleather shoes. The light of a match here and there showed some fewlucky enough to have still remaining cigarettes, and revealed also, inthe immediate vicinity, a white bandage or two. Some few, recognizingHenri's officer's cap, saluted. Most of them stumbled on, too weary toso much as glance aside.

Nothing that Sara Lee had dreamed of war was like this. This was drearyand sodden and hopeless. Those fresh troops at the crossroads that dayhad been blithe and smiling. There had been none of the glitter andpanoply of war, but there had been movement, the beating of a drum, thesharp cries of officers as the lines re-formed.

Here there were no lines. Just such a stream of men as at home mightissue at night from a coal mine, too weary for speech. Only here theywere packed together closely, and they did not speak, and some of themwere wounded.

"There are so many!" she whispered to Henri. "A hundred such efforts asmine would not be enough."

"I would to God there were more!" Henri replied, through shut teeth.

"Listen, mademoiselle," he said later. "You cannot do all the kind workof the world. But you can do your part. And you will start by caring foronly such as are wounded or ill. The others can go on. But every nightsome twenty or thirty, or even more, will come to your door—menslightly wounded or too weary to go on without a rest. And for thosethere will be a chair by the fire, and something hot, or perhaps a cleanbandage. It sounds small? But in a month, think! You will have givencomfort to perhaps a thousand men. You—alone!"

"I—alone!" she said in a queer choking voice. "And what about you?It is you who have made it possible."

But Henri was looking down the street to where the row of poplars hidwhat lay beyond. Far beyond a star shell had risen above the flatfields and floated there, a pure and lovely thing, shedding its whitelight over the terrain below. It gleamed for some thirty seconds andwent out.

"Like that!" Henri said to her, but in French. "Like that you are to me.Bright and shining—and so soon gone."

Sara Lee thought he had asked her if she was cold.

XI

The girl was singularly adaptable. In a few days it was as though shehad been for years in her little ruined house. She was very happy,though there was scarcely a day when her heart was not wrung. Suchyoung-old faces! Such weary men! And such tales of wretchedness!

She got the tales by intuition rather than by words, though she waspicking up some French at that. Marie would weep openly, at times. Themost frequent story was of no news from the country held by the Germans,of families left with nothing and probably starving. The first inquirywas always for news. Had the American lady any way to make inquiry?

In time Sara Lee began to take notes of names and addresses, and throughMr. Travers, in London, and the Relief Commission, in Belgium, bits ofinformation came back. A certain family was in England at a village inSurrey. Of another a child had died. Here was one that could not belocated, and another reported massacred during the invasion.

Later on Sara Lee was to find her little house growing famous, besiegedby anxious soldiers who besought her efforts, so that she used enormousnumbers of stamps and a great deal of effort. But that was later on.And when that time came she turned to the work as a refuge from herthoughts. For days were coming when Sara Lee did not want to think.

But like all big things the little house made a humble beginning. A merehandful of men, daring the gibes of their comrades, stopped in that firstnight the door stood open, with its invitation of firelight and candles.But these few went away with a strange story—of a beautiful American,and hot soup, and even a cigarette apiece. That had been Henri'scontribution, the cigarettes. And soon the fame of the little house wentup and down the trenches, and it was like to die of overpopularity.

It was at night that the little house of mercy bloomed like a flower.During the daytime it was quiet, and it was then, as time went on, thatSara Lee wrote her letters home and to England, and sent her lists ofnames to be investigated. But from the beginning there was much to do.Vegetables were to be prepared for the soup, Marie must find and bringin milk for the chocolate, René must lay aside his rifle and chopfirewood.

One worry, however, disappeared with the days. Henri was proving aclever buyer. The money she sent in secured marvels. Only Jean knew,or ever knew, just how much of Henri's steadily decreasing funds wentto that buying. Certainly not Sara Lee. And Jean expostulated onlyonce—to be met by such blazing fury as set him sullen for two days.

"I am doing this," Henri finished, a trifle ashamed of himself, "not formademoiselle, but for our army. And since when have you felt that thebest we can give is too much for such a purpose?"

Which was, however lofty, only a part of the truth.

So supplies came in plentifully, and Sara Lee pared vegetables and sanga bit under her breath, and glowed with good will when at night the wearyvanguard of a weary little army stopped at her door and scraped the mudoff its boots and edged in shyly.

She was very happy, and her soup was growing famous. It is true thatthe beef she used was not often beef, but she did not know that, andmerely complained that the meat was stringy. Now and then there wasno beef at all, and she used hares instead. On quiet days, when therewas little firing beyond the poplar trees, she went about with a basketthrough the neglected winter gardens of the town. There were Brusselssprouts, and sometimes she found in a cellar carrots or cabbages. Shehad potatoes always.

It was at night then, from seven in the evening until one, that thelittle house was busiest. Word had gone out through the trenches beyondthe poplar trees that slightly wounded men needing rest before walkingback to their billets, exhausted and sick men, were welcome to the littlehouse. It was soon necessary to give the officers tickets for the men.René took them in at the door, with his rifle in the hollow of his arm,and he was as implacable as a ticket taker at the opera.

Never once in all the months of her life there did Sara Lee have an uglyword, an offensive glance. But, though she never knew this, many halfarticulate and wholly earnest prayers were offered for her in thoselittle churches behind the lines where sometimes the men slept, and oftenthey prayed.

She was very businesslike. She sent home to the Ladies' Aid Society aweekly record of what had been done: So many bowls of soup; so manycups of chocolate; so many minor injuries dressed. Because, very soon,she found first aid added to her activities. She sickened somewhat atfirst. Later she allowed to Marie much of the serving of food, and inthe little salle à mangershe had ready on the table basins, water,cotton, iodine and bandages.

Henri explained the method to her.

"It is a matter of cleanliness," he said. "First one washes the woundand then there is the iodine. Then cotton, a bandage, and—a surgeoncould do little more."

Henri and Jean came often. And more than once during the first ten daysJean spent the night rolled in a blanket by the kitchen fire, and Henridisappeared. He was always back in the morning, however, looking dirtyand very tired. Sara Lee sewed more than one rent for him, those days,but she was strangely incurious. It was as though, where everything wasstrange, Henri's erratic comings and goings were but a part with the rest.

Then one night the unexpected happened. The village was shelled.

Sara Lee had received her first letter from Harvey that day. The maidat Morley's had forwarded it to her, and Henri had brought it up.

"I think I have brought you something you wish for very much," he said,looking down at her.

"Mutton?" she inquired anxiously.

"Better than that."

"Sugar?"

"A letter, mademoiselle."

Afterward he could not quite understand the way she had suddenly drawnin her breath. He had no memory, as she had, of Harvey's obstinate angerat her going, his conviction that she was doing a thing criminally wrongand cruel.

"Give it to me, please."

She took it into her room and closed the door. When she came out againshe was composed and quiet, but rather white. Poor Henri! He was halfmad that day with jealousy. Her whiteness he construed as longing.

This is a part of Harvey's letter:

You may think that I have become reconciled, but I have not. If I could see any reason for it I might. But what reason is there? So many others, older and more experienced, could do what you are doing, and more safely.

In your letter from the steamer you tell me not to worry. Good God, Sara Lee, how can I help worrying? I do not even know where you are! If you are in England, well and good. If you are abroad I do not want to know it. I know these foreigners. I run into them every day. And they do not understand American women. I get crazy when I think about it. I have had to let the Leete house go. There is not likely to be such a chance soon again. Business is good, but I don't seem to care much about it any more. Honestly, dear, I think you have treated me very badly. I always feel as though the people I meet are wondering if we have quarreled or what on earth took you away on this wild-goose chase. I don't know myself, so how can I tell them?

I shall always love you, Sara Lee. I guess I'm that sort. But sometimes I wonder if, when we are married, you will leave me again in some such uncalled-for way. I warn you now, dear, that I won't stand for it. I'm suffering too much.

HARVEY.

Sara Lee wore the letter next her heart, but it did not warm her. Shewent through the next few hours in a sort of frozen composure and atenothing at all.

Then came the bombardment.

Henri and Jean, driving out from Dunkirk, had passed on the roadammunition trains, waiting in the road until dark before moving on tothe Front. Henri had given Sara Lee her letter, had watched jealouslyfor its effect on her, and then, his own face white and set, had gone ondown the ruined street.

Here within the walls of a destroyed house he disappeared. The placewas evidently familiar to him, for he moved without hesitation. Brokenfurniture still stood in the roofless rooms, and in front of a batteredbureau Henri paused. Still whistling under his breath, he took off hisuniform and donned a strange one, of greenish gray. In the pocket ofthe blouse he stuffed a soft round cap of the same color. Then, resuminghis cape and Belgian cap, with its tassel over his forehead, he went outinto the street again. He carried in his belt a pistol, but it was notthe one he had brought in with him. As a matter of fact, by the additionof the cap in his pocket, Henri was at that moment in the full uniform ofa lieutenantof a Bavarian infantry regiment, pistol and all.

He went down the street and along the road toward the poplars. He metthe first detachment of men out of the trenches just beyond the trees,and stepped aside into the mud to let them pass, calling a greeting tothem out of the darkness.

"Bonsoir!" they replied, and saluted stiffly. There were few among themwho did not know his voice, and fewer still who did not suspect hisbusiness.

"A brave man," they said among themselves as they went on.

"How long will he last?" asked one young soldier, a boy in his teens.

"One cannot live long who does as he does," replied a gaunt and beardedman. "But it is a fine life while it continues. A fine life!"

The boy stepped out of the shuffling line and looked behind him. Hecould see only the glow of Henri's eternal cigarette. "I should like togo with him," he muttered wistfully.

The ammunition train was in the village now. It kept the center of theroad, lest it should slide into the mud on either side and be mired.The men moved out of its way into the ditch, grumbling.

Henri went whistling softly down the road.

The first shell fell in the neglected square. The second struck therear wagons of the ammunition train. Henri heard the terrific explosionthat followed, and turning ran madly back into the village. More shellsfell into the road. The men scattered like partridges, running for thefields, but the drivers of the ammunition wagons beat their horses andcame lurching and shouting down the road.

There was cold terror in Henri's heart. He ran madly, throwing asidehis cape as he went. More shells fell ahead in the street. Once in thedarkness he fell flat over the body of a horse. There was a steadygroaning from the ditch near by. But he got up and ran on, a strangefigure with his flying hair and his German uniform.

He was all but stabbed by René when he entered the little house.

"Mademoiselle?" Henri gasped, holding René's bayonet away from hisheaving chest.

"I am here," said Sara Lee's voice from the little salle à manger."Let them carry in the wounded. I am getting ready hot water andbandages. There is not much space, for the corner of the room has beenshot away."

She was as dead white in the candlelight, but very calm.

"You cannot stay here," Henri panted. "At any time—"

Another shell fell, followed by the rumble of falling walls.

"Some one must stay," said Sara Lee. "There must be wounded in thestreets. Marie is in the cellar."

Henri pleaded passionately with her to go to the cellar, but she refused.He would have gathered her up in his arms and carried her there, butJean came in, leading a wounded man, and Henri gave up in despair.

All that night they worked, a ghastly business. More than one man diedthat night in the little house, while a blond young man in a Germanuniform gave him a last mouthful of water or took down those pitifullyvague addresses which were all the dying Belgians had to give.

"I have not heard—last at Aarschot, but now—God knows where."

No more shells fell. At dawn, with all done that could be done, SaraLee fainted quietly in the hallway. Henri carried her in and placedher on her bed. A corner of the room was indeed gone. The mantel wasshattered and the little stove. But on the floor lay Harvey's photographuninjured. Henri lifted it and looked at it. Then he placed it on thetable, and very reverently he kissed the palm of Sara Lee's quiet hand.

Daylight found the street pitiful indeed. Henri, whose costume René hadbeen casting wondering glances at all night, sent a request for men fromthe trenches to clear away the bodies of the horses and bury them, andsomewhat later over a single grave in the fields there was a simpleceremony of burial for the men who had fallen. Henri had changed againby that time, but he sternly forbade Sara Lee to attend.

"On pain," he said, "of no more supplies, mademoiselle. These thingsmust be. They are war. But you can do nothing to help, and it willbe very sad."

Ambulances took away the wounded at dawn, and the little house becamequiet once more. With planks René repaired the damage to the corner,and triumphantly produced and set up another stove. He even put up amantelshelf, and on it, smiling somewhat, he placed Harvey's picture.

Sara Lee saw it there, and a tiny seed of resentment took root and grew.

"If there had been no one here last night," she said to the photograph,"many more would have died. How can you say I am cruel to you? Isn'tthis worth the doing?"

But Harvey remained impassive, detached, his eyes on the photographer'swhite muslin screen. And the angle of his jaw was set and dogged.

XII

That morning there was a conference in the little house—Colonel Lilias,who had come in before for a mute but appreciative call on Sara Lee, andfor a cup of chocolate; Captain Tournay, Jean and Henri. It was heldround the little table in the salle à manger, after Marie had broughtcoffee and gone out.

"They had information undoubtedly," said the colonel. "The same thinghappened at Pervyse when an ammunition train went through. They had theplace, and what is more they had the time. Of course there are theairmen."

"It did not leave the main road until too late for observation from theair," Henri put in shortly.

"Yet any one who saw it waiting at the crossroads might have learned itsdestination. The drivers talk sometimes."

"But the word had to be carried across," said Captain Tournay. "That isthe point. My men report flashes of lights from the fields. We havefollowed them up and found no houses, no anything. In this flat countrya small light travels far."

"I shall try to learn to-night," Henri said. "It is, of course,possible that some one from over there—" He shrugged his shoulders.

"I think not." Colonel Lilias put a hand on Henri's shoulderaffectionately. "They have not your finesse, boy. And I doubt if, inall their army, they have so brave a man."

Henri flushed.

"There is a courage under fire, with their fellows round—that is onething. And a courage of attack—that is even more simple. But thebravest man is the one who works alone—the man to whom capture is deathwithout honor."

The meeting broke up. Jean and Henri went away in the car, and thoughsupplies came up regularly Sara Lee did not see the battered gray carfor four days. At the end of that time Henri came alone. Jean, he saidbriefly, was laid up for a little while with a flesh wound in hisshoulder. He would be well very soon. In the meantime here at last wasmutton. It had come from England, and he, Henri, had found it lyingforgotten and lonely and very sad and had brought it along.

After that Henri disappeared on foot. It was midafternoon and a sunnyday. Sara Lee saw him walking briskly across the fields and watched himout of sight. She spoke some French now, and she had gathered from René,who had no scruples about listening at a door, that Henri was the bravestman in the Belgian Army.

Until now Sara Lee had given small thought to Henri's occupation. Sheknew nothing of war, and the fact that Henri, while wearing a uniform,was unattached, had not greatly impressed her. Had she known theconstitution of a modern army she might have wondered over his freedom,his powerful car, his passes and maps. But his detachment had not seemedodd to her. Even his appearance during the bombardment in the uniformof a German lieutenanthad meant nothing to her. She had never seen aGerman uniform.

That evening, however, when he returned she ventured a question. Theydined together, the two of them, for the first time at the little housealone. Always before Jean had made the third. And it was a real meal,for Sara Lee had sacrificed a bit of mutton from her soup, and Henri hadproduced from his pocket a few small and withered oranges.

"A gift!" he said gayly, and piled them in a precarious heap in thecenter of the table. On the exact top he placed a walnut.

"Now speak gently and walk softly," he said. "It is a work of art andnot to be lightly demolished."

He was alternately gay and silent during the meal, and more than onceSara Lee found his eyes on her, with something new and different in them.

"Just you and I together!" he said once. "It is very wonderful."

And again: "When you go back to him, shall you tell him of your goodfriend who has tried hard to serve you?"

"Of course I shall," said Sara Lee. "And he will write you, I know. Hewill be very grateful."

But it was she who was silent after that, because somehow it would behard to make Harvey understand. And as for his being grateful—

"Mademoiselle," said Henri later on, "would you object if I make asuggestion? You wear a very valuable ring. I think it is entirely safe,but—who can tell? And also it is not entirely kind to remind men whoare far from all they love that you—"

Sara Lee flushed and took off her ring.

"I am glad you told me," she said. And Henri did not explain that theBelgian soldiers would not recognize the ring as either a diamond or asymbol, but that to him it was close to torture.

It was when he insisted on carrying out the dishes, singing a littleFrench song as he did so, that Sara Lee decided to speak what was in hermind. He was in high spirits then.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "shall I show you something that the eye of noman has seen before, and that, when we have seen it, shall never be seenagain?"

On her interested consent he called in Marie and René, making a greatceremony of the matter, and sending Marie into hysterical giggling.

"Now see!" he said earnestly. "No eye before has ever seen or will again.Will you guess, mademoiselle? Or you, Marie? René?"

"A tear?" ventured Sara Lee.

"But—do I look like weeping?"

He did not, indeed. He stood, tall and young and smiling before them,and produced from his pocket the walnut.

"Perceive!" he said, breaking it open and showing the kernel. "Has humaneye ever before seen it?" He thrust it into Marie's open mouth. "Andit is gone! Voilà tout!"

It was that evening, while Sara Lee cut bandages and Henri rolled them,that she asked him what his work was. He looked rather surprised, androlled for a moment without replying. Then: "I am a man of all work,"he said. "What you call odd jobs."

"Then you don't do any fighting?"

"In the trenches—no. But now and then I have a little skirmish."

A sort of fear had been formulating itself in Sara Lee's mind. Thetrenches she could understand or was beginning to understand. But thisalternately joyous and silent idler, this soldier of no regiment and nodetail—was he playing a man's part in the war?

"Why don't you go into the trenches?" she asked with her usual directness."You say there are too few men. Yet—I can understand Monsieur Jean,because he has only one eye. But you!"

"I do something," he said, avoiding her eyes. "It is not a great deal.It is the thing I can do best. That is all."

He went away some time after that, leaving the little house full and busyjustifying its existence. The miller's son, who came daily to chat withMarie, was helping in the kitchen. By the warm stove, and only kept fromstanding over it by Marie's sharp orders, were as many men as could getnear. Each held a bowl of hot soup, and—that being a good day—apiece of bread. Tall soldiers and little ones, all dirty, all weary,almost all smiling, they peered over each other's shoulders, to catch,if might be, a glimpse of Marie's face.

When they came too close she poked an elbow into some hulking fellow andsent him back.

"Elbow-room, in the name of God," she would beg.

Over all the room hung the warm steam from the kettles, and a deliciousodor, and peace.

Sara Lee had never heard of the word morale. She would have beenastonished to have been told that she was helping the moraleof anarmy. But she gave each night in that little house of mercy somethingthat nothing else could give—warmth and welcome, but above all a touchof home.

That night Henri did not come back. She stood by her table bandaging,washing small wounds, talking her bits of French, until one o'clock.Then, the last dressing done, she went to the kitchen. Marie was there,with Maurice, the miller's son.

"Has the captain returned?" she asked.

"Not yet, mademoiselle."

"Leave a warm fire," Sara Lee said. "He will probably come in later."

Maurice went away, with a civil good night. Sara Lee stood in thedoorway after he had gone, looking out. Farther along the line therewas a bombardment going on. She knew now what a bombardment meant andher brows contracted. Somewhere there in the trenches men were enduringthat, while Henri—

She said a little additional prayer that night, which was that sheshould have courage to say to him what she felt—that there were bigthings to do, and that it should not all be left to these smiling,ill-clad peasant soldiers.

At that moment Henri, in his gray-green uniform, was cutting wire beforea German trench, one of a party of German soldiers, who could not knowin the darkness that there had been a strange addition to their group.Cutting wire and learning many things which it was well that he shouldknow.

Now and then, in perfect German, he whispered a question. Always hereceived a reply. And stowed it away in his tenacious memory for thoseit most concerned.

At daylight he was asleep by Sara Lee's kitchen fire. And at daylightSara Lee was awakened by much firing, and putting on a dressing gown shewent out to see what was happening. René was in the street lookingtoward the poplar trees.

"An attack," he said briefly.

"You mean—the Germans?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

She went back into the little ruined house, heavy-hearted. She knew nowwhat it meant, an attack. That night there would be ambulances in thestreet, and word would come up that certain men were gone—would neverseek warmth and shelter in her kitchen or beg like children for a secondbowl of soup.

On the kitchen floor by the dying fire Henri lay asleep.

XIII

Much has been said of the work of spies—said and written. Here is awoman in Paris sending forbidden messages on a marked coin. Men aretapped on the shoulder by a civil gentleman in a sack suit, and walkaway with him, never to be seen again.

But of one sort of spy nothing has been written and but little is known.Yet by him are battles won or lost. On the intelligence he bringsattacks are prepared for and counter-attacks launched. It is not alwaysthe airman, in these days of camouflage, who brings word of ammunitiontrains or of new batteries.

In the early days of the war the work of the secret service at the Frontwas of the gravest importance. There were fewer air machines, andobservation from the air was a new science. Also trench systems wereincomplete. Between them, known to a few, were breaks of solid land,guarded from behind. To one who knew, it was possible, though dangerousbeyond words, to cross the inundated country that lay between the BelgianFront and the German lines, and even with good luck to go farther.

Henri, for instance, on that night before had left the advanced trenchat the railway line, had crawled through the Belgian barbed wire, andhad advanced, standing motionless as each star shell burst overhead, andthen moving on quickly. The inundation was his greatest difficulty.Shallow in most places, it was full of hidden wire and crisscrossed withirrigation ditches. Once he stumbled into one, but he got out byswimming. Had he been laden with a rifle and equipment it might havebeen difficult.

He swore to himself as his feet touched ground again. For a star shellwas hanging overhead, and his efforts had sent wide and ever increasinglywidening circles over the placid surface of the lagoon. Let them lap tothe German outposts and he was lost.

Henri's method was peculiar to himself. Where there was dry terrain hedid as did the others, crouched and crept. But here in the salt marshes,where the sea had been called to Belgium's aid, he had evolved a systemof moving, neck deep in water, stopping under the white night lights,advancing in the darkness. There was no shelter. The country was flatas a hearth.

He would crawl out at last in the darkness and lie flat, as the dead lie.And then, inch by inch, he would work his way forward, by routes that heknew. Sometimes he went entirely through the German lines, andreconnoitered on the roads behind. They were shallow lines then, forthe inundation made the country almost untenable, and a charge in forcefrom the Belgians across was unlikely.

Henri knew his country well, as well as he loved it. In a farmhousebehind the German lines he sometimes doffed his wet gray-green uniformand put on the clothing of a Belgian peasant. Trust Henri then for beinga lout, a simple fellow who spoke only Flemish—but could hear in manytongues. Watch him standing at crossroads and marveling at big guns thatrumble by.

At first Henri had wished, having learned of an attack, to be among thosewho repelled it. Then one day his King had sent for him to come to thatlittle village which was now his capital city.

He had been sent in alone and had found the King at the table, writing.Henri bowed and waited. They were not unlike, these two men, only Henriwas younger and lighter, and where the King's eyes were gray Henri's wereblue. Such a queer setting for a king it was—a tawdry summer home,ill-heated and cheaply furnished. But by the presence of Belgium's manof all time it became royal.

So Henri bowed and waited, and soon the King got up and shook hands withhim. As a matter of fact they knew each other rather well, but toexplain more would be to tell that family name of Henri's which mustnever be known.

"Sit down," said the King gravely. And he got a box of cigars from themantelpiece and offered it. "I sent for you because I want to talk toyou. You are doing valuable work."

"I am glad you think it so, sire," said Henri rather unhappily, becausehe felt what was coming. "But I cannot do it all the time. There areintervals—"

An ordinary mortal may not interrupt a king, but a king may interruptanything, except perhaps a German bombardment.

"Intervals, of course. If there were not you would be done in a month."

"But I am a soldier. My place is—"

"Your place is where you are most useful."

Henri was getting nothing out of the cigar. He flung it away and got up.

"I want to fight too," he said stubbornly. "We need every man, and Iam—rather a good shot. I do this other because I can do it. I speaktheir infernal tongue. But it's dirty business at the best, sire." Heremembered to put in the sire, but rather ungraciously. Indeed he shotit out like a bullet.

"Dirty business!" said the King thoughtfully. "I see what you mean. Itis, of course. But—not so dirty as the things they have done, and aredoing."

He sat still and let Henri stamp up and down, because, as has been said,he knew the boy. And he had never been one to insist on deference,which was why he got so much of it. But at last he got up and whenHenri stood still, rather ashamed of himself, he put an arm over theboy's shoulders.

"I want you to do this thing, for me. And this thing only," he said."It is the work you do best. There are others who can fight, but—I donot know any one else who can do as you have done."

Henri promised. He would have promised to go out and drown himself inthe sea, just beyond the wind-swept little garden, for the tall graveman who stood before him. Then he bowed and went out, and the Kingwent back to his plain pine table and his work. That was the reason whySara Lee found him asleep on the floor by her kitchen stove that morning,and went back to her cold bed to lie awake and think. But no explanationcame to her.

The arrival of Marie roused Henri. The worst of the bombardment wasover, but there was far-away desultory firing. He listened carefullybefore, standing outside in the cold, he poured over his head andshoulders a pail of cold water. He was drying himself vigorously whenhe heard Sara Lee's voice in the kitchen.

The day began for Henri when first he saw the girl. It might be evening,but it was the beginning for him. So he went in when he had finishedhis toilet and bowed over her hand.

"You are cold, mademoiselle."

"I think I am nervous. There was an attack this morning."

"Yes?"

Marie had gone into the next room, and Sara Lee raised haggard eyesto his.

"Henri," she said desperately—it was the first time she had called himthat—"I have something to say to you, and it's not very pleasant."

"You are going home?" It was the worst thing he could think of. Butshe shook her head.

"You will think me most ungrateful and unkind."

"You? Kindness itself!"

"But this is different. It is not for myself. It is because I care agreat deal about—about—"

"Mademoiselle!"

"About your honor. And somehow this morning, when I found you hereasleep, and those poor fellows in the trenches fighting—"

Henri stared at her. So that was it! And he could never tell her. Hewas sworn to secrecy by every tradition and instinct of his work. Hecould never tell her, and she would go on thinking him a shirker and acoward. She would be grateful. She would be sweetness itself. Butdeep in her heart she would loathe him, as only women can hate for afailing they never forgive.

"But I have told you," he said rather wildly, "I am not idle. I docertain things—not much, but of a degree of importance."

"You do not fight."

In Sara Lee's defense many things may be urged—her ignorance of modernwarfare; the isolation of her lack of knowledge of the language; but,perhaps more than anything, a certain rigidity of standard thatcomprehended no halfway ground. Right was right and wrong was wrong toher in those days. Men were brave or were cowards. Henri was worthyor unworthy. And she felt that, for all his kindness to her, he wasunworthy.

He could have set himself right with a word, at that. But his pride washurt. He said nothing except, when she asked if he had minded what shesaid, to reply:

"I am sorry you feel as you do. I am not angry."

He went away, however, without breakfast. Sara Lee heard his car goingat its usual breakneck speed up the street, and went to the door. Shewould have called him back if she could, for his eyes haunted her. Buthe did not look back.

XIV

For four days the gray car did not come again. Supplies appeared inanother gray car, driven by a surly Fleming. The waking hours were full,as usual. Sara Lee grew a little thin, and seemed to be alwayslistening. But there was no Henri, and something that was vivid andjoyous seemed to have gone out of the little house.

Even Marie no longer sang as she swept or washed the kettles, and SaraLee, making up the records to send home, put little spirit into theletter that went with them.

On the second day she wrote to Harvey.

"I am sorry that you feel as you do," she wrote, perhaps unconsciously using Henri's last words to her. "I have not meant to be cruel. And if you were here you would realize that whether others could have done what I am doing or not—and of course many could—it is worth doing. I hear that other women are establishing houses like this, but the British and the French will not allow women so near the lines. The men come in at night from the trenches so tired, so hungry and so cold. Some of them are wounded too. I dress the little wounds. I do give them something, Harvey dear—if it is only a reminder that there are homes in the world, and everything is not mud and waiting and killing."

She told him that his picture was on her mantel, but she did not saythat a corner of her room had been blown away or that the mantel wasbut a plank from a destroyed house. And she sent a great deal of love,but she did not say that she no longer wore his ring on her finger.And, of course, she was coming back to him if he still wanted her.

More than Henri's absence was troubling Sara Lee those days. Indeed sheherself laid all her anxiety to one thing, a serious one at that. Withall the marvels of Henri's buying, and Jean's, her money was not holdingout. The scope of the little house had grown with its fame. Now andthen there were unexpected calls, too—Marie's mother, starving inHavre; sickness and death in the little town at the crossroads: a dozensmall emergencies, but adding to the demands on her slender income. Shehad, 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. Hedisclaimed any need for sympathy over his wound, and with René's aidcarried in the supplies.

There was the business of checking them off, and the further businessof Sara Lee's paying for them in gold. She sat at the table, Jeanacross, and struggled with centimes and francs and louis d'or, anengrossed 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 Henrihad brought out to the little house. It was a very serious and ratheranxious young woman who sat across from him and piled up the money hehad brought back into little stacks.

"Jean," she said finally, "I am not going to be able to do it."

"To do what?"

"To continue—here."

"No?"

"You see I had a little money of my own, and twenty pounds I got inLondon. You and—and Henri have done miracles for me. But soon Ishall have used all my own money, except enough to take me back. Andnow I shall have to start on my English notes. After that—"

"You are too good to the men. These cigarettes, now—you could dowithout them."

"But they are very cheap, and they mean so much, Jean."

She sat still, her hands before her on the table. From the kitchen camethe bubbling of the eternal soup. Suddenly a tear rolled slowly downher cheek. She had a hatred of crying in public, but Jean apparentlydid not notice.

"The trouble, mademoiselle, is that you are trying to feed and comforttoo many."

"Jean," she said suddenly, "where is Henri?"

"In England, I think."

The only clear thought in Sara Lee's mind was that Henri was not inFrance, and that he had gone without telling her. She had hurt himhorribly. She knew that. He might never come back to the little houseof mercy. There was, in Henri, for all his joyousness, an implacablestrain. And she had attacked his honor. What possible right had sheto do that?

The memory of all his thoughtful kindness came back, and it was a paleand distracted Sara Lee who looked across the table at Jean.

"Did he tell you anything?"

"Nothing, mademoiselle."

"He is very angry with me, Jean."

"But surely no, mademoiselle. With you? It is impossible."

But though they said nothing more, Jean considered the matter deeply.He understood now, for instance, a certain strangeness in Henri's mannerbefore his departure. They had quarreled, these two. Perhaps it was aswell, though Jean was by now a convert to Sara Lee. But he looked out,those days, on but half a world, did Jean. So he saw only the womanhunger in Henri, and nothing deeper. And in Sara Lee a woman, andnothing more.

And—being Jean he shrugged his shoulders.

They fell to discussing ways and means. The chocolate could be cut out,but not the cigarettes. Sara Lee, arguing vehemently for them andtrying to forget other things, remembered suddenly how Uncle James hadhated cigarettes, and that Harvey himself disapproved of them. SomehowHarvey seemed, those days, to present a constant figure of disapproval.He gave her no moral support.

At Jean's suggestion she added to her report of so many men fed withsoup, so much tobacco, sort not specified, so many small woundsdressed—a request that if possible her allowance be increased. She didit nervously, but when the letter had gone she felt a great relief. Sheenclosed a snapshot of the little house.

Jean, as it happens, had lied about Henri. Not once, but several times.He had told Marie, for instance, that Henri was in England, and lateron he told René. Then, having done his errand, he drove six miles backalong the main road to Dunkirk and picked up Henri, who was sitting onthe bank of a canal watching an ammunition train go by.

Jean backed into a lane and turned the car round. After that Henri gotin and they went rapidly back toward the Front. It was a differentHenri, however, who left the car a mile from the crossroads—a Henri inthe uniform of a French private soldier, one of those odd andimpracticable uniforms of France during the first year, baggy dark bluetrousers, stiff cap, and the long-tailed coat, its skirts turned backand faced. Round his neck he wore a knitted scarf, which covered hischin, and, true to the instinct of the French peasant in a wintercampaign, he wore innumerable undergarments, the red of a jersey showingthrough rents in his coat.

Gone were Henri's long clean lines, his small waist and broad shoulders,the swing of his walk. Instead, he walked with the bent-kneed swing ofthe French infantryman, that tireless but awkward marching step whichrenders the French Army so mobile.

He carried all the impedimenta of a man going into the trenches, anextra jar of water, a flat loaf of bread strapped to his haversack, andan intrenching tool jingling at his belt.

Even Jean smiled as he watched him moving along toward the crowdedcrossroads—smiled and then sighed. For Jean had lost everything inthe war. His wife had died of a German bullet long months before, andwith her had gone a child much prayed for and soon to come. But Henrihad brought back to Jean something to live for—or to die for, as mighthappen.

Henri walked along gayly. He hailed other French soldiers. He joined ahandful and stood talking to them. But he reached the crossroads beforethe ammunition train.

The crossroads was crowded, as usual—many soldiers, at rest, waitingfor the word to fall in, a battery held up by the breaking of a wheel.A temporary forge had been set up, and soldiers in leather aprons wereworking over the fire. A handful of peasants watched, their dull eyesfollowing every gesture. And one of them was a man Henri sought.

Henri sat down on the ground and lighted a cigarette. The ammunitiontrain rolled in and halted, and the man Henri watched turned hisattention to the train. He had been dull and quiet at the forge, butnow he became smiling, a good fellow. He found a man he knew among thedrivers and offered him a cigarette. He also produced and presented anentire box of matches. Matches were very dear, and hardly to be boughtat any price.

Henri watched grimly and hummed a little song:

"Trou la la, çà ne va guère;

Trou la la, çà ne va pas."

Still humming under his breath, when the peasant left the crossroads hefollowed him. Not closely. The peasant cut across the fields. Henrifollowed the road and entered the fields at a different angle. He knewhis way quite well, for he had done the same thing each day for fourdays. Only twice he had been a Belgian peasant, and once he was anofficer, and once he had been a priest.

Four days he had done this thing, but to-day was different. To-day therewould be something worth while, he fancied. And he made a mental notethat Sara Lee must not be in the little house that night.

When he had got to a canal where the pollard willows were already sendingout their tiny red buds, Henri sat down again. The village lay beforehim, desolate and ruined, a travesty of homes. And on a slight rise, butso concealed from him by the willows that only the great wings showed,stood the windmill.

It was the noon respite then, and beyond the line of poplars all was quiet.The enemy liked time for foods and the Belgians crippled by the loss ofthat earlier train, were husbanding their ammunition. Far away a gap inthe poplar trees showed a German observation balloon, a tiny dot againstthe sky.

The man Henri watched went slowly, for he carried a bag of grain on hisback. Henri no longed watched him, He watched the wind wheel. It hadbeen broken, and one plane was now patched with what looked like a redcloth. There was a good wind, but clearly the miller was idle that day.The great wings were not turning.

Henri sat still and smoked. He thought of many things—of Sara Lee'seyes when in the center of the London traffic she had held the dyingdonkey; of her small and radiant figure at the Savoy; of the morning hehad found her at Calais, in the Gare Maritime, quietly unconscious thatshe had done a courageous thing. And he thought, too, of the ring andthe photograph she carried. But mostly he remembered the things she hadsaid to him on their last meeting.

Perhaps there came to him his temptation too. It would be so easy thatnight, if things went well, to make a brave showing before her, to lether see that these odd jobs he did had their value and their risks. Buthe put that from him. The little house of mercy must be empty thatnight, for her sake. He shivered as he remembered the room where sheslept, the corner that was shot away and left open to the street.

So he sat and watched. And at one o'clock the mill wheel began turning.It was easy to count the revolutions by the red wing. Nine times itturned, and stopped. After five minutes or so it turned again, thirtytimes. Henri smiled: an ugly smile.

"A good guess," he said to himself. "But it must be more than a guess."

His work for the afternoon was done. Still with the bent-kneed swing hestruck back to the road, and avoiding the crossroads, went across morefields to a lane where Jean waited with the car. Henri took a plungeinto the canal when he had removed his French uniform, and producing atowel from under a bush rubbed himself dry. His lean boyish bodygleamed, arms and legs brown from much swimming under peaceful summersuns. On his chest he showed two scars, still pink. Shrapnel bites, hecalled them. But he had, it is to be feared, a certain youngsatisfaction in them.

He was in high good humor. The water was icy, and Jean had refused tojoin him.

"My passion for cleanliness," Henri said blithely, "is the result of myEnglish school days. You would have been the better for an Englisheducation, Jean."

"A canal in March!" Jean grunted. "You will end badly."

Henri looked longingly at the water.

"Had I a dry towel," he said, "I would go in again."

Jean looked at him with his one eye.

"You would be prettier without those scars," he observed. But in hisheart he prayed that there might be no others added to them, thatnothing might mar or destroy that bright and youthful body.

"Dépêchez-vous! Vous sommes pressés!" he added.

But Henri was minded to play. He girded himself with the towel andstruck an attitude.

"The Russian ballet, Jean!" he said, and capering madly sent Jeaninto deep grumbles of laughter by his burlesque.

"I must have exercise," Henri said at last when, breathless and withflying hair, he began to dress. "That, too, is my English schooling. Ifyou, Jean—"

"To the devil with your English schooling!" Jean remonstrated.

Henri sobered quickly after that. The exhilaration of his cold plungewas over.

"The American lady?" he asked. "She is all right?"

"She is worried. There is not enough money."

Henri frowned.

"And I have nothing!"

This opened up an old wound with Jean.

"If you would be practical and take pay for what you are doing," he began.

Henri cut him short.

"Pay!" he said. "What is there to pay me with? And what is the use ofreopening the matter? A man may be a spy for love of his country. Godknows there is enough lying and deceit in the business. But to be a spyfor money—never!"

There was a little silence. Then: "Now for mademoiselle," said Henri."She must be out of the village to-night. And that, dear friend, mustbe your affair. She does not like me."

All the life had gone out of his voice.

XV

"But why should I go?" Sara Lee asked. "It is kind of you to ask me,Jean. But I am here to work, not to play."

Long ago Sara Lee had abandoned her idea of Jean as a paid chauffeur.She even surmised, from something Marie had said, that he had been aperson of importance in the Belgium of before the war. So she wasgrateful, but inclined to be obstinate.

"You have been so much alone, mademoiselle—"

"Alone!"

"Cut off from your own kind. And now and then one finds, at the hotelin Dunkirk, some English nurses who are having a holiday. You wouldlike to talk to them perhaps."

"Jean," she said unexpectedly, "why don't you tell me the truth? Youwant me to leave the village to-night. Why?"

"Because, mademoiselle, there will be a bombardment."

"The village itself?"

"We expect it," he answered dryly.

Sara Lee went a little pale.

"But then I shall be needed, as I was before."

"No troops will pass through the town to-night. They will take a roadbeyond the fields."

"How do you know these things?" she asked, wondering. "About the troopsI can understand. But the bombardment."

"There are ways of finding out, mademoiselle," he replied in hisnoncommittal voice. "Now, will you go?"

"May I tell Marie and René?"

"No."

"Then I shall not go. How can you think that I would consider my ownsafety and leave them here?"

Jean had ascertained before speaking that Marie was not in the house.As for René, he sat on the single doorstep and whittled pegs on which tohang his rifle inside the door. And as he carved he sang words of hisown to the tune of Tipperary.

Inside the little salle à mangerJean reassured Sara Lee. It wasimportant—vital—that René and Marie should not know far in advanceof the bombardment. They were loyal, certainly, but these were hisorders. In abundance of time they would be warned to leave the village.

"Who is to warn them?"

"Henri has promised, mademoiselle. And what he promises is done."

"You said this morning that he was in England."

"He has returned."

Sara Lee's heart, which had been going along merely as a matter of dutyall day, suddenly began to beat faster. Her color came up, and then fadedagain. He had returned, and he had not come to the little house. Butthen—what could Henri mean to her, his coming or his going? Was sheto add to her other sins against Harvey the supreme one of beinginterested in Henri?

Not that she said all that, even to herself. There was a wave ofgladness and then a surge of remorse. That is all. But it was a verysober Sara Lee who put on her black suit with the white collar thatafternoon and ordered, by Jean's suggestion, the evening's preparationsas though nothing was to happen.

She looked round her little room before she left it. It might not bethere when she returned. So she placed Harvey's photograph under hermattress for safety, and rather uncomfortably she laid beside it thesmall ivory crucifix that Henri had found in a ruined house and broughtto her. Harvey was not a Catholic. He did not believe in visualizinghis religion. And she had a distinct impression that he considered suchthings as did so as bordering on idolatry.

Sometime after dusk that evening the ammunition train moved out. At apoint a mile or so from the village a dispatch rider on a motor cyclestopped the rumbling lorry at the head of the procession and delivereda message, which the guide read by the light of a sheltered match. Thetrain moved on, but it did not turn down to the village. It went beyondto a place of safety, and there remained for the night.

But before that time Henri, lying close in a field, had seen a skulkingfigure run from the road to the mill, and soon after had seen the millwheel turn once, describing a great arc; and on one of the wings, showingonly toward the poplar trees, was a lighted lantern.

Five minutes later, exactly time enough for the train to have reachedthe village street, German shells began to fall in it. Henri, lyingflat on the ground, swore silently and deeply.

In every land during this war there have been those who would sell theircountry for a price. Sometimes money. Sometimes protection. And of allbetrayals that of the man who sells his own country is the most dastardly.Henri, lying face down, bit the grass beneath him in sheer rage.

One thing he had not counted on, he who foresaw most things. The millerand his son, being what they were, were cowards as well. Doubtless themill had been promised protection. It was too valuable to the Germansto be destroyed. But with the first shot both men left the house by themill and scurried like rabbits for the open fields.

Maurice, poor Marie's lover by now, almost trampled on Henri's prostratebody. And Henri was alone, and his work was to take them alive. Theyhad information he must have—how the modus vivendihad been arranged,through what channels. And under suitable treatment they would tell.

He could not follow them through the fields. He lay still, during afiercer bombardment than the one before, raising his head now and thento see if the little house of mercy still stood. No shells came hisway, but the sky line of the village altered quickly. The standingfragment of the church towers went early. There was much sound offalling masonry. From somewhere behind him a Belgian battery gavetongue, but not for long. And then came silence.

Henri moved then. He crept nearer the mill and nearer. And at last hestood inside and took his bearings. A lamp burned in the kitchen,showing a dirty brick floor and a littered table—such a house as menkeep, untidy and unhomelike. A burnt kettle stood on the hearth, andleaning against the wall was the bag of grain Maurice had carried fromthe crossroads.

"A mill which grinds without grain," Henri said to himself.

There was a boxed-in staircase to the upper floor, and there, with thedoor slightly ajar, he stationed himself, pistol in hand. Now and thenhe glanced uneasily at the clock. Sara Lee must not be back before hehad taken his prisoners to the little house and turned them over tothose who waited there.

There were footsteps outside, and Henri drew the door a little closer.But he was dismayed to find it Marie. She crept in, a white and brokenthing, and looked about her.

"Maurice!" she called.

She sat down for a moment, and then, seeing the disorder about her, setto work to clear the table. It was then that Henri lowered his pistoland opened the door.

"Don't shriek, Marie," he said.

She turned and saw him, and clutched at the table.

"Monsieur!"

"Marie," he said quietly, "go up these stairs and remain quiet. Do notwalk round. And do not come down, no matter what you hear!"

She obeyed him, stumbling somewhat. For she had seen his revolver, andit frightened her. But as she passed him she clutched at his sleeve.

"He is good—Maurice," she said, gasping. "Of the father I know nothing,but Maurice—"

"Go up and be silent!" was all he said.

Now, by all that goes to make a story, Sara Lee should have met Mabel atthe Hôtel des Arcades in Dunkirk, and should have been able to make thatefficient young woman burn with jealousy—Mabel, who from the safety ofher hospital in Boulogne considered Dunkirk the Front.

Indeed Sara Lee, to whom the world was beginning to seem very small, hadhad some such faint hope. But Mabel was not there, and it was not untillong after that they met at all, and then only when the lights had gonedown and Sara Lee was again knitting by the fire.

There were a few nurses there, in their white veils with the red crossover the forehead, and one or two Englishwomen in hats that sat a trifletoo high on the tops of their heads and with long lists before themwhich they checked as they ate. Aviators in leather coats; a few Spahisin cloak and turban, with full-gathered bloomers and high boots; someAmerican ambulance drivers, rather noisy and very young; and manyofficers, in every uniform of the Allied armies—sat at food togetherand for a time forgot their anxieties under the influence of lights, foodand warmth, and red and white wine mixed with water.

When he chose, Jean could be a delightful companion; not with Henri'slift of spirits, but quietly interesting. And that evening he was a newJean to Sara Lee, a man of the world, talking of world affairs. Hefound her apt and intelligent, and for Sara Lee much that had beenclouded cleared up forever that night. Until then she had known onlythe humanities of the war, or its inhumanities. There, over that littletable, she learned something of its politics and its inevitability. Shehad been working in the dark, with her heart only. Now she began tograsp the real significance of it all, of Belgium's anxiety for manyyears, of Germany's cold and cruel preparation, and empty protests offriendship. She learned of the flight of the government from Brussels,the most important state papers being taken away in a hand cart, on topof which, at the last moment, some flustered official had placed a tallsilk hat! She learned of the failure of great fortifications before theinvaders' heavy guns. And he had drawn for her such a picture ofAlbert of Belgium as she was never to forget.

Perhaps Sara Lee's real growth began that night, over that simple dinnerat the Hôtel des Arcades.

"I wish," she said at last, "that Uncle James could have heard all this.He was always so puzzled about it all. And—you make it so clear."

When dinner was over a bit of tension had relaxed in her somewhat. Shehad been too close, for too long. And when a group of Belgian officers,learning who she was, asked to be presented and gravely thanked her, sheflushed with happiness.

"We must see if mademoiselle shall not have a medal," said the only onewho spoke English.

"A medal? For what?"

"For courage," he said, bowing. "Belgium has little to give, but it canat least do honor to a brave lady."

Jean was smiling when they passed on. What a story would this slip of agirl take home with her!

But: "I don't think I want a medal, Jean," she said. "I didn't come forthat. And after all it is you and Henri who have done the thing—not I."

Accustomed to women of a more sophisticated class, Jean had at firsttaken her naïveté for the height of subtlety. He was always expectingher to betray herself. But after that evening with her he changed. Justsuch simplicity had been his wife's. Sometimes Sara Lee reminded him ofher—the upraising of her eyes or an unstudied gesture.

He sighed.

"You are very wonderful, you Americans," he said. It was the nearest toa compliment that he had ever come. And after that evening he was alwaysvery gentle with her. Once he had protected her because Henri had askedhim to do so; now he himself became in his silent way her protector.

The ride home through the dark was very quiet. Sara Lee sat beside himwatching the stars and growing increasingly anxious as they went, nottoo rapidly, toward the little house. There were no lights. Air raidshad grown common in Dunkirk, and there were no street lights in thelittle city. Once on the highway Jean lighted the lamps, but left themvery low, and two miles from the little house he put them out altogether.They traveled by starlight then, following as best they could the talltrees that marked the road. Now and then they went astray at that, andonce they tilted into the ditch and had hard pulling to get out.

At the top of the street Jean stopped and went on foot a little way down.He came back, with the report that new shells had made the way impassable;and again Sara Lee shivered. If the little house was gone!

But it was there, and lighted too. Through its broken shutters came theyellow glow of the oil lamp that now hung over the table in the salle àmanger.

Whatever Jean's anxieties had been fell from him as he pushed open thedoor. Henri's voice was the first thing they heard. He was too muchoccupied to notice their approach.

So it was that Sara Lee saw, for the last time, the miller and his son,Maurice; saw them, but did not know them, for over their heads were bagsof their own sacking, with eyeholes roughly cut in them. Their handswere bound, and three soldiers were waiting to take them away.

"I have covered your heads," Henri was saying in French, "because it isnot well that our brave Belgians should know that they have been betrayedby those of their own number."

It was a cold and terrible Henri who spoke.

"Take them away," he said to the waiting men.

A few moments later he turned from the door and heard Sara Lee sobbingin her room. He tapped, and on receiving no reply he went in. The roomwas unharmed, and by the light of a candle he saw the girl, face down onthe bed. He spoke to her, but she only lay crouched deeper, hershoulders shaking.

"It is war, mademoiselle," he said, and went closer. Then suddenly allthe hurt of the past days, all the bitterness of the last hour, werelost in an overwhelming burst of tenderness.

He bent over her and put his arms round her.

"That I should have hurt you so!" he said softly. "I, who would die foryou, mademoiselle. I who worship you." He buried his face in the warmhollow of her neck and held her close. He was trembling. "I love you,"he whispered. "I love you."

She quieted under his touch. He was very strong, and there was refugein his arms. For a moment she lay still, happier than she had been forweeks. It was Henri who was shaken now and the girl who was still.

But very soon came the thing that, after all, he expected. She drewherself away from him, and Henri, sensitive to every gesture, stood back.

"Who are they?" was the first thing she said. It rather stabbed him.He had just told her that he loved her, and never before in his carelessyoung life had he said that to any woman.

"Spies," he said briefly.

A flushed and tearful Sara Lee stood up then and looked up at him gravely.

"Then—that is what you do?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

Quite suddenly she went to him and held up her face.

"Please kiss me, Henri," she said very simply. "I have been cruel andstupid, and—"

But he had her in his arms then, and he drew her close as though hewould never let her go. He was one great burst of joy, poor Henri. Butwhen she gently freed herself at last it was to deliver what seemed fora time his death wound.

"You have paid me a great tribute," she said, still simply and gravely."I wanted you to kiss me, because of what you said. But that will haveto be all, Henri dear."

"All?" he said blankly.

"You haven't forgotten, have you? I—I am engaged to somebody else."

Henri stood still, swaying a little.

"And you love him? More than you care for me?"

"He is—he is my kind," said Sara Lee rather pitifully. "I am not whatyou think me. You see me here, doing what you think is good work, andyou are grateful. And you don't see any other women. So I—"

"And you think I love you because I see no one else?" he demanded, stillrather stunned.

"Isn't that part of it?"

He flung out his hands as though he despaired of making her understand.

"This man at home—" he said bitterly; "this man who loves you so wellthat he let you cross the sea and come here alone—do you love him verydearly?"

"I am promised to him."

All at once Sara Lee saw the little parlor at home, and Harvey, gentle,rather stolid and dependable. Oh, very dependable. She saw him as hehad looked the night he had said he loved her, rather wistful and very,very tender. She could not hurt him so. She had said she was goingback to him, and she must go.

"I love him very much, Henri."

Very quietly, considering the hell that was raging in him, Henri bentover and kissed her hand. Then he turned it over, and for an instanthe held his cheek against its warmth. He went out at once, and SaraLee heard the door slam.

XVI

Time passed quickly, as always it does when there is work to do. Roundthe ruined houses the gray grass turned green again, and in travestiesof gardens early spring flowers began to show a touch of color.

The first of them greeted Sara Lee one morning as she stood on herdoorstep in the early sun. She gathered them and placed them, one oneach grave, in the cemetery near the poplar trees, where small woodencrosses, sometimes surmounted by a cap, marked many graves.

Marie, a silent subdued Marie, worked steadily in the little house. Shedid not weep, but now and then Sara Lee found her stirring something onthe stove and looking toward the quiet mill in the fields. And onceSara Lee, surprising that look on her face, put her arms about the girland held her for a moment. But she did not say anything. There wasnothing to say.

With the opening up of the spring came increased movement and activityamong the troops. The beach and the sand dunes round La Panne werefilled with drilling men, Belgium's new army. Veterans of the winter,at rest behind the lines, sat in the sun and pared potatoes for themidday meal. Convalescents from the hospital appeared in motleygarments from the Ambulance Ocean and walked along the water front,where the sea, no longer gray and sullen, rolled up in thin white linesof foam to their very feet. Winter straw came out of wooden sabots.Winter-bitten hands turned soft. Canal boats blossomed out with greatwashings. And the sentry at the gun emplacement in the sand up thebeach gave over gathering sticks for his fire, and lay, when no one wasabout, in a hollow in the dune, face to the sky.

So spring came to that small fragment of Belgium which had been saved,spring and hope. Soon now the great and powerful Allies would drive outthe Huns, and all would be as it had been. Splendid rumors were about.The Germans were already yielding at La Bassée. There was to be a greatdrive along the entire Front, and hopefully one would return home intime for the spring planting.

A sort of informal council took place occasionally in the little house.Maps replaced the dressings on the table in the salle à manger, andjunior officers, armed with Sara Lee's box of pins, thrust back theenemy at various points and proved conclusively that his position wasuntenable. They celebrated these paper victories with Sara Lee's tea,and went away the better for an hour or so of hope and tea and a girl'ssoft voice and quiet eyes.

Now and then there was one, of course, who lagged behind his fellows,with a yearning tenderness in his face that a glance from the girl wouldhave quickly turned to love. But Sara Lee had no coquetry. When, asoccasionally happened, there was a bit too much fervor when her hand waskissed, she laid it where it belonged—to loneliness and the spring—andbecame extremely maternal and very, very kind. Which—both of them—aredeath blows to young love.

The winter floods were receding. Along the Yser Canal mud-caked flatsbegan to appear, with here and there rusty tangles of barbed wire. Andwith the lessening of the flood came new activities to the little house.The spring drive was coming.

There was spring indeed, everywhere but in Henri's heart.

Day after day messages were left with Sara Lee by men inuniform—sometimes letters, sometimes a word. And these she faithfullycared for until such time as Jean came for them. Now and then it wasHenri who came, but when he stayed in the village he made hisheadquarters at the house of the mill. There, with sacking over thewindows, he wrote his reports by lamplight, reports which Jean carriedback to the villa in the fishing village by the sea.

However, though he no longer came and went as before, Henri made frequentcalls at the house of mercy. But now he came in the evenings, when theplace was full of men. Sara Lee was doing more dressings than before.The semi-armistice of winter was over, and there were nights when a rowof wounded men lay on the floor in the little salle à mangerand waited,in a sort of dreadful quiet, to be taken away.

Rumors came of hard fighting farther along the line, and sometimes, onnights when the clouds hung low, the flashes of the guns at Ypres lookedlike incessant lightning. From the sand dunes at Nieuport and Dixmudethere was firing also, and the air seemed sometimes to be full ofscouting planes.

The Canadians were moving toward the Front at Neuve Chapelle at thattime. And one day a lorry, piled high with boxes, rolled and thumpeddown the street, and halted by René.

"Rather think we are lost," explained the driver, grinning sheepishlyat René.

There were four boys in khaki on the truck, and not a word of Frenchamong them. Sara Lee, who rolled her own bandages now, heard thespeech and came out.

"Good gracious!" she said, and gave an alarmed glance at the sky. Butit was the noon hour, when every good German abandons war for food, andthe sky was empty.

The boys cheered perceptibly. Here was at last some one who spoke aChristian tongue.

"Must have taken the wrong turning, miss," said one of them, saluting.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked. "You are very close to the BelgianFront here. It is not at all safe."

They all saluted; then, staring at her curiously, told her.

"Dear me!" said Sara Lee. "You are a long way off. And a long wayfrom home too."

They smiled. They looked, with their clean-shaven faces, absurdly youngafter the bearded Belgian soldiers.

"I am an American, too," said Sara Lee with just a touch of homesicknessin her voice. She had been feeling lonely lately. "If you have time tocome in I could give you luncheon. René can tell us if any German airmachines come over."

Would they come in? Indeed, yes! They crawled down off the lorry, andtook off their caps, and ate every particle of food in the house. And,though they were mutely curious at first, soon they were asking questions.How long had she been there? What did she do? Wasn't it dangerous?

"Not so dangerous as it looks," said Sara Lee, smiling. "The Germansseldom bother the town now. It is not worth while."

Later on they went over the house. They climbed the broken staircaseand stared toward the break in the poplar trees, from the roofless floorabove.

"Some girl!" one of them said in an undertone.

The others were gazing intently toward the Front. Never before had theybeen so close. Never had they seen a ruined town. War, until now, hadbeen a thing of Valcartier, of a long voyage, of much drill in the mudat Salisbury Plain. Now here they saw, at their feet, what war could do.

"Damn them!" said one of the boys suddenly. "Fellows, we'll get back atthem soon."

So they went away, a trifle silent and very grateful. But before theyleft they had a glimpse of Sara Lee's room, with the corner gone, andHarvey's picture on the mantel.

"Some girl!" they repeated as they drove up the street. It was thetribute of inarticulate youth.

Sara Lee went back to her bandages and her thoughts. She had not a greatdeal of time to think, what with the officers stopping in to fight theirpaper-and-pin battles, and with letters to write and dressings to makeand supplies to order. She began to have many visitors—officers fromthe French lines, correspondents on tours of the Front, and once even anEnglish cabinet member, who took six precious lumps of sugar in his teaand dug a piece of shell out of the wall with his pocketknife as asouvenir.

Once a British aviator brought his machine down in the field by the mill,and walked over with the stiff stride of a man who has been for hours inthe air. She gave him tea and bread and butter, and she learned then ofthe big fighting that was to come.

When she was alone she thought about Henri. Generally her thoughts weretender; always they were grateful. But she was greatly puzzled. He hadsaid that he loved her. Then, if he loved her, why should he not begentle and kind to her? Men did not hurt the women they loved. Andbecause she was hurt, she was rather less than just. He had not askedher to marry him. He had said that he loved her, but that was different.And the insidious poison of Harvey's letter about foreigners began tohave its effect.

The truth was that she was tired. The strain was telling on her. Andat a time when she needed every moral support Henri had drawn off behinda wall of misery, and all her efforts at a renewal of their oldfriendship only brought up against a sort of stony despair.

There were times, too, when she grew a little frightened. She was soalone. What if Henri went away altogether? What if he took away thelittle car, and his protection, and the supplies that came so regularly?It was not a selfish fear. It was for her work that she trembled.

For the first time she realized her complete dependence on his goodwill. And now and then she felt that it would be good to see Harveyagain, and be safe from all worry, and not have to depend on a man wholoved her as Henri did. For that she never doubted. Inexperienced asshe was in such matters, she knew that the boy loved her. Just howwildly she did not know until later, too late to undo what the madnesshad done.

Then one day a strange thing happened. It had been raining, and when inthe late afternoon the sun came out it gleamed in the puddles that filledthe shell holes in the road and set to a red blaze the windows of thehouse of the mill.

First, soaring overhead, came a half dozen friendly planes. Next, theeyes of the enemy having thus been blinded, so to speak, there came aregiment of fresh troops, swinging down the street for all the world asthough the German Army was safely drinking beer in Munich. They passedRené, standing open-mouthed in the doorway, and one wag of a Belgian boy,out of sheer joy of spring, did the goose step as he passed the littlesentry and, head screwed round in the German salute, crossed his eyesover his impudent nose.

Came, then, the planes. Came the regiment, which turned off into a fieldand there spread itself, like a snake uncoiling, into a double line.Came a machine, gray and battered, containing officers. Came a generalwith gold braid on his shoulder, and a pleasant smile. Came the strangeevent.

The general found Sara Lee in the salle à mangercutting cotton intothree-inch squares, and he stood in the doorway and bowed profoundly.

"Mademoiselle Kennedy?" he inquired.

Sara Lee replied to that, and then gave a quick thought to her larder.Because generals usually meant tea. But this time at last, Sara Lee wasto receive something, not to give. She turned very white when she wastold, and said she had not deserved it; she was indeed on the verge ofdeclining, not knowing that there are certain things one does notdecline. But Marie brought her hat and jacket—a smiling, tremulousMarie—and Sara Lee put them on.

The general was very tall. In her short skirt and with flying hair shelooked like a child beside him as they walked across the fields.Suddenly Sara Lee was terribly afraid she was going to cry.

The troops stood rigidly at attention. And a cold wind flapped SaraLee's skirts, and the guns hammered at Ypres, and the general blew onhis fingers. And soon a low open car came down the street and theKing got out. Sara Lee watched him coming—his tall, slightly stoopedfigure, his fair hair, his plain blue uniform. Sara Lee had never seena king before, and she had always thought of them as sitting up on asort of platform—never as trudging through spring mud.

"What shall I do?" she asked nervously.

"He will shake hands, mademoiselle. Bow as he approaches. That is all."

The amazing interlude, indeed! With Sara Lee being decorated by theKing, and troops drawn up to do her honor, and over all the rumbling ofthe great guns. A palpitating and dazed Sara Lee, when the decorationwas fastened to her black jacket, a Sara Lee whose hat blew off atexactly the worst moment and rolled, end on, like a hoop, into a puddle.

But, oddly, she did not mind about the hat. She had only one consciousthought just then. She hoped that, wherever Uncle James might be in thatworld of the gone before, he might know what was happening to her—oreven see it. He would have liked it. He had believed in the Belgians andin the King. And now—the King did not go at once. He went back to thelittle house and went through it. And he and one of his generals climbedto the upper floor, and the King stood looking out silently toward theland he loved and which for a time was no longer his.

He came down after a time, stooping his tall figure in the low doorway,and said he would like some tea. So Marie put the kettle on, and SaraLee and the King talked. It was all rather dazing. Every now and thenshe forgot certain instructions whispered her by the general, and aftera time the King said: "Why do you do that, mademoiselle?"

For Sara Lee, with an intent face and moving lips, had been steppingbackward.

Sara Lee flushed to the eyes.

"Because, sire, I was told to remain at a distance of six feet."

"But we are being informal," said the King, smiling. "And it is a verylittle room."

Sara Lee, who had been taught in the schoolroom that kings are usurpersof the divine rights of the people—Sara Lee lost just a bit of herstaunch democracy that day. She saw the King of the Belgians for whathe really was, a ruler, but a symbol as well. He represented hiscountry, as the Flag she loved represented hers. The flag was America,the King was Belgium. That was all.

It was a very humble and flushed Sara Lee who watched the gray car goflying up the street later on. She went in and told the whole story toHarvey's picture, but it was difficult to feel that he was hearing. Hiseyes were turned away and his face was set and stern. And, at last, shegave it up. This thing which meant so much to her would never meananything to Harvey. She knew, even then, what he would say.

"Decorate you! I should think they might. Medals are cheap. Everybodyover there is getting medals. You feed their men and risk your life andyour reputation, and they give you a thing to pin on. It's cheap at theprice."

And later on those were Harvey's very words. But to be fair to him theywere but the sloughing of a wound that would not heal.

That evening Henri came again. He was, for the first time, his gay selfagain—at least on the surface. It was as though, knowing what he wasgoing into, he would leave with Sara Lee no feeling, if he neverreturned, that she had inflicted a lasting hurt. He was everywhere inthe little house, elbowing his way among the men with his cheerynonsense, bantering the weary ones until they smiled, carrying hot waterfor Sara Lee and helping her now and then with a bad dressing.

"If you would do it in this fashion, mademoiselle," he would say, "withone turn of the bandage over the elbow—"

"But it won't hold that way."

"You say that to me, mademoiselle? I who have taught you all you knowof bandaging?"

They would wrangle a bit, and end by doing it in Sara Lee's way.

He had a fund of nonsense that he drew on, too, when a dressing waspainful. It would run like this, to an early accompaniment of groans:

"Pierre, what can you put in your left hand that you cannot place in theright? Stop grunting like a pig, and think, man!"

Pierre would give a final rumble and begin to think deeply.

"I cannot think. I—in my left hand, monsieur le capitaine?"

"In your left hand."

The little crowd in the dressing room would draw in close about the tableto listen.

"I do not know, monsieur."

"Idiot!" Henri would say. "Your right elbow, man!"

And the dressing was done.

He had an inexhaustible stock of such riddles, almost never guessed. Hewould tell the answer and then laugh delightedly. And pain seemed toleave the little room when he entered it.

It was that night that Henri disappeared.

XVII

There was a question to settle, and it was for Henri to do it. Twoquestions indeed. One was a matter of engineering, and before the bottomfell out of his world Henri had studied engineering. The second wasmore serious.

For the first, this thing had happened. Of all the trenches to be held,the Belgians had undeniably the worst. Properly speaking they were nottrenches at all, but shallow gutters dug a foot or two into the saturatedground and then built man-high with bags of earth or sand. Here andthere they were not dug at all, but were purely shelters, against arailway embankment, of planks or sandbags, and reinforced by rails fromthe deserted track behind which they were hidden.

For this corner of Belgium had been saved by turning it into a shallowlake. By opening the gates in the dikes the Allies had let in the seaand placed a flood in front of the advancing enemy. The battle frontwas a reeking pond. The opposing armies lived like duck hunters in aswamp. To dig a foot was to encounter water. Machine guns here andthere sat but six inches above the yellow flood. Men lay in pools tofire them. To reach outposts were narrow paths built first of bags ofearth—a life, sometimes for every bag. And, when this filling wassufficient, on top a path of fascines, bound together in bundles, madea footway.

For this reason the Belgians approached their trenches not through deepcuts which gave them shelter but with no other cover than the darknessof night. During the day, they lay in their shallow dugouts, cut offfrom any connection with the world behind them. Food, cooked miles away,came up at night, cold and unappetizing. For water, having exhaustedtheir canteens, there was nothing but the brackish tide before them,ill-smelling and reeking of fever. Water carts trundled forward atnight, but often they were far too few.

The Belgians, having faced their future through long years of anxiety,had been trained to fight. In a way they had been trained to fight alosing war, for they could not hope to defeat their greedy neighbor onthe east. But now they found themselves fighting almost not at all,condemned to inactivity, to being almost passively slaughtered by enemyartillery, and to living under such conditions as would have sapped thecourage of a less desperate people.

To add to the difficulties, not only did the sea encroach, turning afertile land into a salt marsh, but the winter rains, unusually heavythat tragic first winter, and lacking their usual egress to the sea,spread the flood. There were many places well back of the lines wherefields were flooded, and where roads, sadly needed, lost themselves inunfordable wallows of mud and water.

Henri then, knowing all this—none better—had his first question tosettle, which was this: As spring advanced the flood had commenced torecede. Time came when, in those trenches now huddled shallow behindthe railway track, one could live in a certain comfort. In the deeperones, the bottom of the trench appeared for the first time.

On a day previous, however, the water had commenced to come back. Therehad been no rain, but little by little in a certain place yellow,ill-smelling little streams began to flow sluggishly into the trenches.Seeped, rather than flowed. At first the Belgian officers laid it tothat bad luck that had so persistently pursued them. Then they held aconference in the small brick house with its maps and its pine tablesand its picture of an American harvester on the wall, which was nowheadquarters.

Sitting under the hanging lamp, with an orderly making coffee at a stovein the corner, they talked it over. Henri was there, silent before hiselders, but intently listening. And at last they turned to him.

"I can go and find out," he said quietly. "It is possible, though I donot see how." He smiled. "They are, I think, only drying themselves atour expense. It is a bit of German humor."

But the cry of "Calais in a month!" was in the air, and undoubtedly therehad been renewed activity along the German Front near the sea. Thesecond question to be answered was dependent on the first.

Had the Germans, as Henri said, merely shifted the water, by some cleverengineering, to the Belgian trenches, or was there some bigger thing onhand? What, for instance, if they were about to attempt to drain theinundation, smash the Belgian line, and march by the Dunkirk road toCalais?

So, that night while Henri jested about Pierre's right elbow and watchedSara Lee for a smile, he had difficult work before him.

Sometime near midnight he slipped away. Jean was waiting in the street,and wrung the boy's hand.

"I could go with you," he said rather wistfully.

"You don't speak their ugly tongue."

"I could be mute—shell shock. You could be helping me back."

But Henri only held his hand a moment and shook his head.

"You would double the risk, and—what good would it do?"

"Two pistols are better than one."

"I have two pistols, my friend," said Henri, and turned the corner ofthe building, past the boards René had built in, toward the house ofthe mill. But once out of Jean's sight he stopped a moment, his handresting against that frail wall to Sara Lee's room. It was his good-byto her.

For three days Jean stayed in the village. He slept at the mill, buthe came for his meals to the little house. Once he went to Dunkirk andbrought out provisions and the mail, including Sara Lee's monthlyallowance. But mostly he sat in the mill house and waited. He couldnot read.

"You do not eat at all, Jean," Sara Lee said to him more than once. Andtwice she insisted that he was feverish, and placed a hand that wassomewhat marred with much peeling of vegetables, on his forehead.

"I am entirely well, mademoiselle," he would say, and draw back. He hadanxieties enough just now without being reminded by the touch of awoman's hand of all that he had lost.

Long before that Sara Lee had learned not to question Jean about Henri'sabsences. Even his knowledge, now, that she knew something of Henri'swork, did not remove the barrier. So Sara Lee waited, as did Jean, butmore helplessly. She knew something was wrong, but she had not Jean'sprivilege of going at night to the trenches and there waiting, staringover the gray water with its ugly floating shadows, for Henri to emergefrom the flood.

Something rather forced and mechanical there was those days in her work.Her smile was rather set. She did not sleep well. And one night sheviolated Henri's orders and walked across the softened fields to beyondthe poplar trees.

There was nothing to see except an intermittent flash from the cloudsthat hung low over the sea at Nieuport, where British gunboats werebombarding the coast; or the steady streaks from the Ypres salient, wherenight and day the guns never rested.

From the Belgian trenches, fifteen hundred feet or so away, there was nosound. A German electric signal blazed its message in code, and went outquickly. Now and then a rifle shot, thin and sharp, rang out from where,under the floating starlights, keen eyes on each side watched formovements on the other.

Sara Lee sat down under a tree and watched for a while. Then she foundherself crying softly. It was all so sad, and useless, and cruel. Andsomewhere there ahead was Henri, Henri with his blue eyes, his smile,the ardor of his young arms—Henri, who had been to her many friends.

Sara Lee had never deceived herself about Henri. She loved him. Butshe was quite certain she was not in love with him, which is entirelydifferent. She knew that this last was impossible, because she wasengaged to Harvey. What was probably the truth was that she loved themboth in entirely different ways. Men have always insisted on suchpossibilities, and have even asserted their right, now and then, tolove two women at the same time. But women are less frank withthemselves.

And, in such cases, there is no grand passion. There are tenderness,and the joy of companionship, and sometimes a touching dependence. Butit is not a love that burns with a white fire.

Perhaps Sara Lee was one of those women who are always loved more thanthey love. There are such women, not selfish, not seeking love, butsoftly feminine, kind, appealing and genuine. Men need, after all, butan altar on which to lay tribute. And the high, remote white altar thatwas Sara Lee had already received the love of two strong men.

She was not troubling her head that night, however, about being an altar,of a sort. She cried a little at first, because she was terrified forHenri and because Jean's face was growing pinched and gray. Then shecried very hard, prone on the ground and face down, because Henri wasyoung, and all of life should have been before him. And he was missing.

Henri was undeniably missing. Even the King knew it now, and set downin his heart, among the other crosses there, Henri's full name, whichwe may not know, and took to pacing his little study and looking out atthe spring sea.

That night Marie, having ladled to the bottom of her kettle, found SaraLee missing, and was told by René of the direction she had taken. Marie,muttering to herself, set out to find her, and almost stumbled over herin the wood by the road.

She sat down on the ground without a word and placed a clumsy hand onthe girl's shoulder. It was not until Sara Lee ceased sobbing thatshe spoke:

"It is far from hopeless, mademoiselle."

They had by now established a system of communication. Sara Lee spokeher orders in halting French, but general conversation was beyond her.And much hearing of English had taught the Belgian girl enough to follow.

Sara Lee replied, then, in smothered English:

"He is gone, Marie. He will never come back."

"Who can tell? There are many missing who are not dead."

Sara Lee shuddered. For spies were not made prisoners. They had norights as prisoners of war. Their own governments did not protect them.To Henri capture was death. But she could not say this to Marie.

Marie sat softly stroking Sara Lee's hair, her own eyes tragic andtearless.

"Even if it were—the other," she said, "it is not so bad to die forone's country. The thing that is terrible, that leaves behind it onlybitterness and grief and no hope, mademoiselle, even with many prayers,is that one has died a traitor."

She coaxed Sara Lee back at last. They went through the fields, forfresh troops were being thrown into the Belgian trenches and the streetwas full of men. Great dray horses were dragging forward batteries, theheavy guns sliding and slipping In the absence of such information asonly Henri had been wont to bring it was best to provide for the worst.

The next day Jean did not come over for breakfast, and René handed SaraLee a note.

"I am going to England," Jean had written that dawn in the house of themill. "And from there to Holland. I can get past the barrier and shallwork down toward the Front. I must learn what has happened, mademoiselle.As you know, if he was captured, there is no hope. But there is anexcellent chance that he is in hiding, unable to get back. Look for mein two weeks."

There followed what instructions he had given as to her supplies, whichwould come as before. Beautifully written in Jean's small fine hand, itspelled for Sara Lee the last hope. She read Jean's desperation throughits forced cheerfulness. And she faced for the first time a long periodof loneliness in the crowded little house.

She tried very hard to fill the gap that Henri had left—tried to jokewith the men in her queer bits of French; was more smiling than ever,for fear she might be less. But now and then in cautious whispers sheheard Henri's name, and her heart contracted with very terror.

A week. Two weeks. Twice the village was bombarded severely, but thelittle house escaped by a miracle. Marie considered it the same miraclethat left holy pictures unhurt on the walls of destroyed houses, andallowed the frailest of old ebony and rosewood crucifixes to remainunharmed.

Great generals, often as tall as they were great, stopped at the littlehouse to implore Sara Lee to leave. But she only shook her head.

"Not unless you send me away," she always said; "and that would breakmy heart."

"But to move, mademoiselle, only to the next village!" they wouldremonstrate, and as a final argument: "You are too valuable to risk aninjury."

"I must remain here," she said. And some of them thought theyunderstood. When an unusually obdurate officer came along, Sara Leewould insist on taking him to the cellar.

"You see!" she would say, holding her candle high. "It is a nice cellar,warm and dry. It is"—proudly—"one of the best cellars in the village.It is a really homelike cellar."

The officer would go away then, and send her cigarettes for her men or,as in more than one case, a squad with bags of earth and other thingsto protect the little house as much as possible. After a time the littlehouse began to represent the ideas in protection and camouflage, then inits early stages, of many different minds.

René shot a man there one night, a skulking figure working its way inthe shadows up the street. It was just before dawn, and René, who wassleepless those days, like the others, called to him. The man startedto run, dodging behind walls. But René ran faster and killed him.

He was a German in Belgian peasant's clothing. But he wore the greatshoes of the German soldier, and he had been making a rough map of theBelgian trenches.

Sara Lee did not see him. But when she heard the shot she went out, andRené told her breathlessly.

From that time on her terrors took the definite form of Henri lying deadin a ruined street, and being buried, as this man was buried, withoutceremony and without a prayer, in some sodden spring field.

XVIII

As the spring advanced Harvey grew increasingly bitter; grew morbidand increasingly self-conscious also. He began to think that people weresmiling behind his back, and when they asked about Sara Lee he met withalmost insulting brevity what he felt was half-contemptuous kindness.He went nowhere, and worked all day and until late in the night. He didwell in his business, however, and late in March he received asubstantial raise in salary. He took it without enthusiasm, and toldBelle that night at dinner with apathy.

After the evening meal it was now his custom to go to his room and there,shut in, to read. He read no books on the war, and even the quartercolumn entitled Salient Points of the Day's War News hardly received aglance from him now.

In the office when the talk turned to the war, as it did almost hourly,he would go out or scowl over his letters.

"Harvey's hit hard," they said there.

"He's acting like a rotten cub," was likely to be the next sentence.But sometimes it was: "Well, what'd you expect? Everything ready to getmarried, and the girl beating it for France without notice! I'd be soremyself."

On the day of the raise in salary his sister got the children to bed andstraightened up the litter of small garments that seemed always tobestrew the house, even to the lower floor. Then she went into Harvey'sroom. Coat and collar off, he was lying on the bed, but not reading.His book lay beside him, and with his arms under his head he was staringat the ceiling.

She did not sit down beside him on the bed. They were an undemonstrativefamily, and such endearments as Belle used were lavished on her children.But her eyes were kind, and a little nervous.

"Do you mind talking a little, Harvey?"

"I don't feel like talking much. I'm tired, I guess. But go on. Whatis it? Bills?"

She came to him in her constant financial anxieties, and always he wasready to help her out. But his tone now was gruff. A slight flush ofresentment colored her cheeks.

"Not this time, Harve. I was just thinking about things."

"Sit down."

She sat on the straight chair beside the bed, the chair on which, inneat order, Harvey placed his clothing at night, his shoes beneath, hiscoat over the back.

"I wish you'd go out more, Harvey."

"Why? Go out and talk to a lot of driveling fools who don't care for meany more than I do for them?"

"That's not like you, Harve."

"Sorry." His tone softened. "I don't care much about going round,Belle. That's all. I guess you know why."

"So does everybody else."

He sat up and looked at her.

"Well, suppose they do? I can't help that, can I? When a fellow hasbeen jilted—"

"You haven't been jilted."

He lay down again, his arms under his head; and Belle knew that his eyeswere on Sara Lee's picture on his dresser.

"It amounts to the same thing."

"Harvey," Belle said hesitatingly, "I've brought Sara Lee's report fromthe Ladies' Aid. May I read it to you?"

"I don't want to hear it." Then: "Give it here. I'll look at it."

He read it carefully, his hands rather unsteady. So many men given soup,so many given chocolate. So many dressings done. And at the bottomSara Lee's request for more money—an apologetic, rather breathlessrequest, and closing, rather primly with this:

"I am sure that the society will feel, from the above report, that thework is worth while, and worth continuing. I am only sorry that Icannot send photographs of the men who come for aid, but as they comeat night it is impossible. I enclose, however, a small picture of thehouse, which is now known as the little house of mercy."

"At night!" said Harvey. "So she's there alone with a lot of ignorantforeigners at night. Why the devil don't they come in the daytime?"

"Here's the picture, Harvey."

He got up then, and carried the tiny photograph over close to the gasjet. There he stood for a long time, gazing at it. There was Renéwith his rifle and his smile. There was Marie in her white apron. Andin the center, the wind blowing her soft hair, was Sara Lee.

Harvey groaned and Belle came over and putting her hand on his shoulderlooked at the photograph with him.

"Do you know what I think, Harvey?" she said. "I think Sara Lee is rightand you are wrong."

He turned on her almost savagely.

"That's not the point!" he snapped out. "I don't begrudge the poordevils their soup. What I feel is this: If she'd cared a tinker's damnfor me she'd never have gone. That's all."

He returned to a moody survey of the picture.

"Look at it!" he said. "She insists that she's safe. But that fellow'sgot a gun. What for, if she's so safe? And look at that house! There'sa corner shot away; and it's got no upper floor. Safe!"

Belle held out her hand.

"I must return the picture to the society, Harve."

"Not just yet," he said ominously. "I want to look at it. I haven'tgot it all yet. And I'll return it myself—with a short speech."

"Harvey!"

"Well," he retorted, "why shouldn't I tell that lot of oldscandalmongers what I think of them? They'll sit here safe at home andbeg money—God, one of them was in the office to-day!—and send a younggirl over to—You'd better get out, Belle. I'm not company for any oneto-night."

She turned away, but he came after her, and suddenly putting his armsround her he kissed her.

"Don't worry about me," he said. "I'm done with wearing my heart on mysleeve. She looks happy, so I guess I can be." He released her. "Goodnight. I'll return the picture."

He sat up very late, alternately reading the report and looking at thepicture. It was unfortunate that Sara Lee had smiled into the camera.Coupled with her blowing hair it had given her a light-heartedness, asort of joyousness, that hurt him to the soul.

He made some mad plans after he had turned out the lights—to flirtwildly with the unattached girls he knew; to go to France and confrontSara Lee and then bring her home. Or—He had found a way. He laythere and thought it over, and it bore the test of the broken sleep thatfollowed. In the morning, dressing, he wondered he had not thought ofit before. He was more cheerful at breakfast than he had been for weeks.

XIX

In the little house of mercy two weeks went by, and then a third.Soldiers marching out to the trenches sometimes wore flowers tuckedgayly in their caps. More and more Allied aëroplanes were in theair. Sometimes, standing in the streets, Sara Lee saw one far overhead,while balloon-shaped clouds of bursting shells hung far below it.

Once or twice in the early morning a German plane, flying so low thatone could easily see the black cross on each wing, reconnoitered thevillage for wagon trains or troops. Always they found it empty.

Hope had almost fled now. In the afternoons Marie went to the ruinedchurch, and there knelt before the heap of marble and masonry that hadonce been the altar, and prayed. And Sara Lee, who had been brought upa Protestant and had never before entered a Catholic church, took togoing there too. In some strange fashion the peace of former daysseemed to cling to the little structure, roofless as it was. On quietdays its silence was deeper than elsewhere. On days of much firing thesound from within its broken walls seemed deadened, far away.

Marie burned a candle as she prayed, for that soul in purgatory which shehad once loved, and now pitied. Sara Lee burned no candle, but sheknelt, sometimes beside Marie, sometimes alone, and prayed for manythings: that Henri should be living, somewhere; that the war might end;that that day there would be little wounding; that some day the Belgiansmight go home again; and that back in America Harvey might grow tounderstand and forgive her. And now and then she looked into the verydepths of her soul, and on those days she prayed that her homelandmight, before it was too late, see this thing as she was seeing it. Thewanton waste of it all, the ghastly cruelty the Germans had brought intothis war.

Sara Lee's vague thinking began to crystallize. This war was nota judgment sent from on high to a sinful world. It was the wickedimposition of one nation on other nations. It was national. It wasalmost racial. But most of all it was a war of hate on the Germanside. She had never believed in hate. There were ugly passions in theworld—jealousy, envy, suspicion; but not hate. The word was not in herrather limited vocabulary.

There was no hate on the part of the men she knew. The officers whostopped in on their way to and from the trenches were gentlemen andsoldiers. They were determined and grave; they resented, they evenloathed. But they did not hate. The little Belgian soldiers werebewildered, puzzled, desperately resentful. But of hate, as translatedinto terms of frightfulness, they had no understanding.

Yet from the other side were coming methods of war so wantonly cruel,so useless save as inflicting needless agony, as only hate could devise.No strategic value justified them. They were spontaneous outgrowths ofvenom, nursed during the winter deadlock and now grown to full size anddestructive power.

The rumor of a gas that seared and killed came to the little house asearly as February. In March there came the first victims, poor writhingcreatures, deprived of the boon of air, their seared lungs collapsedand agonized, their faces drawn into masks of suffering. Some of themdied in the little house, and even after death their faces held theimprint of horror.

To Sara Lee, burying her own anxiety under the cloak of service, therecame new and terrible thoughts. This was not war. The Germans had senttheir clouds of poisoned gas across the inundation, but had made noattempt to follow. This was killing, for the lust of killing; suffering,for the joy of inflicting pain.

And a day or so later she heard of The Hague Convention. She had notknown of it before. Now she learned of that gentlemen's agreement amongnations, and that it said: "The use of poison or of poisoned weapons isforbidden." She pondered that carefully, trying to think dispassionately.Now and then she received a copy of a home newspaper, and she saw thatthe use of poison gases was being denied by Germans in America and setdown to rumor and hysteria.

So, on a cold spring day, she sat down at the table in the salle à mangerand wrote a letter to the President, beginning "Dear Sir"; and tellingwhat she knew of poison gas. She also, on second thought, wrote one toAndrew Carnegie, who had built a library in her city. She felt thatthe expense to him of sending some one over to investigate would not beprohibitive, and something must be done.

She never heard from either of her letters, but she felt better forhaving written them. And a day or two later she received from Mrs.Travers, in England, a small supply of the first gas masks of the war.Simple and primitive they were, those first masks; useless, too, as itturned out—a square of folded gauze, soaked in some solution and thendried, with tapes to tie it over the mouth and nose. To adjust them thesoldiers had but to stoop and wet them in the ever-present water inthe trench, and then to tie them on.

Sara Lee gave them out that night, and there was much mirth in the littlehouse, such mirth as there had not been since Henri went away. TheBelgians called it a bal masque, and putting them on bowed before oneanother and requested dances, and even flirted coyly with each other overtheir bits of white gauze. And in the very middle of the gayety someone propounded one of Henri's idiotic riddles; and Sara Lee went acrossto her little room and closed the door and stood there with her eyesshut, for fear she would scream.

Then, one day, coming out of the little church, she saw the low brokengray car turn in at the top of the street and come slowly, so veryslowly, toward her. There were two men in it.

One was Henri.

She ran, stumbling because of tears, up the street. It was Henri! Therewas no mistake. There he sat beside Jean, brushed and very neat; andvery, very white.

"Mademoiselle!" he said, and came very close to crying himself when hesaw her face. He was greatly excited. His sunken eyes devoured her asshe ran toward him. Almost he held out his arms. But he could not dothat, even if he would, for one was bandaged to his side.

It is rather sad to record how many times Sara Lee wept during heramazing interlude. For here is another time. She wept for joy andwretchedness. She stood on the running board and cried and smiled. AndJean winked his one eye rapidly.

"This idiot, mademoiselle," he said gruffly, "this maniac—he would notremain in Calais, with proper care. He must come on here. And rapidly.Could he have taken the wheel from me we should have been here an hourago. But for once I have an advantage."

The car jolted to the little house, and Jean helped Henri out. Such astrange Henri, smiling and joyous, and walking at a crawl, even withJean's support. He protested violently against being put to bed, andwhen he found himself led into Sara Lee's small room he openly rebelled.

"Never!" he said stubbornly, halting in the doorway. "This ismademoiselle's boudoir. Her drawing-room as well. I am going to themill house and—"

He staggered.

So Sara Lee's room had a different occupant for a time, a thin andfine-worn young Belgian, who yielded to Sara Lee when Jean gave up indespair, and who proceeded, most unmanfully, to faint as soon as he wasbetween the blankets.

If Sara Lee hoped to nurse Henri she was doomed to disappointment. Jeanit was who took over the care of the boy, a Jean who now ate prodigiously,and whistled occasionally, and slept at night robed in his blanket on thefloor beside Henri's bed, lest that rebellious invalid get up and try tomove about.

On the first night, with the door closed, against Henri's entreaties,while the little house received its evening complement of men, and withHenri lying back on his pillows, fresh dressed as to the wounds in hisarm and chest, fed with Sara Lee's daintiest, and resting, Jean found theboy's eyes resting on the mantel.

"Dear and obstinate friend," said Henri, "do you wish me to be happy?"

"You shall not leave the room or your bed. That is arranged for."

"How?" demanded Henri with interest.

"Because I have hidden away your trousers."

Henri laughed, but he sobered quickly.

"If you wish me to be happy," he said, "take away that Americanphotograph. But first, please to bring it here."

Jean brought it, holding it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger.And Henri lay back and studied it.

"It is mademoiselle's fiancé," he said.

Jean grunted.

"Look at it, Jean," Henri said in his half-bantering tone, with despairbeneath it; "and then look at me. Or no—remembering me as I was whenI was a man. He is better, eh? It is a good face. But there is a jaw,a—Do you think he will be kind to her as she requires? She requiresmuch kindness. Some women—"

He broke off and watched Jean anxiously.

"A half face!" Jean said scornfully. "The pretty view! As forkindness—" He put the photograph face down on the table. "I knewonce a man in Belgium who married an American. At Antwerp. They weremost unhappy."

Henri smiled.

"You are lying," he said with boyish pleasure in his own astuteness."You knew no such couple. You are trying to make me resigned."

But quite a little later, when Jean thought he was asleep, he said:"I shall never be resigned."

So at last spring had come, and Henri and the great spring drive. TheGermans had not drained the inundation, nor had they broken through toCalais. And it is not to be known here how much this utter failure hadbeen due to the information Henri had secured before he was wounded.

One day in his bed Henri received a visit from the King, and was leftlying with a decoration on his breast and a beatific, if somewhatsheepish, expression on his face. And one night the village wasbombarded, and on Henri's refusing to be moved to the cellar Sara Leetook up a determined stand in his doorway, until at last he made a mosthumiliating move for safety.

Bit by bit Sara Lee got the story, its bare detail from Henri, itscourage and sheer recklessness from Jean. It would, for instance, runlike this, with Henri in a chair perhaps, and cutting dressings—sincethat might be done with one hand—and Sara Lee, sleeves rolled up anda great bowl of vegetables before her:

"And when you got through the water, Henri?" she would ask: "What then?"

"It was quite simple. They had put up some additional wire, however—"

"Where?"

"There was a break," he would explain. "I have told you—between theirtrenches. I had used it before to get through."

"But how could you go through?"

"Like a snake," he would say, smiling. "Very flat and wriggling. I haveeaten of the dirt, mademoiselle."

Then he would stop and cut, very awkwardly, with his left hand.

"Go on," she would prompt him. "But they had put barbed wire there. Isthat it? So you could not get through?"

"With tin cans on it, and stones in the cans. I thought I had removedthem all, but there was one left. So they heard me."

More cutting and a muttered French expletive. Henri was not aparticularly patient cripple. And apparently there was an end to thestory.

"For goodness' sake," Sara Lee would exclaim despairingly; "so theyheard you! That isn't all, is it?"

"It was almost all," he would say with his boyish smile.

"And they shot at you?"

"Even better. They shot me. That was this one." And he would point tohis arm.

More silence, more cutting, a gathering exasperation on Sara Lee's part.

"Are you going on or not?"

"Then I pretended to be one of them, mademoiselle. I speak German asFrench. I pretended not to be hurt, but to be on a reconnoissance. AndI got into the trench and we had a talk in the darkness. It was mostinteresting. Only if they had shown a light they would have seen thatI was wounded."

By bits, not that day, but after many days, she got the story. In thenext trench he slipped a sling over the wounded arm and, as a Bavarianon his way to the dressing station, got back.

"I had some trouble," he confessed one day. "Now and then one wouldoffer to go back with me. And I did not care for assistance!"

But sometime later there was trouble. She was four days getting to thatpart of it. He had got behind the lines by that time, and he knew thatin some way suspicion had been roused. He was weak by that time, andcould not go far. He had lain hidden, for a day and part of a night,without water, in a destroyed barn, and then had escaped.

He got into the Belgian costume as before, but he could not wear a slingfor his wounded arm. He got the peasant to thrust his helpless righthand into his pocket, and for two days he made a close inspection ofwhat was going on. But fever had developed, and on the third night,half delirious, when he was spoken to by an officer he had replied, ofall tongues, in English.

The officer shot him instantly in the chest. He fell and lay still andthe officer bent over him. In that moment Henri stabbed him with aknife in his left hand. Men were coming from every direction, but hegot away—he did not clearly remember how. And at dawn he fell intothe Belgian farmhouse, apparently dying.

Jean's story, on the other hand, was given early and with no hesitation.He had crossed the border at Holland in civilian clothes, by the simpleexpedient of bribing a sentry. He had got, with little difficulty, tothe farmhouse, and found Henri, now recovering but very weak; he waslying hidden in a garret, and he was suffering from hunger and lack ofmedical attention. In a wagon full of market stuff, Henri hidden in thebed of it, they had got to the border again. And there Jean had, itseemed, stabbed the sentry he had bribed before and driven on to neutralsoil.

Not an unusual story, that of Henri and Jean. The journey acrossBelgium in the springless farm wagon was the worst. They had had totake roundabout lanes, avoiding the main highways. Fortunately, alwaysat night there were friendly houses, kind hands to lift Henri into warmfire-lighted interiors. Many messages they had brought back, some ofcheer, but too often of tragedy, from the small farmsteads of Belgium.

Then finally had been Holland, and the chartering of a boat—and atlast—"Here we are, and here we are, and here we are again," sang Henri,chopping at his cotton and making a great show of cheerfulness beforeSara Lee.

But with Jean sometimes he showed the black depression beneath. Hewould never be a man again. He was done for. He gained strength soslowly that he believed he was not gaining at all. He was not happy,and the unhappy mend slowly.

After the time he had asked Jean to take away Harvey's photograph he didnot recur to the subject, but he did not need to. Jean knew, perhapseven better than Henri himself, that the boy was recklessly, hopelessly,not quite rationally in love with the American girl.

Also Henri was fretting about his work. Sometimes at night, followingHenri's instructions, Jean wandered quietly along roads and paths thatparalleled the Front. At such times his eyes were turned, not towardthe trenches, but toward that flat country which lay behind, still dottedat that time with groves of trees, with canals overhung with pollardwillows, and with here and there a farmhouse that at night took on inthe starlight the appearance of being whole again.

Singularly white and peaceful were those small steadings of Belgiumin the night hours—until cruel dawn showed them for what theywere—skeletons of dead homes, clothed only at night with wraithlikeroofs and chimneys; ghosts of houses, appearing between midnight andcock crow.

Jean had not Henri's eyes nor his recklessness nor his speed, for thatmatter. Now and then he saw the small appearing and disappearing lightson some small rise. He would reach the spot, with such shelter aspossible, to find only a sugar-beet field, neglected and unplowed.

Then, one night, tragedy came to the little house of mercy.

XX

Harvey proceeded to put his plan into effect at once, with the simplemethod of an essentially simple nature. The thing had becomeintolerable; therefore it must end.

On the afternoon following his talk with Belle he came home at threeo'clock. Belle heard him moving about in his room, and when she enteredit, after he had gone, she found that he had shaved and put on his bestsuit.

She smiled a little. It was like Harvey to be literal. He had said hewas going to go round and have a good time, and he was losing no time.But in their restricted social life, where most of the men worked untilfive o'clock or even later, there were fewer afternoon calls paid.Belle wondered with mild sisterly curiosity into what arena Harvey wasabout to fling his best hat.

But though Harvey paid a call that afternoon it was not on any of theyoung women he knew. He went to see Mrs. Gregory. She was at home—hehad arranged for that by telephone—and the one butler of theneighborhood admitted him. It was a truculent young man, for all hispoliteness, who confronted Mrs. Gregory in her drawing-room—a quietlytruculent young man, who came to the point while he was still shakinghands.

"You're not going to be glad to see me in a minute," he said in replyto her greeting.

"How can you know that?"

"Because I've come to get you to do something you won't want to do."

"We won't quarrel before we begin, then," she said pleasantly. "BecauseI really never do anything I don't wish to do."

But she gave him a second glance and her smile became a trifle forced.She knew all about Harvey and Sara Lee. She had heard rumors of hisdisapproval also. Though she was not a clever nor a very keen woman,she saw what was coming and braced herself for it.

Harvey had prepared in his mind a summary of his position, and hedelivered it with the rapidity and strength of a blow.

"I know all about the Belgians, Mrs. Gregory," he said. "I'm sorry forthem. So is every one, I suppose. But I want to know if you think agirl of twenty ought to be over there practically at the Front, andalone?" He gave her time to reply. "Would you like to have yourdaughter there, if you had one?"

"Perhaps not, under ordinary circumstances. But this is war."

"It is not our war."

"Humanity," said Mrs. Gregory, remembering the phrase she had writtenfor a speech—"humanity has no nationality. It is of all men, forall men."

"That's men. Not women!"

He got up and stood on the hearthrug. He was singularly reminiscent ofthe time he had stood on Aunt Harriet's white fur rug and had told SaraLee she could not go.

"Now see here, Mrs. Gregory," he said, "we'll stop beating about thebush, if you don't mind. She's got to come home. She's coming, if Ihave to go and get her!"

"You needn't look at me so fiercely. I didn't send her. It was her ownidea."

Harvey sneered.

"No," he said slowly. "But I notice your society publishes her reportsin the papers, and that the names of the officers are rarely missing."

Mrs. Gregory colored.

"We must have publicity to get money," she said. "It is hard to get.Sometimes I have had to make up the deficit out of my own pocket."

"Then for God's sake bring her home! If the thing has to go on, sendover there some of the middle-aged women who have no ties. Let 'em getshot if they want to. They can write as good reports as she can, ifthat's all you want. And make as good soup," he added bitterly.

"It could be done, of course," she said, thoughtfully. "But—I musttell you this: I doubt if an older woman could have got where she has.There is no doubt that her charm, her youth and beauty have helped hergreatly. We cannot—"

The very whites of his eyes turned red then. He shouted furiously thatfor their silly work and their love of publicity, they were trading ona girl's youth and beauty; that if anything happened to her he wouldpublish the truth in every newspaper in the country; that they would atonce recall Sara Lee or he would placard the city with what they weredoing. These were only a few of the things he threw at her.

When he was out of breath he jerked the picture of the little house ofmercy out of his pocket and flung it into her lap.

"There!" he said. "Do you know where that house is? It's in a ruinedvillage. She hasn't said that, has she? Well, look at the masonrythere. That's a shell hole in the street. That soldier's got a gun.Why? Because the Germans may march up that street any day on their wayto Calais."

Mrs. Gregory looked at the picture. Sara Lee smiled into the sun. AndRené, ignorant that his single rifle was to oppose the march of theGerman Army to Calais—René smiled also.

Mrs. Gregory rose.

"I shall report your view to the society," she said coldly. "Iunderstand how you feel, but I fail to see the reason for this attackon me."

"I guess you see all right!" he flung at her. "She's my future wife.If you hadn't put this nonsense into her head we'd be married now andshe'd be here in God's country and not living with a lot of foreignerswho don't know a good woman when they see one. I want her back, that'sall. But I want her back safe. And if anything happens to her I'llmake you pay—you and all your notoriety hunters."

He went out then, and was for leaving without his hat or coat, but thebutler caught him at the door. Out in the spring sunlight he walkedrapidly, still seething, remembering other bitter things he had meantto say, and repeating them to himself.

But he had said enough.

Mrs. Gregory's account of his visit she reported at a meeting speciallycalled. The narrative lost nothing in the repetition. But the kindlywomen who sat in the church house sewing or knitting listened to whatHarvey had said and looked troubled. They liked Sara Lee, and many ofthem had daughters of their own.

The photograph was passed around. Undoubtedly Sara Lee was living in aruined village. Certainly ruined villages were only found very near theFront. And René unquestionably held a gun. Tales of German brutalitiesto women had come and were coming constantly to their ears. MabelAndrews had written to them for supplies, and she had added to thechapter of horrors.

Briefly, the sense of the meeting was that Harvey had been brutal, butthat he was right. An older woman in a safe place they might continueto support, but none of them would assume the responsibility of thecrushing out of a young girl's life.

To be quite frank, possibly Harvey's appeal would have carried lessweight had it not coincided with Sara Lee's request for more money.Neither one alone would have brought about the catastrophe, butaltogether they made question and answer, problem and solution. Moneywas scarce. Demands were heavy. None of them except Mrs. Gregory hadmore than just enough. And there was this additional situation to face:there was no end of the war in sight; it gave promise now of going onindefinitely.

Joifre had said, "I nibble them." But to nibble a hole in the GermanyArmy might take years. They had sent Sara Lee for a few months. Howabout keeping her there indefinitely?

Oddly enough, it was Harvey's sister Belle who made the only protestagainst the recall.

"Of course, I want her back," she said slowly. "You'd understand betterif you had to live with Harvey. I'm sorry, Mrs. Gregory, that he spoketo you as he did, but he's nearly crazy." She eyed the assembly withher tired shrewd eyes. "I'm no talker," she went on, "but Sara Lee hasdone a big thing. We don't realize, I guess, how big it is. And Ithink we'll just about kill her if we bring her home."

"Better to do that than to have her killed over there," some one said.

And in spite of Belle's protest, that remained the sense of the meeting.It was put to the vote and decided to recall Sara Lee. She could bringa report of conditions, and if she thought it wise an older woman couldgo later, to a safer place.

Belle was very quiet that evening. After dinner she went to Harvey'sroom and found him dressing to go out.

"I'm going with a crowd to the theater," he said. "First week of thesummer stock company, you know."

He tied his tie defiantly, avoiding Belle's eyes in the mirror.

"Harvey," she said, "they're going to bring Sara Lee home."

He said nothing, but his hands shook somewhat. "And I think," Bellesaid, "that you will be sorry for what you have done—all the rest ofyour life."

XXI

By the time Henri was well enough to resume his former activities it wasalmost the first of May. The winter quiet was over with a vengeance, andthe Allies were hammering hard with their first tolerably full supply ofhigh-explosive shells.

Cheering reports came daily to the little house—, of rapidly augmentingarmies, of big guns on caterpillar trucks that were moving slowly up tothe Allied Front. Great Britain had at last learned her lesson, thatonly shells of immense destructiveness were of any avail against theGerman batteries. She was moving heaven and earth to get them, but thesupply was still inadequate. With the new shells experiments were beingmade in barrage fire—costly experiments now and then; but the Allieswere apt in learning the ugly game of modern war.

Only on the Belgian Front was there small change. The shattered armywas being freshly outfitted. England was sending money and ammunition,and on the sand dunes small bodies of fresh troops drilled and smiledgrimly and drilled again. But there were not, as in England and inFrance, great bodies of young men to draw from. Too many had beencaught beyond the German wall of steel.

Yet a wave of renewed courage had come with the sun and the greenfields. And conditions had improved for the Belgians in other ways.They were being paid, for one thing, with something like regularity.Food was better and more plentiful. One day Henri appeared at the topof the street and drove down triumphantly a small unclipped horse,which trundled behind it a vertical boiler on wheels with fire box andstovepipe.

"A portable kitchen!" he explained. "See, here for soup and here forcoffee. And more are coming."

"Very soon, Henri, they will not need me," Sara Lee said wistfully.

But he protested almost violently. He even put the question to thehorse, and blowing in his ear made him shake his head in the negative.

She was needed, indeed. To the great base hospital at La Panne wentmore and more wounded men. But to the little house of mercy came thesmall odds and ends in increasing numbers. Medical men were scarce, andbadly overworked. There was talk, for a time, of sending a surgeon tothe little house, but it came to nothing. La Panne was not far away,and all the surgeons they could get there were not too many.

So the little house went on much as before. Henri had moved to the mill.He was at work again, and one day, in the King's villa and quietly,because of many reasons, Henri, a very white and erect Henri, received asecond medal, the highest for courage that could be given.

He did not tell Sara Lee.

But though he and the men who served under him worked hard, they couldnot always perform miracles. The German planes still outnumbered theAllied ones. They had grown more daring with the spring, too, andwhatever Henri might learn of ground operations, he could not foretellthose of the air.

On a moonlight night in early May, Sara Lee, setting out her dressings,heard a man running up the street. René challenged him sharply, onlyto step aside. It was Henri. He burst in on Sara Lee.

"To the cellar, mademoiselle!" he said.

"A bombardment?" asked Sara Lee.

"From the air. They may pass over, but there are twelve taubes, andthey are circling overhead."

The first bomb dropped then in the street. It was white moonlight andthe Germans must have seen that there were no troops. Probably it wasas Henri said later, that they had learned of the little house, andsince it brought such aid and comfort as might be it was to be destroyed.

The house of the mill went with the second bomb. Then followed adeafening uproar as plane after plane dropped its shells on the deadtown. Marie and Sara Lee were in the cellar by that time, but thecellar was scarcely safer than the floor above. From a bombardment byshells from guns miles away there was protection. From a bomb droppedfrom the sky, the floors above were practically useless.

Only Henri and René remained on the street floor. Henri wasextinguishing lights. In the passage René stood, not willing to takerefuge until Henri, whom he adored, had done so. For a moment theuproar ceased, and in a spirit of bravado René stepped out into themoonlight and made a gesture of derision into the air.

He fell there, struck by a piece of splintered shell.

"Come, René!" Henri called. "The brave are those who live to fightagain, not—"

But René's figure against the moonlight was gone. Henri ran to thedoorway then and found him lying, his head on the little step where hehad been wont to sit and whittle and sing his Tipperaree. He was dead.Henri carried him in and laid him in the little passage, very reverently.Then he went below.

"Where is René?" Sara Lee asked from the darkness.

"A foolish boy," said Henri, a catch in his throat. "He is, I think,watching these fiends of the air, from some shelter."

"There is no shelter," shivered the girl.

He groped for her hand in the darkness, and so they stood, hand in hand,like two children, waiting for what might come.

It was not until the thing was over that he told her. He had gone upfirst and so that she would not happen on his silent figure unwarned,had carried René to the open upper floor, where he lay, singularlypeaceful, face up to the awful beauty of the night.

"Good night, little brother," Henri said to him, and left him there witha heavy heart. Never again would René sit and whittle on the doorstepand sing his tuneless Tipperaree. Never again would he gaze with boyishadoring eyes at Sara Lee as she moved back and forth in the little house.

Henri stared up at the sky. The moon looked down, cold, and cruellybright, on the vanishing squadron of death, on the destroyed town and onthe boy's white face. Somewhere, Henri felt, vanishing like the Germantaubes, but to peace instead of war, was moving René's brave and smilingspirit—a boyish angel, eager and dauntless, and still looking up.

Henri took off his cap and crossed himself.

Another sentry took René's place the next day, but the little house hadlost something it could not regain. And a greater loss was to come.

Jean brought out the mail that day. For Sara Lee, moving about silentand red-eyed, there was a letter from Mr. Travers. He inclosed a hundredpounds and a clipping from a London newspaper entitled The Little Houseof Mercy.

"Evidently," he wrote, "you were right and we were wrong. One-half ofthe inclosed check is from my wife, who takes this method of showing heraffectionate gratitude. The balance is from myself. Once, some monthsago, I said to you that almost you restored my faith in human nature.To-day I may say that, in these hours of sorrow for us all, what you havedone and are doing has brought into my gray day a breath of hope."

There was another clipping, but no comment. It recorded the death of aReginald Alexander Travers, aged thirty.

It was then that Sara Lee, who was by way of thinking for herself thosedays, and of thinking clearly, recognized the strange new self-abnegationof the English—their attitude not so much of suppressing their privategriefs as of refusing to obtrude them. A strongly individualistic people,they were already commencing to think nationally. Grief was a privatematter, to be borne privately. To the world they must present an unbrokenfront, an unshaken and unshakable faith. A new attitude, and a strangeone, for grumbling, crochety, gouty-souled England.

A people who had for centuries insisted not only on its rights but onits privileges was now giving as freely as ever it had demanded. Itwas as though, having hoarded all those years, it had but been hoardingagainst the day of payment. As it had received it gave—in money, ineffort, in life. And without pretext.

So the Traverses, having given up all that had made life for them, senta clipping only, and no comment. Sara Lee, through a mist of tears,saw them alone in their drawing-room, having tea as usual, and valiantlyspeaking of small things, and bravely facing the future, but never, inthe bitterest moments, making complaint or protest.

Would America, she wondered, if her hour came, be so brave? Harvey hada phrase for such things. It was "stand the gaff." Would America standthe gaff so well? Courage was America's watchword, but a courage of thebody rather than of the soul—physical courage, not moral. What wouldhappen if America entered the struggle and the papers were filled, aswere the British and the French, with long casualty lists, each name aknife thrust somewhere?

She wondered.

And then, before long, it was Sara Lee's turn to stand the gaff. Therewas another letter, a curiously incoherent one from Harvey's sister. Shereferred to something that the society had done, and hoped that Sara Leewould take it in kindness, as it was meant. Harvey was well and muchhappier. She was to try to understand Harvey's part. He had beenalmost desperate. Evidently the letter had preceded one that should havearrived at the same time. Sara Lee was sadly puzzled. She went to Henriwith it, but he could make nothing out of it. There was nothing to dobut to wait.

The next night Henri was to go through the lines again. Since hiswounding he had been working on the Allied side, and fewer lights therewere in his district that flashed the treacherous message across theflood, between night and morning. But now it was imperative that he gothrough the German lines again. It was feared that with grappling hooksthe enemy was slowly and cautiously withdrawing the barbed wire from theinundated fields; and that could mean but one thing.

On the night he was to go Henri called Sara Lee from the crowded salle àmangerand drawing her into the room across closed the door.

"Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "once before, long ago, you permittedme to kiss you. Will you do that for me again?"

She kissed him at once gravely. Once she would have flushed. She didnot now. For there was a change in Sara Lee as well as in her outlook.She had been seeing for months the shortness of life, the brief tenuremen held on it, the value of such happiness as might be for the hoursthat remained. She was a woman now, for all her slim young body and hercharm of youth. Values had changed. To love, and to show that love, tocheer, to comfort and help—that was necessary, because soon the chancemight be gone, and there would be long aching years of regret.

So she kissed him gravely and looked up into his eyes, her own full oftears.

"God bless and keep you, dear Henri," she said.

Then she went back to her work.

XXII

Much of Sara Lee's life at home had faded. She seemed to be two people.One was the girl who had knitted the afghan for Anna, and had hidden itaway from Uncle James' kind but curious eyes. And one was this presentSara Lee, living on the edge of eternity, and seeing men die or sufferhorribly, not to gain anything—except perhaps some honorableadvancement for their souls—but that there might be preserved, at anycost, the right of honest folk to labor in their fields, to love, topray, and at last to sleep in the peace of God.

She had lost the past and she dared not look into the future. So shewas living each day as it came, with its labor, its love, its prayersand at last its sleep. Even Harvey seemed remote and stern and bitter.She reread his letters often, but they were forced. And after a timeshe realized another quality in them. They were self-centered. It washisanxiety, hisloneliness, hishumiliation. Sara Lee's eyes werelooking out, those days, over a suffering world. Harvey's eyes wereturned in on himself.

She realized this, but she never formulated it, even to herself. Whatshe did acknowledge was a growing fear of the reunion which must comesometime—that he was cherishing still further bitterness against thatday, that he would say things that he would regret later. Sometimes thethought of that day came to her when she was doing a dressing, and herhands would tremble.

Henri had not returned when, the second day after René's death, theletter came which recalled her. She opened it eagerly. Though fromHarvey there usually came at the best veiled reproach, the society hadalways sent its enthusiastic approval.

She read it twice before she understood, and it was only when she readBelle's letter again that she began to comprehend. She was recalled;and the recall was Harvey's work.

She was very close to hating him that day. He had never understood.She would go back to him, as she had promised; but always, all the restof their lives, there would be this barrier between them. To thebarrier of his bitterness would be added her own resentment. She couldnever even talk to him of her work, of those great days when in hersmall way she had felt herself a part of the machinery of mercy ofthe war.

Harvey had lost something out of Sara Lee's love for him. He had doneit himself, madly, despairingly. She still loved him, she felt. Nothingcould change that or her promise to him. But with that love there wassomething now of fear. And she felt, too, that after all the years shehad known him she had not known him at all. The Harvey she had knownwas a tender and considerate man, soft-spoken, slow to wrath, alwaysgentle. But the Harvey of his letters and of the recall was a stranger.

It was the result of her upbringing, probably, that she had no thoughtof revolt. Her tie to Harvey was a real tie. By her promise to him herlife was no longer hers to order. It belonged to some one else, to beordered for her. But, though she accepted, she was too clear a thinkernot to resent.

When Henri returned, toward dawn of the following night, he did not comealone. Sara Lee, rising early, found two men in her kitchen—one ofthem Henri, who was making coffee, and a soldier in a gray-green uniform,with a bad bruise over one eye and a sulky face. His hands were tied,but otherwise he sat at ease, and Henri, having made the coffee, held acup to his lips.

"It is good for the spirits, man," he said in German. "Drink it."

The German took it, first gingerly, then eagerly. Henri was in highgood humor.

"See, I have brought you a gift!" he exclaimed on seeing Sara Lee. "Whatshall we do with him? Send him to America? To show the appearance ofthe madmen of Europe?"

The prisoner was only a boy, such a boy as Henri himself; but a peasant,and muscular. Beside his bulk Henri looked slim as a reed. Henri eyedhim with a certain tolerant humor.

"He is young, and a Bavarian," he said. "Other wise I should havekilled him, for he fought hard. He has but just been called."

There was another conference in the little house that morning, butHenri's prisoner could tell little. He had heard nothing of an advance.Further along the line it was said that there was much fighting. He satthere, pale and bewildered and very civil, and in the end his frightenedpoliteness brought about a change in the attitude of the men whoquestioned him. Hate all Germans as they must, who had suffered sogrossly, this boy was not of those who had outraged them.

They sent him on at last, and Sara Lee was free to tell Henri her news.But she had grown very wise as to Henri's moods, and she hesitated. Acertain dissatisfaction had been growing in the boy for some time, asense of hopelessness. Further along the spring had brought renewedactivity to the Allied armies. Great movements were taking place.

But his own men stood in their trenches, or what passed for trenches, orlay on their hours of relief in such wretched quarters as could be found,still with no prospect of action. No great guns, drawn by heavytractors, came down the roads toward the trenches by the sea. Steadybombarding, incessant sniping and no movement on either side—that wasthe Belgian Front during the first year of the war. Inaction, with thateating anxiety as to what was going on in the occupied territory, wasthe portion of the heroic small army that stretched from Nieuport toDixmude.

And Henri's nerves were not good. He was unhappy—that always—and hewas not yet quite recovered from his wounds. There was on his mind, too,a certain gun which moved on a railway track, back and forth, behind theGerman lines, doing the work of many. He had tried to get to that gun,and failed. And he hated failure.

Certainly in this story of Sara Lee and of Henri, whose other name mustnot be known, allowance must be made for all those things. Yet—perhapsno allowance is enough.

Sara Lee told him that evening of her recall, told him when the shufflingof many feet in the street told of the first weary men from the trenchescoming up the road.

He heard her in a dazed silence. Then:

"But you will not go?" he said. "It is impossible! You—you areneeded, mademoiselle."

"What can I do, Henri? They have recalled me. My money will not comenow."

"Perhaps we can arrange that. It does not cost so much. I havefriends—and think, mademoiselle, how many know now of what you aredoing, and love you for it. Some of them would contribute, surely."

He was desperately revolving expedients in his mind. He could himselfdo no more than he had done. He, or rather Jean and he together, hadbeen bearing a full half of the expense of the little house since thebeginning. But he dared not tell her that. And though he spokehopefully, he knew well that he could raise nothing from the Belgianshe knew best. Henri came of a class that held its fortunes in land, andthat land was now in German hands.

"We will arrange it somehow," he said with forced cheerfulness. "Nobeautiful thing—and this is surely beautiful—must die because ofmoney."

It was then that Sara Lee took the plunge.

"It is not only money, Henri."

"He has sent for you!"

Harvey was always "he" to Henri.

"Not exactly. But I think he went to some one and said I should not behere alone. You can understand how he feels. We were going to bemarried very soon, and then I decided to come. It made an awful upset."

Henri stood with folded arms and listened. At first he said nothing.When he spoke it was in a voice of ominous calm:

"So for a stupid convention he would destroy this beautiful thing youhave made! Does he know your work? Does he know what you are to themen here? Have you ever told him?"

"I have, of course, but—"

"Do you want to go back?"

"No, Henri. Not yet. I—"

"That is enough. You are needed. You are willing to stay. I shallattend to the money. It is arranged."

"You don't understand," said Sara Lee desperately. "I am engaged to him.I can't wreck his life, can I?"

"Would it wreck your life?" he demanded. "Tell me that and I shall knowhow to reason with you."

But she only looked at him helplessly.

Heavy tramping in the passage told of the arrival of the first men.They did not talk and laugh as usual. As well as they could they camequietly. For René had been a good friend to many of them, and hadadmitted on slack nights many a weary man who had no ticket. Much asthe neighbors had entered the house back home after Uncle James had goneaway, came these bearded men that night. And Sara Lee, hearing theirmuffled voices, brushed a hand over her eyes and tried to smile.

"We can talk about it later," she said. "We mustn't quarrel. I owe somuch to you, Henri."

Suddenly Henri caught her by the arm and turned her about so that shefaced the lamp.

"Do you love him?" he demanded. "Sara Lee, look at me!" Only hepronounced it Saralie. "He has done a very cruel thing. Do you stilllove him?"

Sara Lee shut her eyes.

"I don't know. I think I do. He is very unhappy, and it is my fault."

"Your fault!"

"I must go, Henri. The men are waiting."

But he still held her arm.

"Does he love you as I love you?" he demanded. "Would he die for you?"

"That's rather silly, isn't it? Men don't die for the people they love."

"I would die for you, Saralie."

She eyed him rather helplessly.

"I don't think you mean that." Bad strategy that, for he drew her tohim. His arms were like steel, and it was a rebellious and very rigidSara Lee who found she could not free herself.

"I would die for you, Saralie!" he repeated fiercely. "That would beeasier, far, than living without you. There is nothing that matters butyou. Listen—I would put everything I have—my honor, my life, myhope of eternity—on one side of the scale and you on the other. And Iwould choose you. Is that love?" He freed her.

"It's insanity," said Sara Lee angrily. "You don't mean it. And Idon't want that kind of love, if that is what you call it."

"And you will go back to that man who loves himself better than he lovesyou?"

"That's not true!" she flashed at him. "He is sending for me, not toget me back to him, but to get me back to safety."

"What sort of safety?" Henri demanded in an ominous tone. "Is he afraidof me?"

"He doesn't know anything about you."

"You have never told him? Why?" His eyes narrowed.

"He wouldn't have understood, Henri."

"You are going back to him," he said slowly; "and you will always keepthese days of ours buried in your heart. Is that it?" His eyes softened."I am to be a memory! Do you know what I think? I think you care forme more than you know. We have lived a lifetime together in thesemonths. You know me better than you know him, already. We have faceddeath together. That is a strong tie. And I have held you in my arms.Do you think you can forget that?"

"I shall never want to forget you."

"I shall not let you forget me. You may go—I cannot prevent thatperhaps. But wherever I am; Saralie, I shall stand between that loverof yours and you. And sometime I shall come from this other side of theworld, and I shall find you, and you will come back with me. Back tothis country—our country."

They were boyish words, but back of them was the iron determination of aman. His eyes seemed sunken in his head. His face was white. But therewas almost a prophetic ring in his voice.

Sara Lee went out and left him there, went out rather terrified andbewildered, and refusing absolutely to look into her own heart.

XXIII

Late in May she started for home. It had not been necessary to closethe little house. An Englishwoman of mature years and considerablewealth, hearing from Mr. Travers of Sara Lee's recall, went out a day ortwo before she left and took charge. She was a kindly woman, in deepmourning; and some of the ache left Sara Lee's heart when she had talkedwith her successor.

Perhaps, too, Mrs. Cameron understood some of the things that hadpuzzled her before. She had been a trifle skeptical perhaps about SaraLee before she saw her. A young girl alone among an army of men! Shewas a good woman herself, and not given to harsh judgments, but thething had seemed odd. But Sara Lee in her little house, as virginal, aswithout sex-consciousness as a child, Sara Lee with her shabby clothesand her stained hands and her honest eyes—this was not only a goodgirl, this was a brave and high-spirited and idealistic woman.

And after an evening in the house of mercy, with the soldiers openlyadoring and entirely respectful, Mrs. Cameron put her arms round SaraLee and kissed her.

"You must let me thank you," she said. "You have made me feel what Ihave not felt since—"

She stopped. Her mourning was only a month old. "I see to-night that,after all, many things may be gone, but that while service remains thereis something worth while in life."

The next day she asked Sara Lee to stay with her, at least through thesummer. Sara Lee hesitated, but at last she agreed to cable. As Henrihad disappeared with the arrival of Mrs. Cameron it was that lady'schauffeur who took the message to Dunkirk and sent it off.

She had sent the cable to Harvey. It was no longer a matter of theLadies' Aid. It was between Harvey and herself.

The reply came on the second day. It was curt and decisive.

"Now or never," was the message Harvey sent out of his black despair,across the Atlantic to the little house so close under the guns ofBelgium.

Henri was half mad those last days. Jean tried to counsel him, but hewas irritable, almost savage. And Jean understood. The girl had growndeep into his own heart. Like Henri, he believed that she was goingback to unhappiness; he even said so to her in the car, on that last sadday when Sara Lee, having visited René's grave and prayed in the ruinedchurch, said good-by to the little house, and went away, tearless at thelast, because she was too sad for tears.

It was not for some time that Jean spoke what was in his mind, and whenhe had done so she turned to him gravely:

"You are wrong, Jean. He is the kindest of men. Once I am back, andsafe, he will be very different. I'm afraid I've given you a wrongimpression of him."

"You think then, mademoiselle, that he will forget all these months—hewill never be unhappy over them?"

"Why should he?" said Sara Lee proudly. "When I tell him everything hewill understand. And he will be very proud that I have done my share."

But Jean's one eye was dubious.

At the wharf in Dunkirk they found Henri, a pale but composed Henri.Jean's brows contracted. He had thought that the boy would follow hisadvice and stay away. But Henri was there.

It was as well, perhaps, for Sara Lee had brought him a letter, one ofthose missives from the trenches which had been so often left at thelittle house.

Henri thrust it into his pocket without reading it.

"Everything is prepared," he said. "It is the British Admiralty boat,and one of the officers has offered his cabin. You will be quitecomfortable."

He appeared entirely calm. He saw to carrying Sara Lee's small bag onboard; he chatted with the officers; he even wandered over to ahospital ship moored near by and exchanged civilities with a wounded manin a chair on the deck. Perhaps he swaggered a bit too much, for Jeanwatched him with some anxiety. He saw that the boy was taking it hard.His eyes were very sunken now, and he moved his right arm stiffly, asthough the old wound troubled him.

Jean did not like leave-takings. Particularly he did not like takingleave of Sara Lee. Some time before the boat sailed he kissed her hand,and then patted it and went away in the car without looking back.

The boat was preparing to get under way. Henri was standing by her veryquietly. He had not slept the night before, but then there were manynights when Henri did not sleep. He had wandered about, smokingincessantly, trying to picture the black future.

He could see no hope anywhere. America was far away, and peaceful.Very soon the tranquillity of it all would make the last months seemdreamlike and unreal. She would forget Belgium, forget him. Or shewould remember him as a soldier who had once loved her. Once loved her,because she had never seemed to realize the lasting quality of his love.She had always felt that he would forget her. If he could only make herbelieve that he would not, it would not be so hopeless.

He had written a bit of a love letter on the little table at Dunkirkthat morning, written it with the hope that the sight of the writtenwords might carry conviction where all his protests had failed.

"I shall love you all the years of my life," he wrote. "At any time, inany place, you may come to me and know that I am waiting. Great lovelike this comes only once to any man, and once come to him it never goesaway. At any time in the years to come you may know with certainty thatyou are still to me what you are now, the love of my life.

"Sometimes I think, dearest—I may call you that once, now that youhave left me—that far away you will hear this call of mine and comeback to me. Perhaps you will never come. Perhaps I shall not live. Ifeel to-day that I do not care greatly to live.

"If that is to be, then think of me somewhere, perhaps with René by myside, since he, too, loved you. And I shall still be calling you, andwaiting. Perhaps even beyond the stars they have need of a little houseof mercy; and, God knows, wherever I am I shall have need of you."

He had the letter in the pocket of his tunic, and at last the momentcame when the boat must leave. Suddenly Henri knew that he could notallow her to cross to England alone. The last few days had brought manystories of submarine attacks. Here, so far north, the Germans wereparticularly active. They had for a long time lurked in waiting forthis British Admiralty boat, with its valuable cargo, its officers andthe government officials who used it.

"Good-by, Henri," said Sara Lee. "I—of course it is no use to try totell you—"

"I am going across with you."

"But—"

"I allowed you to come over alone. I shiver when I think of it. I shalltake you back myself."

"Is it very dangerous?"

"Probably not. But can you think of me standing safe on that quay andletting you go into danger alone?"

"I am not afraid."

"I know that. I have never seen you afraid. But if you wish to see acoward, look at me. I am a coward for you."

He put his hand into his pocket. It occurred to him to give her theletter now so that if anything happened she would at least have had it.He wanted no mistake about that appointment beyond the stars. But thegreat world of eternity was very large, and they must have a definiteunderstanding about that meeting at the little house of mercy Over There.

Perhaps he had a little fever that day. He was alternately flushed andpale; and certainly he was not quite rational. His hand shook as hebrought out her letter—and with it the other letter, from the Front.

"Have you the time to come with me?" Sara Lee asked doubtfully. "I wantyou to come, of course, but if your work will suffer—"

He held out his letter to her.

"I shall go away," he said, "while you read it. And perhaps you willnot destroy it, because—I should like to feel that you have it always."

He went away at once, saluting as he passed other officers, who gravelysaluted him. On the deck of the hospital ship the invalid touched hiscap. Word was going about, in the stealthy manner of such things, thatHenri whose family name we may not know, was a brave man and doing bravethings.

The steamer had not yet cast off. As usual, it was to take a flyingstart from the harbor, for it was just outside the harbor that the wolvesof the sea lay in wait. Henri, alone at last, opened his letter, andstood staring at it. There was again movement behind the German line,a matter to be looked into, as only he could do it. Probably nothing,as before; but who could say?

Henri looked along the shore to where but a few miles away lay theragged remnant of his country. And he looked forward to where Sara Lee,his letter in her hand, was staring blindly at nothing. Then he lookedout toward the sea, where lay who knew what dangers of death andsuffering.

After that first moment of indecision he never hesitated. He stood onthe deck and watched, rather frozen and rigid, and with a mind that hadceased working, while the steamer warped out from the quay. If in hissubconsciousness there was any thought it was doubtless that he had donehis best for a long time, and that he had earned the right to protectfor a few hours the girl he loved. That, too, there had been activityalong the German-Belgian line before, without result.

Perhaps subconsciously those things were there. He himself was consciousof no thought, of only a dogged determination to get Sara Lee across thechannel safely. He put everything else behind him. He counted no cost.

The little admiralty boat sped on. In the bow, on the bridge, and atdifferent stations lookouts kept watch. The lifeboats were hungoverboard, ready to lower instantly. On the horizon a British destroyersteamed leisurely. Henri stood for a long time on the deck. The landfell away quickly. From a clear silhouette of the town against thesky—the dunes, the spire of the cathedral, the roof of the mairie—itbecame vague, shadowy—the height of a hand—a line—nothing.

Henri roused himself. He was very thirsty, and the wound in his armached. When he raised his hand to salute the movement was painful.

It was a very grave Sara Lee he found in the officer's cabin when hewent inside later on. She was sitting on the long seat below the openport, her hat slightly askew and her hands folded in her lap. Her bagwas beside her, and there was in her eyes a perplexity Henri was toowretched to notice.

For the first time Sara Lee was realizing the full value of the thingshe was throwing away. She had persistently discounted it until now.She had been grateful for it. She had felt unworthy of it. But now,on the edge of leaving it, she felt that something infinitely preciousand very beautiful was going out of her life. She had already a senseof loss.

For the first time, too, she was allowing herself to think of certaincontingencies that were now forever impossible. For instance, supposeshe had stayed with Mrs. Cameron? Suppose she had broken her promiseto Harvey and remained at the little house? Suppose she had done asHenri had so wildly urged her, and had broken entirely with Harvey?Would she have married Henri?

There was a certain element of caution in the girl. It made the chancesshe had taken rather more courageous, indeed, because she had alwayscounted the cost. But marriage was not a matter for taking chances. Oneshould know not only the man, but his setting, though she would not havethought of it in that way. Not only the man, but the things that made uphis life—his people, his home.

And Henri was to her still a figure, not so much now of mystery as ofdetachment. Except Jean he had no intimates. He had no family on theonly side of the line she knew. He had not even a country.

She had reached that point when Henri came below and saluted her stifflyfrom the doorway.

"Henri!" she said. "I believe you are ill!"

"I am not ill," he said, and threw himself into the corner of the seat."You have read it?"

She nodded. Even thinking of it brought a lump into her throat. Hebent forward, but he did not touch her.

"I meant it, Saralie," he said. "Sometimes men are infatuated, andwrite what they do not mean. They are sincere at the time, and thenlater on—But I meant it. I shall always mean it."

Not then, nor during the three days in London, did he so much as takeher hand. He was not well. He ate nothing, and at night he lay awakeand drank a great deal of water. Once or twice he found her looking athim anxiously, but he disclaimed all illness.

He had known from the beginning what he was doing. But he did not touchher, because in his heart he knew that where once he had been worthy hewas no longer worthy. He had left his work for a woman.

It is true that he had expected to go back at once. But thePhiladelphia, which had been listed to sail the next day, was held upby a strike in Liverpool, and he waited on, taking such hours as shecould give him, feverishly anxious to make her happy, buying her littlegifts, mostly flowers, which she wore tucked in her belt and smiledover, because she had never before received flowers from a man.

He was alternately gay and silent. They walked across the Thames by theParliament buildings, and midway across he stopped and looked long at thestream. And they went to the Zoölogical Gardens, where he gravely namedone of the sea lions for Colonel Lilias because of its mustache, andinsisted on saluting it each time before he flung it a fish. Once hesoberly gathered up a very new baby camel, all legs, in his arms, andpresented it to her.

"Please accept it, mademoiselle," he said. "With my compliments."

They dined together every night, very modestly, sitting in some crowdedrestaurant perhaps, but seeing little but each other. Sara Lee hadbought a new hat in London—black, of course, but faced with white.He adored her in it. He would sit for long moments, his elbows proppedon the table, his blond hair gleaming in the candlelight, and watch her.

"I wonder," he said once, "if you had never met him would you have lovedme?"

"I do love you, Henri."

"I don't want that sort of love." And he had turned his head away.

But one evening he called for her at Morley's, a white and crushed boy,needing all that she could give him and much more. He came as a mangoes to the woman he loves when he is in trouble, much as a child to hismother. Sara Lee, coming down to the reception room, found him alonethere, walking rapidly up and down. He turned desperate eyes on her.

"I have brought bad news," he said abruptly.

"The little house—"

"I do not know. I ran away, mademoiselle. I am a traitor. And theGermans broke through last night."

"Henri!"

"They broke through. We were not ready. That is what I have done."

"Don't you think," Sara Lee said in a frozen voice, "that is what I havedone? I let you come."

"You? You are taking the blame? Mademoiselle, I have enough to bearwithout that."

He explained further, still standing in his rigid attitude. If he hadbeen white before at times he was ghastly now. It had not been an attackin force. A small number had got across and had penetrated beyond therailway line. There had been hand-to-hand fighting in the road beyondthe poplars. But it looked more like an experiment, an endeavor todiscover the possibility of a real advance through the inundation; orperhaps a feint to cover operations elsewhere.

"For every life lost I am responsible," he ended in a flat and lifelesstone.

"But you might not have known," she protested wildly. "Even if you hadbeen there, Henri, you might not have known." She knew something of warby that time. "How could you have told that a small movement of troopswas to take place?"

"I should have been there."

"But—if they came without warning?"

"I did not tell you," he said, looking away from her. "There had been awarning. I disregarded it."

He went back to Belgium that night. Sara Lee, at the last, held out herhand. She was terrified for him, and she showed it.

"I shall not touch your hand," he said. "I have forfeited my right todo that." Then, seeing what was in her face, he reassured her. "I shallnot do that," he said. "It would be easier. But I shall have to goback and see what can be done."

He was the old Henri to the last, however. He went carefully over hersteamship ticket, and inquired with equal care into the amount of moneyshe had.

"It will take you home?" he asked.

"Very comfortably, Henri."

"It seems very little."

Then he said, apropos of nothing: "Poor Jean!"

When he left her at last he went to the door, very erect and soldierly.But he turned there and stood for a moment looking at her, as thoughthrough all that was coming he must have with him, to give him strength,that final picture of her.

The elderly chambermaid, coming into Sara Lee's room the next morning,found her fully dressed in the frock she had worn the night before, facedown on her bed.

XXIV

It was early in June when at last the lights went down behind the backdrop and came up in front, to show Sara Lee knitting again, though notby the fire. The amazing interlude was over.

Over, except in Sara Lee's heart. The voyage had been a nightmare. Shehad been ill for one thing—a combination of seasickness andheartsickness. She had allowed Henri to come to England with her, andthe Germans had broken through. All the good she had done—and she hadhelped—was nothing to this mischief she had wrought.

It had been a small raid. She gathered that from the papers on board.But that was not the vital thing. What mattered was that she had let aman forget his duty to his country in his solicitude for her.

But as the days went on the excitement of her return dulled the edge ofher misery somewhat. The thing was done. She could do only one thingto help. She would never go back, never again bring trouble andsuffering where she had meant only to bring aid and comfort.

She had a faint hope that Harvey would meet her at the pier. She neededcomforting and soothing, and perhaps a bit of praise. She was so verytired; depressed, too, if the truth be known. She needed a hand to leadher back to her old place on the stage, and kind faces to make her forgetthat she had ever gone away.

Because that was what she had to do. She must forget Henri and thelittle house on the road to the poplar trees; and most of all, she mustforget that because of her Henri had let the Germans through.

But Harvey did not meet her. There was a telegram saying he would meether train if she wired when she was leaving—an exultant messagebreathing forgiveness and signed "with much love." She flushed when sheread it.

Of course he could not meet her in New York. This was not the Continentin wartime, where convention had died of a great necessity. And he wasnot angry, after all. A great wave of relief swept over her. But itwas odd how helpless she felt. Since her arrival in England monthsbefore there had always been Henri to look after things for her. It wasincredible to recall how little she had done for herself.

Was she glad to be back? She did not ask herself. It was as though thevoyage had automatically detached her from that other Sara Lee of thelittle house. That was behind her, a dream—a mirage—or a memory.Here, a trifle confused by the bustle, was once again the Sara Lee whohad knitted for Anna, and tended the plants in the dining-room window,and watched Uncle James slowly lowered into his quiet grave.

Part of her detachment was voluntary. She could not bear to remember.

She had but to close her eyes to see Henri's tragic face that last nightat Morley's. And part of the detachment was because, after all, theinterlude had been but a matter of months, and reaching out familiarhands to her were the habits and customs and surroundings of all theearlier years of her life, drawing her back to them.

It was strange how Henri's face haunted her. She could close her eyesand see it, line by line, his very swagger—for he did swagger, just alittle; his tall figure and unruly hair; his long, narrow, muscularhands. Strange and rather uncomfortable. Because she could not summonHarvey's image at all. She tried to bring before her, that night in thetrain speeding west, his solid figure and kind eyes as they would greether the next day—tried, and failed. All she got was the profile ofthe photograph, and the stubborn angle of the jaw.

She was up very early the next morning, and it was then, as the trainrolled through familiar country, that she began to find Harvey again.A flush of tenderness warmed her. She must be very kind to him becauseof all that he had suffered.

The train came to a stop. Rather breathless Sara Lee went out on theplatform. Harvey was there, in the crowd. He did not see her at first.He was looking toward the front of the train. So her first glimpse ofhim was the view of the photograph. His hat was off, and his hair,carefully brushed back, gave him the eager look of the picture.

He was a strong and manly figure, as unlike Henri as an oak is unlikeone of Henri's own tall and swaying poplars. Sara Lee drew a longbreath. Here after all were rest and peace; love and gentleness; quietdays and still evenings. No more crowds and wounds and weary men, nomore great thunderings of guns, no imminence of death. Rest and peace.

Then Harvey saw her, and the gleam of happiness and relief in his eyesmade her own eyes misty. She saw even in that first glance that helooked thinner and older. A pang of remorse shot through her. Washappiness always bought at the cost of happiness? Did one always takeaway in order to give? Not in so many words, but in a flash of doubtthe thought went through her mind.

There was no reserve in Harvey's embrace. He put his arms about her andheld her close. He did not speak at first. Then:

"My own little girl," he said. "My own little girl!"

Suddenly Sara Lee was very happy. All her doubts were swept away by hisvoice, his arms. There was no thrill for her in his caress, but therewere peace and quiet joy. It was enough for her, just then, that shehad brought back some of the happiness she had robbed him of.

"Oh, Harvey!" she said. "I'm glad to be back again—with you."

He held her off then and looked at her.

"You are thin," he said. "You're not pale, but you are thin." And in aharder voice: "What did they do to you over there?"

But he did not wait for a reply. He did not seem to want one. He pickedup her bag, and guiding her by the elbow, piloted her through the crowd.

"A lot of folks wanted to come and meet you," he said, "but I steeredthem off. You'd have thought Roosevelt was coming to town the waythey've been calling up."

"To meet me?"

"I expect the Ladies' Aid Society wanted to get into the papers again,"he said rather grimly. "They are merry little advertisers, all right."

"I don't think that, Harvey."

"Well, I do," he said, and brought her to a stop facing a smart littlecar, very new, very gay.

"How do you like it?" he asked.

"Like it? Why, it's not yours, is it?"

"Surest thing you know. Or, rather, it's ours. Had a few war babies,and they grew up."

Sara Lee looked at it, and for just an instant, a rather sickeninginstant, she saw Henri's shattered low car, battle-scarred and broken.

"It's—lovely," said Sara Lee. And Harvey found no fault with her tone.

Sara Lee had intended to go to Anna's, for a time at least. But shefound that Belle was expecting her and would not take no.

"She's moved the baby in with the others," Harvey explained as he tookthe wheel. "Wait until you see your room. I knew we'd be buyingfurniture soon, so I fixed it up."

He said nothing for a time. He was new to driving a car, and the trafficengrossed him. But when they had reached a quieter neighborhood he puta hand over hers.

"Good God, how I've been hungry for you!" he said. "I guess I was prettynearly crazy sometimes." He glanced at her apprehensively, but if sheknew his connection with her recall she showed no resentment. As amatter of fact there was in his voice something that reminded her ofHenri, the same deeper note, almost husky.

She was, indeed, asking herself very earnestly what was there in her ofall people that should make two men care for her as both Henri and Harveycared. In the humility of all modest women she was bewildered. It madeher rather silent and a little sad. She was so far from being what theythought her.

Harvey, stealing a moment from the car to glance at her, saw somethingbaffling in her face.

"Do you still care, Sara Lee?" he asked almost diffidently. "As much asever?"

"I have come back to you," she said after an imperceptible pause.

"Well, I guess that's the answer."

He drew a deep satisfied breath. "I used to think of you over there,and all those foreigners in uniform strutting about, and it almost gotme, some times."

And again, as long before, he read into her passivity his own passion,and was deeply content.

Belle was waiting on the small front porch. There was an anxious frownon her face, and she looked first, not at Sara Lee, but at Harvey. Whatshe saw there evidently satisfied her, for the frown disappeared. Shekissed Sara Lee impulsively.

All that afternoon, much to Harvey's resentment, Sara Lee receivedcallers. The Ladies' Aid came en masse and went out to the dining-roomand there had tea and cake. Harvey disappeared when they came.

"You are back," he said, "and safe, and all that. But it's not theirfault. And I'll be hanged if I'll stand round and listen to them."

He got his hat and then, finding her alone in a back hall for a moment,reverted uneasily to the subject.

"There are two sides to every story," he said. "They're going to knifeme this afternoon, all right. Damned hypocrites! You just keep yourhead, and I'll tell you my side of it later."

"Harvey," she said slowly, "I want to know now just what you did. I'mnot angry. I've never been angry. But I ought to know."

It was a very one-sided story that Harvey told her, standing in thelittle back hall, with Belle's children hanging over the staircase andbegging for cake. Yet in the main it was true. He had reached hislimit of endurance. She was in danger, as the photograph plainly showed.And a fellow had a right to fight for his own happiness.

"I wanted you back, that's all," he ended. And added an anticlimax bypassing a plate of sliced jelly roll through the stair rail to theclamoring children.

Sara Lee stood there for a moment after he had gone. He was right, orat least he had been within his rights. She had never even heard of thenew doctrine of liberty for women. There was nothing in her training toteach her revolt. She was engaged to Harvey; already, potentially, shebelonged to him. He had interfered with her life, but he had had theright to interfere.

And also there was in the back of her mind a feeling that was almostguilt. She had let Henri tell her he loved her. She had even kissedhim. And there had been many times in the little house when Harvey, fordays at a time, had not even entered her thoughts. There was, therefore,a very real tenderness in the face she lifted for his good-by kiss.

To Belle in the front hall Harvey gave a firm order.

"Don't let any reporters in," he said warningly. "This is strictly ouraffair. It's a private matter. It's nobody's business what she did overthere. She's home. That's all that matters."

Belle assented, but she was uneasy. She knew that Harvey wasunreasonably, madly jealous of Sara Lee's work at the little house ofmercy, and she knew him well enough to know that sooner or later he wouldshow that jealousy. She felt, too, that the girl should have beenallowed her small triumph without interference. There had beeninterference enough already. But it was easier to yield to Harvey thanto argue with him.

It was rather a worried Belle who served tea that afternoon in her diningroom, with Mrs. Gregory pouring; the more uneasy, because already shedivined a change in Sara Lee. She was as lovely as ever, even lovelier.But she had a poise, a steadiness, that were new; and silences in which,to Belle's shrewd eyes, she seemed to be weighing things.

Reporters clamored to see Sara Lee that day, and, failing to see her,telephoned Harvey at his office to ask if it was true that she had beendecorated by the King. He was short to the point of affront.

"I haven't heard anything about it," he snapped. "And I wouldn't say ifI had. But it's not likely. What d'you fellows think she was doinganyhow? Leading a charge? She was running a soup kitchen. That's all."

He hung up the receiver with a jerk, but shortly after that he fell topacing his small office. She had not said anything about being decorated,but the reporters had said it had been in a London newspaper. If shehad not told him that, there were probably many things she had not toldhim. But of course there had been very little time. He would see ifshe mentioned it that night.

Sara Lee had had a hard day. The children loved her. In the intervalsof calls they crawled over her, and the littlest one called her Saralie.She held the child in her arms close.

"Saralie!" said the child, over and over; "Saralie! That's your name.I love your name."

And there came, echoing in her ears, Henri and his tender Saralie.

There was an oppression on her too. Her very bedroom thrust on her herapproaching marriage. This was her own furniture, for her new home. Itwas beautiful, simple and good. But she was not ready for marriage. Shehad been too close to the great struggle to be prepared to think in termsof peace so soon. Perhaps, had she dared to look deeper than that, shewould have found something else, a something she had not counted on.

She and Belle had a little time after the visitors had gone, beforeHarvey came home. They sat in Belle's bedroom, and her sentences werepunctuated by little backs briskly presented to have small garmentsfastened, or bows put on stiffly bobbed yellow hair.

"Did you understand my letter?" she asked. "I was sorry I had sent it,but it was too late then."

"I put your letter and—theirs, together. I supposed that Harvey—"

"He was about out of his mind," Belle said in her worried voice. "Standstill, Mary Ellen! He went to Mrs. Gregory, and I suppose he said a goodbit. You know the way he does. Anyhow, she was very angry. She calleda special meeting, and—I tried to prevent their recalling you. Hedoesn't know that, of course."

"You tried?"

"Well, I felt as though it was your work," Belle said ratheruncomfortably. "Bring me the comb, Alice. I guess we get pretty narrowhere and—I've been following things more closely since you went over.I know more than I did. And, of course, after one marries there isn'tmuch chance. There are children and—" Her face twisted. "I wish Icould do something."

She got up and brought from the dresser a newspaper clipping.

"It's the London newspaper," she explained. "I've been taking it, butHarvey doesn't know. He doesn't care much for the English. This isabout your being decorated."

Sara Lee held it listlessly in her hands.

"Shall I tell him, Belle?" she asked.

Belle hesitated.

"I don't believe I would," she said forlornly. "He won't like it.That's why I've never showed him that clipping. He hates it all so."

Sara Lee dressed that evening in the white frock. She dressed slowly,thinking hard. All round her was the shiny newness of her furniture,a trifle crowded in Belle's small room. Sara Lee had a terrible feelingof being fastened in by it. Wherever she turned it gleamed. She feltsurrounded, smothered.

She had meant to make a clean breast of things—of the little house,and of Henri, and of the King, pinning the medal on her shabby blackjacket and shaking hands with her. Henri she must tell about—not hisname of course, nor his madness, nor even his love. But she felt thatshe owed it to Harvey to have as few secrets from him as possible. Shewould tell about what the boy had done for her, and how he, and he alone,had made it all possible.

Surely Harvey would understand. It was a page that was closed. It hadheld nothing to hurt him. She had come back.

She stood by her window, thinking. And a breath of wind set the leavesoutside to rustling. Instantly she was back again in the little house,and the sound was not leaves, but the shuffling of many stealthy feeton the cobbles of the street at night, that shuffling that was so likethe rustling of leaves in a wood or the murmur of water running over astony creek bed.

XXV

It was clear to Sara Lee from the beginning of the evening that Harveydid not intend to hear her story. He did not say so; indeed, for a timehe did not talk at all. He sat with his arms round her, content just tohave her there.

"I have a lot of arrears to make up," he said. "I've got to get used tohaving you where I can touch you. To-night when I go upstairs I'm goingto take that damned colorless photograph of you and throw it out thewindow."

"I must tell you about your photograph," she ventured. "It always stoodon the mantel over the stove, and when there was a threatened bombardmentI used to put it under—"

"Let's not talk, honey."

When he came out of that particular silence he said abruptly:

"Will Leete is dead."

"Oh, no! Poor Will Leete."

"Died of pneumonia in some God-forsaken hole over there. He's left awife and nothing much to keep her. That's what comes of mixing in theother fellow's fight. I guess we can get the house as soon as we wantit. She has to sell; and it ought to be a bargain."

"Harvey," she said rather timidly, "you speak of the other fellow'sfight. They say over there that we are sure to be drawn into it sooneror later."

"Not on our life!" he replied brusquely. "And if you don't mind, honey,I don't care to hear about what they think over there." He got up fromhis old place on the arm of her chair and stood on the rug. "I'd bettertell you now how I feel about this thing. I can't talk about it, that'sall. We'll finish up now and let it go at that. I'm sorry there's awar. I'll send money when I can afford it, to help the Belgians, thoughmy personal opinion is that they're getting theirs for what they did inthe Congo. But I don't want to hear about what you did over there."

He saw her face, and he went to her and kissed her cheek.

"I don't want to hurt you, honey," he said. "I love you with all myheart. But somehow I can't forget that you left me and went over therewhen there was no reason for it. You put off our marriage, and Isuppose we'd better get it over. Go ahead and tell me about it."

He drew up a chair and waited, but the girl smiled rather tremulously.

"Perhaps we'd better wait, if you feel that way, Harvey."

His face was set as he looked at her.

"There's only one thing I want to know," he said. "And I've got a rightto know that. You're a young girl, and you're beautiful—to me, anyhow.You've been over there with a lot of crazy foreigners." He got up againand all the bitterness of the empty months was in his voice. "Did anyof them—was there anybody there you cared about?"

"I came back, Harvey."

"That's not the question."

"There were many men—officers—who were kind to me. I—"

"That's not the question, either."

"If I had loved any one more than I loved you I should not have comeback."

"Wait a minute!" he said quickly. "You had to come back, you know."

"I could have stayed. The Englishwoman who took over my work asked meto stay on and help her."

He was satisfied then. He went back to the arm of her chair and kissedher.

"All right," he said. "I've suffered the tortures of the damned,but—that fixes it. Now let's talk about something else. I'm sick ofthis war talk."

"I'd like to tell you about my little house. And poor René—"

"Who was René?" he demanded.

"The orderly."

"The one on the step, with a rifle?"

"Yes."

"Look here," he said. "I've got to get to all that gradually. I don'tknow that I'll ever get to it cheerfully. But I can't talk about thatplace to-night. And I don't want to talk war. The whole business makesme sick. I've got a car out of it, and if things keep on we may be ableto get the Leete house. But there's no reason in it, no sense. I'msick to death of hearing about it. Let's talk of something else."

But—and here was something strange—Sara Lee could find nothing elseto talk about. The thing that she had looked forward so eagerly totelling—that was barred. And the small gossip of their little circle,purely personal and trivial, held only faint interest for her. For thefirst time they had no common ground to meet on.

Yet it was a very happy man who went whistling to his room that night.He was rather proud of himself too. After all the bitterness of thepast months, he had been gentle and loving to Sara Lee. He had notscolded her.

In the next room he could hear her going quietly about, opening andclosing the drawers of the new bureau, moving a chair. Pretty soon, Godwilling, they need never be separated. He would have her always, toprotect and cherish and love.

He went outside to her closed door.

"Good night, sweetheart," he called softly.

"Good night, dear," came her soft reply.

But long after he was asleep Sara Lee stood at her window and listenedto the leaves, so like the feet of weary men on the ruined street overthere.

For the first time she was questioning the thing she had done. Sheloved Harvey—but there were many kinds of love. There was the love ofJean for Henri, and there was the wonderful love, though the memory nowwas cruel and hurt her, of Henri for herself. And there was the love ofMarie for the memory of Maurice the spy. Many kinds of love; and oneheart might love many people, in different ways.

A small doubt crept into her mind. This feeling she had for Harvey wasnot what she had thought it was over there. It was a thing that hadbelonged to a certain phase of her life. But that phase was over. Itwas, like Marie's, but a memory.

This Harvey of the new car and the increased income and the occasionalhardness in his voice was not the Harvey she had left. Or perhaps itwas she who had changed. She wondered. She felt precisely the same,tender toward her friends, unwilling to hurt them. She did not wantto hurt Harvey.

But she did not love him as he deserved to be loved. And she had amomentary lift of the veil, when she saw the long vista of the years,the two of them always together and always between them hidden,untouched, but eating like a cancer, Harvey's resentment and suspicionof her months away from him.

There would always be a barrier between them. Not only on Harvey's side.There were things she had no right to tell—of Henri, of his love andcare for her, and of that last terrible day when he realized what he haddone.

That night, lying in the new bed, she faced that situation too. Howmuch was she to blame? If Henri felt that each life lost was lost byhim wasn't the same true for her? Why had she allowed him to stay inLondon?

But that was one question she did not answer frankly.

She lay there in the darkness and wondered what punishment he wouldreceive. He had done so much for them over there. Surely, surely, theywould allow for that. But small things came back to her—the awfulsight of the miller and his son, led away to death, with the sacks overtheir heads. The relentlessness of it all, the expecting that menshould give everything, even life itself, and ask for no mercy.

And this, too, she remembered: Once in a wild moment Henri had said hewould follow her to America, and that there he would prove to her thathis and not Harvey's was the real love of her life—the great love,that comes but once to any woman, and to some not at all. Yet on thatlast night at Morley's he had said what she now felt was a finalfarewell. That last look of his, from the doorway—that had been thelook of a man who would fill his eyes for the last time.

She got up and stood by the window. What had they done to him? Whatwould they do? She looked at her watch. It was four o'clock in themorning over there. The little house would be quiet now, but down alongthe lines men would be standing on the firing step of the trench, andwaiting, against what the dawn might bring.

Through the thin wall came the sound of Harvey's heavy, regularbreathing. She remembered Henri's light sleeping on the kitchen floor,his cap on the table, his cape rolled round him—a sleeping, for allhis weariness, so light that he seemed always half conscious. Sheremembered the innumerable times he had come in at this hour, muddy,sometimes rather gray of face with fatigue, but always cheerful.

It was just such an hour that she found him giving hot coffee to theGerman prisoner. It had been but a little earlier when he had taken herto the roof and had there shown her René, lying with his face up towardthe sky which had sent him death.

A hundred memories crowded—Henri's love for the Belgian soldiers, andtheirs for him; his humor; his absurd riddles. There was the one he hadasked René, the very day before the air attack. He had stood stiffly andfrowningly before the boy, and he had asked in a highly official tone:

"What must a man be to be buried with military honors?"

"A general?"

"No."

"An officer?"

"No, no! Use your head boy! This is very important. A mistake wouldbe most serious."

René had shaken his head dejectedly.

"He must be dead, René," Henri had said gravely. "Entirely dead. As Isaid, it is well to know these things. A mistake would be unfortunate."

His blue eyes had gleamed with fun, but his face had remained frowning.It was quite five minutes before she had heard René chuckling on thedoorstep.

Was he still living, this Henri of the love of life and courting ofdeath? Could anything so living die? And if he had died had it beenbecause of her? She faced that squarely for the first time.

"Perhaps even beyond the stars they have need of a little house of mercy;and, God knows, wherever I am I shall have need of you."

Beyond the partition Harvey slept on, his arms under his head.

XXVI

Harvey was clamoring for an early wedding. And indeed there were fewarguments against it, save one that Sara Lee buried in her heart.Belle's house was small, and though she was welcome there, and more thanthat, Sara Lee knew that she was crowding the family.

Perhaps Sara Lee would have agreed in the end. There seemed to benothing else to do, though by the end of the first week she was no longerin any doubt as to what her feeling for Harvey really was. It waskindness, affection; but it was not love. She would marry him becauseshe had promised to, and because their small world expected her to do so;and because she could not shame him again.

For to her surprise she found that that was what he had felt—a strange,self-conscious shame, like that of a man who has been jilted. She feltthat by coming back to him she had forfeited the right to break theengagement.

So every hour of every day seemed to make the thing more inevitable.Belle was embroidering towels for her in her scant leisure. Even Anna,with a second child coming, sent in her contribution to the bride'slinen chest. By almost desperately insisting on a visit to Aunt Harrietshe got a reprieve of a month. And Harvey was inclined to be jealouseven of that.

Sometimes, but mostly at night when she was alone, a hot wave ofresentment overwhelmed her. Why should she be forced into the thing?Was there any prospect of happiness after marriage when there was solittle before?

For she realized now that even Harvey was not happy. He had at lastdefinitely refused to hear the story of the little house.

"I'd rather just forget it, honey!" he said.

But inconsistently he knew she did not forget it, and it angered him.True to his insistence on ignoring those months of her absence, she madeno attempt to tell him. Now and then, however, closed in the librarytogether, they would fail of things to talk about, and Sara Lee'sknitting needles would be the only sound in the room. At those times hewould sit back in his chair and watch the far-away look in her eyes, andit maddened him.

From her busy life Belle studied them both, with an understanding shedid not reveal. And one morning when the mail came she saw Sara Lee'sface as she turned away, finding there was no letter for her, and madean excuse to follow her to her room.

The girl was standing by the window looking out. The children wereplaying below, and the maple trees were silent. Belle joined her thereand slipped an arm round her.

"Why are you doing it, Sara Lee?" she asked.

"Doing what?"

"Marrying Harvey."

Sara Lee looked at her with startled eyes.

"I'm engaged to him, Belle. I've promised."

"Exactly," said Belle dryly. "But that's hardly a good reason, is it?It takes more than a promise." She stared down at the flock of childrenin the yard below. "Harvey's a man," she said. "He doesn't understand,but I do. You've got to care a whole lot, Sara Lee, if you're going togo through with it. It takes a lot of love, when it comes to havingchildren and all that."

"He's so good, Belle. How can I hurt him?"

"You'll hurt him a lot more by marrying him when you don't love him."

"If only I could have a little time," she cried wildly. "I'm so—I'mtired, Belle. And I can't forget about the war and all that. I'vetried. Sometimes I think if we could talk it over together I'd get itout of my mind."

"He won't talk about it?"

"He's my own brother, and I love him dearly. But sometimes I think he'shard. Not that he's ever ugly," she hastened to add; "but he's stubborn.There's a sort of wall in him, and he puts some things behind it. Andit's like beating against a rock to try to get at them."

After a little silence she said hesitatingly:

"We've got him to think of too. He has a right to be happy. SometimesI've looked at you—you're so pretty, Sara Lee—and I've wondered ifthere wasn't some one over there who—cared for you."

"There was one man, an officer—Oh, Belle, I can't tell you. Not you!"

"Why not!" asked Belle practically. "You ought to talk it out to someone, and if Harvey insists on being a fool that's his own fault."

For all the remainder of that sunny morning Sara Lee talked what was inher heart. And Belle—poor, romantic, starved Belle—heard andthrilled. She made buttonholes as she listened, but once or twice anew tone in Sara Lee's voice caused her to look up. Here was a newSara Lee, a creature of vibrant voice and glowing eyes; and Belle wasnot stupid. She saw that it was Henri whose name brought the deeper note.

Sara Lee had stopped with her recall, had stopped and looked about theroom with its shiny new furniture and had shivered. Belle bent over herwork.

"Why don't you go back?" she asked.

Sara Lee looked at her piteously.

"How can I? There is Harvey. And the society would not send me again.It's over, Belle. All over."

After a pause Belle said: "What's become of Henri? He hasn't written,has he?"

Sara Lee got up and went to the window.

"I don't know where he is. He may be dead."

Her voice was flat and lifeless. Belle knew all that she wanted to know.She rose and gathered up her sewing.

"I'm going to talk to Harvey. You're not going to be rushed into awedding. You're tired, and it's all nonsense. Well, I'll have to runnow and dress the children."

That night Harvey and Belle had almost a violent scene. He had takenSara Lee over the Leete house that evening. Will Leete's widow had metthem there, a small sad figure in her mourning, but very composed, untilshe opened the door into a tiny room upstairs with a desk and a lampin it.

"This was Will's study," she said. "He did his work here in theevenings, and I sat in that little chair and sewed. I never thoughtthen—" Her lips quivered.

"Pretty rotten of Will Leete to leave that little thing alone," saidHarvey on their way home. "He had his fling; and she's paying for it."

But Sara Lee was silent. It was useless to try to make Harvey understandthe urge that had called Will Leete across the sea to do his share forthe war, and that had brought him that peace of God that passeth allunderstanding.

It was not a good time for Belle to put up to him her suggestion for adelay in the marriage, that evening after their return. He took itbadly and insisted on sending upstairs for Sara Lee.

"Did you ask Belle to do this?" he demanded bluntly.

"To do what?"

"To put things off."

"I have already told you, Harvey," Belle put in. "It is my own idea.She is tired. She's been through a lot. I've heard the story you'retoo stubborn to listen to. And I strongly advise her to wait a while."

And after a time he agreed ungraciously. He would buy the house and fixit over, and in the early fall it would be ready.

"Unless," he added to Sara Lee with a bitterness born ofdisappointment—"unless you change your mind again."

He did not kiss her that night when she and Belle went together up thestairs. But he stared after her gloomily, with hurt and bewilderment inhis eyes.

He did not understand. He never would. She had come home to him allgentleness and tenderness, ready to find in him the things she needed sobadly. But out of his obstinacy and hurt he had himself built up abarrier.

That night Sara Lee dreamed that she was back in the little house ofmercy. René was there; and Henri; and Jean, with the patch over his eye.They were waiting for the men to come, and the narrow hall was full ofthe odor of Marie's soup. Then she heard them coming, the shuffling ofmany feet on the road. She went to the door, with Henri beside her, andwatched them coming up the road, a deeper shadow in the blackness—tiredmen, wounded men, homeless men coming to her little house with itsfirelight and its warmth. Here and there the match that lighted acigarette showed a white but smiling face. They stopped before the door,and the warm little house, with its guarded lights and its food andcheer, took them in.

XXVII

Very pale and desperate, Henri took the night A train for Folkestoneafter he had said good-by to Sara Lee. He alternately chilled andburned with fever, and when he slept, as he did now and then, going offsuddenly into a doze and waking with a jerk, it was to dream of horrors.

He thought, in his wilder intervals, of killing himself. But his codedid not include such a shirker's refuge. He was going back to tell hisstory and to take his punishment.

He had cabled to Jean to meet him at Calais, but when, at dawn the nextmorning, the channel boat drew in to the wharf there was no sign ofJean or the car. Henri regarded the empty quay with apathetic eyes.They would come, later on. If he could only get his head down and sleepfor a while he would be better able to get toward the Front. For heknew now that he was ill. He had, indeed, been ill for days, but he didnot realize that. And he hated illness. He regarded it with suspicion,as a weakness not for a strong man.

The drowsy girl in her chair at the Gare Maritime regarded him curiouslyand with interest. Many women turned to look after Henri, but he didnot know this. Had he known it he would have regarded it much as hedid illness.

The stupid boy was not round. The girl herself took the key and led theway down the long corridor upstairs to a room. Henri stumbled in andfell across the bed. He was almost immediately asleep.

Late in the afternoon he wakened. Strange that Jean had not come. Hegot up and bathed his face. His right arm was very stiff now, and painsran from the old wound in his chest down to the fingers of his hand. Hetried to exercise to limber it, and grew almost weak with pain.

At six o'clock, when Jean had not come, Henri resorted to ways that heknew of and secured a car. He had had some coffee by that time, and hefelt much better—so well indeed that he sang under his breath astrange rambling song that sounded rather like René's rendering ofTipperary. The driver looked at him curiously every now and then.

It was ten o'clock when they reached La Panne. Henri went at once tothe villa set high on a sand dune where the King's secretary lived. Thehouse was dark, but in the library at the rear there was a light. Hestumbled along the paths beside the house, and reached at last, afterinterminable miles, when the path sometimes came up almost to his eyesand again fell away so that it seemed to drop from under his feet—atlast he reached the long French doors, with their drawn curtains. Heopened the door suddenly and thereby surprised the secretary, who was amost dignified and rather nervous gentleman, into laying his hand on aheavy inkwell.

"I wish to see the King," said Henri in a loud tone. Because at thatmoment the secretary, lamp and inkwell and all, retired suddenly to avery great distance, as if one had viewed them through the reverse endof an opera glass.

The secretary knew Henri. He, too, eyed him curiously.

"The King has retired, monsieur."

"I think," said Henri in a dangerous tone, "that he will see me."

To tell the truth, the secretary rather thought so too. There was astrange rumor going round, to the effect that the boy had followed awoman to England at a critical time. Which would have been a pity, thesecretary thought. There were so many women, and so few men like Henri.

The secretary considered gravely. Henri was by that time in a chair, butit moved about so that he had to hold very tight to the arms. When helooked up again the secretary had picked up his soft black hat and wasat the door.

"I shall inquire," he said. Henri saluted him stiffly, with his lefthand, as he went out.

The secretary went to His Majesty's equerry, who was in the next houseplaying solitaire and trying to forget the family he had left on theother side of the line.

So it was that in due time Henri again traversed miles of path andpavement, between tall borders of wild sea grass, miles which perhapswere a hundred yards. And went round the screen, and—found the Kingon the hearthrug. But when he drew himself stiffly to attention heoverdid the thing rather and went over backward with a crash.

He was up again almost immediately, very flushed and uncomfortable.After that he kept himself in hand, but the King, who had a way all hisown of forgetting his divine right to rule, and a great many otherthings—the King watched him gravely.

Henri sat in a chair and made a clean breast of it. Because he wasfeeling rather strange he told a great many things that an agent of thesecret service is hardly expected to reveal to his king. He mentioned,for instance, the color of Sara Lee's eyes, and the way she bandaged,like one who had been trained.

Once, in the very middle of his narrative, where he had put the letterfrom the Front in his pocket and decided to go to England anyhow, hestopped and hummed René's version of Tipperary. Only a bar or two.Then he remembered.

But one thing brought him round with a start.

"Then," said the King slowly, "Jean was not with you?"

Only he did not call him Jean. He gave him his other name, which, likeHenri's, is not to be told.

Henri's brain cleared then with the news that Jean was missing. When,somewhat later, he staggered out of the villa, it was under royalinstructions to report to the great hospital along the sea front andnear by, and there to go to bed and have a doctor. Indeed, because theboy's eyes were wild by that time, the equerry went along and held hisarm. But that was because Henri was in open revolt, and while walkingsteadily enough showed a tendency to bolt every now and then.

He would stop on the way and argue, though one does not argue easilywith an equerry.

"I must go," he would say fretfully. "God knows where he is. He'dnever give me up if I were the one."

And once he shook off the equerry violently and said:

"Let go of me, I tell you! I'll come back and go to bed when I'vefound him."

The equerry soothed him like a child.

An English nurse took charge of Henri in the hospital, and put him tobed. He was very polite to her, and extremely cynical. She sat in achair by his bed and held the key of the room in her hand. Once hethought she was Sara Lee, but that was only for a moment. She did notlook like Sara Lee. And she was suspicious, too; for when he asked herwhat she could put in her left hand that she could not put in her right,she moved away and placed the door key on the stand, out of reach.

However, toward morning she dozed. There was steady firing at Nieuportand the windows shook constantly. An ambulance came in, followed by astirring on the lower floor. Then silence. He got up then and securedthe key. There was no time for dressing, because she was a suspiciousperson and likely to waken at any time. He rolled his clothing into abundle and carried it under his well arm. The other was almost useless.

The ambulance was still waiting outside, at the foot of the staircase.There were voices and lights in the operating room, forward along thetiled hall. Still in his night clothing, Henri got into the ambulanceand threw his uniform behind him. Then he got the car under way.

Outside the village he paused long enough to dress. His head wasamazingly clear. He had never felt so sure of himself before. As tohis errand he had no doubt whatever. Jean had learned that he hadcrossed the channel. Therefore Jean had taken up his work—Jean, whohad but one eye and was as clumsy as a bear. The thought of Jeancrawling through the German trenches set him laughing until he endedwith a sob.

It was rather odd about the ambulance. It did not keep the road verywell. Sometimes it was on one side and sometimes on the other. It slidas though the road were greased. And after a time Henri made an amazingdiscovery. He was not alone in the car.

He looked back, without stopping, and the machine went off in a wide arc.He brought it back again, grinning.

"Thought you had me, didn't you?" he observed to the car in general, andthe engine in particular. "Now no tricks!"

There was a wounded man in the car. He had had morphia and he was verycomfortable. He was not badly hurt, and he considered that he was beingtaken to Calais. He was too tired to talk, and the swinging of the carrather interested him. He would doze and waken and doze again. But atlast he heard something that made him rise on his elbow.

It was the hammering of the big guns.

He called Henri's attention to this, but Henri said:

"Lie down, Jean, and don't talk. We'll make it yet."

The wounded man intended to make a protest, but he went to sleep instead.

They had reached the village now where was the little house of mercy.The ambulance rolled and leaped down the street, with both lights fullon, which was forbidden, and came to a stop at the door. The man insidewas grunting then, and Henri, whose head had never been so clear, gotout and went round to the rear of the car.

"Now, out with you, comrade!" he said. "I have made an error, but it isimmaterial. Can you walk?"

He lighted a cigarette, and the man inside saw his burning eyes andshaking hands. Even through the apathy of the morphia he felt a thrillof terror. He could walk. He got out while Henri pounded at the door.

"Attention!" he called. "Attention!"

Then he hummed an air of the camps:

Trou là là, ça ne va guère;

Trou là là, ça ne va pas.

When he heard steps inside Henri went back to the ambulance. He got inand drove it, lights and all, down the street.

Trou là là, ça ne va guère;

Trou là là, ça ne va pas.

Somewhere down the road beyond the poplar trees he abandoned the ambulance.They found it there the next morning, or rather what was left of it.Evidently its two unwinking eyes had got on the Germans' nerves.

Early the next morning a Saxon regiment, standing on the firing stepready for what the dawn might bring forth, watched the mist rise fromthe water in front of them. It shone on a body in a Belgian uniform,lying across their wire, and very close indeed.

Now the Saxons are not Prussians, so no one for sport fired at the body.Which was rather a good thing, because it moved slightly and stirred.And then in a loud voice, which is an unusual thing for bodies topossess, it began to sing:

Trou là là, ça ne va guère;

Trou là là, ça ne va pas.

XXVIII

Late in August Sara Lee broke her engagement with Harvey. She had beenaway, at Cousin Jennie's, for a month, and for the first time since herreturn she had had time to think. In the little suburban town therewere long hours of quiet when Cousin Jennie mended on the porch and AuntHarriet, enjoying a sort of reflected glory from Sara Lee, presidedat Red Cross meetings.

Sara Lee decided to send for Harvey, and he came for a week-end, arrivingpathetically eager, but with a sort of defiance too. He was determinedto hold her, but to hold her on his own terms.

Aunt Harriet had been vaguely uneasy, but Harvey's arrival seemed to puteverything right. She even kissed him when he came, and took great painsto carry off Cousin Jennie when she showed an inclination towardconversation and a seat on the porch.

Sara Lee had made a desperate resolve. She intended to lay all hercards on the table. He should know all that there was to know. If,after that, he still wanted to hold her—but she did not go so far.She was so sure he would release her.

It was a despairing thing to do, but she was rather despairing thosedays. There had been no letter from Henri or from Jean. She had writtenthem both several times, to Dunkirk, to the Savoy in London, to thelittle house near the Front. But no replies had come. Yet mail wasgoing through. Mabel Andrews' letters from Boulogne came regularly.

When August went by, with no letters save Harvey's, begging her to comeback, she gave up at last. In the little church on Sundays, with Jennieon one side and Aunt Harriet on the other, she voiced small silentprayers—that the thing she feared had not happened. But she could notthink of Henri as not living. He was too strong, too vital.

She did not understand herself those days. She was desperately unhappy.Sometimes she wondered if it would not be easier to know the truth, evenif that truth comprehended the worst.

Once she received, from some unknown hand, a French journal, and poredover it for days with her French dictionary, to find if it contained anynews. It was not until a week later that she received a letter fromMabel, explaining that she had sent the journal, which contained adescription of her hospital.

All of Harvey's Sunday she spent in trying to bring her courage to thepoint of breaking the silence he had imposed on her, but it was notuntil evening that she succeeded. The house was empty. The family hadgone to church. On the veranda, with the heavy scent of phlox at nightpermeating the still air, Sara Lee made her confession. She began atthe beginning. Harvey did not stir—until she told of the way she hadstowed away to cross the channel. Then he moved.

"This fellow who planned that for you—did you ever see him again?"

"He met me in Calais."

"And then what?"

"He took me to Dunkirk in his car. Such a hideous car, Harvey—allwrecked. It had been under fire again and again. I—"

"He took you to Dunkirk! Who was with you?"

"Just Jean, the chauffeur."

"I like his nerve! Wasn't there in all that Godforsaken country awoman to take with you? You and this—What was his name, anyhow?"

"I can't tell you that, Harvey."

"Look here!" he burst out. "How much of this aren't you going to tell?Because I want it all or not at all."

"I can't tell you his name. I'm only trying to make you understand theway I feel about things. His name doesn't matter." She clenched herhands in the darkness. "I don't think he is alive now."

He tried to see her face, but she turned it away.

"Dead, eh? What makes you think that?"

"I haven't heard from him."

"Why should you hear from him?" His voice cut like a knife. "Look atme. Why should he write to you?"

"He cared for me, Harvey."

He sat in a heavy silence which alarmed her.

"Don't be angry, please," she begged. "I couldn't bear it. It wasn't myfault, or his either."

"The damned scoundrel!" said Harvey thickly.

But she reached over and put a trembling hand over his lips.

"Don't say that," she said. "Don't! I won't allow you to. When Ithink what may have happened to him, I—" Her voice broke.

"Go on," Harvey said in cold tones she had never heard before. "Tell itall, now you've begun it. God knows I didn't want to hear it. He tookyou to the hotel at Dunkirk, the way those foreigners take their women.And he established you in the house at the Front, I suppose, like a—"

Sara Lee suddenly stood up and drew off her ring.

"You needn't go on," she said quietly. "I had a decision to maketo-night, and I have made it. Ever since I came home I have been tryingto go back to where we were before I left. It isn't possible. You arewhat you always were, Harvey. But I've changed. I can't go back."

She put the ring into his hand.

"It isn't that you don't love me. I think you do. But I've beenthinking things over. It isn't only to-night, or what you just said.It's because we don't care for the same things, or believe in them."

"But—if we love each other—"

"It's not that, either. I used to feel that way. A home, and some oneto care about, and a little pleasure and work."

"That ought to be enough, honey."

He was terrified. His anger was gone. He placed an appealing hand onher arm, and as she stood there in the faint starlight the wonder of heronce again got him by the throat. She had that sort of repressedeagerness, that look of being poised for flight, that had always madehim feel cheap and unworthy.

"Isn't that enough, honey?" he repeated.

"Not now," she said, her eyes turned toward the east. "These are greatdays, Harvey. They are greater and more terrible than any one can knowwho has not been there. I've been there and I know. I haven't theright to all this peace and comfort when I know how things are goingover there."

Down the quiet street of the little town service was over. The lasthymn had been sung. Through the open windows came the mellow sound ofthe minister's voice in benediction, too far away to be more than atone, like a single deep note of the organ. Sara Lee listened. Sheknew the words he was saying, and she listened with her eyes turned tothe east:

"The peace of God that passeth all understanding be and abide with you all, forevermore. Amen."

Sara Lee listened, and from the step below her Harvey watched her withfurtive, haggard eyes. He had not heard the benediction.

"The peace of God!" she said slowly. "There is only one peace of God,Harvey, and that is service. I am going back."

"Service!" he scoffed. "You are going back to him!"

"I'm afraid he is not there any more. I am going back to work. But ifhe is there—"

Harvey slid the ring into his pocket. "What if he's not there," hedemanded bitterly. "If you think, after all this, that I'm going towait, on the chance of your coming back to me, you're mistaken. I'vebeen a laughing stock long enough."

In the light of her new decision Sara Lee viewed him for the first timewith the pitiless eyes of women who have lost a faith. She saw him forwhat he was, not deliberately cruel, not even unkindly, but selfish,small, without vision. Harvey was for his own fireside, his office, hislittle family group. His labor would always be for himself and his own.Whereas Sara Lee was, now and forever, for all the world, her handsconsecrated to bind up its little wounds and to soothe its great ones.Harvey craved a cheap and easy peace. She wanted no peace except thatbought by service, the peace of a tired body, the peace of the littlehouse in Belgium where, after days of torture, weary men found quietand ease and the cheer of the open door.

XXIX

Late in October Sara Lee went back to the little house of mercy; wentunaccredited, and with her own money. She had sold her bit of property.

In London she went to the Traverses, as before. But with a differencetoo. For Sara Lee had learned the strangeness of the English, who areslow to friendships but who never forget. Indeed a telegram met her atLiverpool asking her to stop with them in London. She replied, refusing,but thanking them, and saying she would call the next afternoon.

Everything was the same at Morley's: Rather a larger percentage of menin uniform, perhaps; greater crowds in the square; a little less of theoptimism which in the spring had predicted victory before autumn. Butthe same high courage, for all that.

August greeted her like an old friend. Even the waiters bowed to her,and upstairs the elderly chambermaid fussed over her like a mother.

"And you're going back!" she exclaimed. "Fancy that, now! You arebrave, miss."

But her keen eyes saw a change in Sara Lee. Her smile was the same, butthere were times when she forgot to finish a sentence, and she stood,that first morning, for an hour by the window, looking out as if she sawnothing.

She went, before the visit to the Traverses, to the Church of SaintMartin in the Fields. It was empty, save for a woman in a corner, whodid not kneel, but sat staring quietly before her. Sara Lee prayed aninarticulate bit of a prayer, that what the Traverses would have to tellher should not be the thing that she feared, but that, if it were, shebe given courage to meet it and to go on with her work.

The Traverses would know; Mrs. Cameron was a friend. They would knowabout Henri, and about Jean. Soon, within the hour, she would learneverything. So she asked for strength, and then sat there for a time,letting the peace of the old church quiet her, as had the broken wallsand shattered altar of that other church, across the channel.

It was rather a surprise to Sara Lee to have Mrs. Travers put her armsabout her and kiss her. Mr. Travers, too, patted her hand when he tookit. But they had, for all that, the reserve of their class. Much thatthey felt about Sara Lee they did not express even to each other.

"We are so grateful to you," Mrs. Travers said. "I am only one mother,and of course now—" She looked down at her black dress. "But how manyothers there are who will want to thank you, when this terrible thing isover and they learn about you!"

Mr. Travers had been eying Sara Lee.

"Didn't use you up, did it?" he asked. "You're not looking quite fit."

Sara Lee was very pale just then. In a moment she would know.

"I'm quite well," she said. "I—do you hear from Mrs. Cameron?"

"Frequently. She has worked hard, but she is not young." It was Mrs.Travers who spoke. "She's afraid of the winter there. I rather think,since you want to go back, that she will be glad to turn your domainover to you for a time."

"Then—the little house is still there?"

"Indeed, yes! A very famous little house, indeed. But it is alwaysknown as your house. She has felt like a temporary chatelaine. Shealways thought you would come back."

Tea had come, as before. The momentary stir gave her a chance to braceherself. Mr. Travers brought her cup to her and smiled gently downat her.

"We have a plan to talk over," he said, "when you have had your tea. Ihope you will agree to it."

He went back to the hearthrug.

"When I was there before," Sara Lee said, trying to hold her cup steady,"there was a young Belgian officer who was very kind to me. Indeed, allthe credit for what I did belongs to him. And since I went home Ihaven't heard—"

Her voice broke suddenly. Mr. Travers glanced at his wife. Not fornothing had Mrs. Cameron written her long letters to these old friends,in the quiet summer afternoons when the sun shone down on the lifelessstreet before the little house.

"I'm afraid we have bad news for you." Mrs. Travers put down heruntasted tea. "Or rather, we have no news. Of course," she added,seeing Sara Lee's eyes, "in this war no news may be the best—that is,he may be a prisoner."

"That," Sara Lee heard herself say, "is impossible. If they capturedhim they would shoot him."

Mrs. Travers nodded silently. They knew Henri's business, too, by thattime, and that there was no hope for a captured spy.

"And—Jean?"

They did not know of Jean; so she told them, still in that far-awayvoice. And at last Mrs. Travers brought an early letter of Mrs.Cameron's and read a part of it aloud.

"He seems to have been delirious," she read, holding her reading glassesto her eyes. "A friend of his, very devoted to him, was missing, and helearned this somehow.

"He escaped from the hospital and got away in an ambulance. He camestraight here and wakened us. There had been a wounded man in themachine, and he left him on our doorstep. When I got to the door thecar was going wildly toward the Front, with both lamps lighted. We didnot understand then, of course, and no one thought of following it. Theambulance was found smashed by a shell the next morning, and at first wethought that he had been in it. But there was no sign that he had been,and that night one of the men from the trenches insisted that he hadclimbed out of a firing trench where the soldier stood, and had goneforward, bareheaded, toward the German lines.

"I am afraid it was the end. The men, however, who all loved him, donot think so. It seems that he has done miracles again and again. Iunderstand that along the whole Belgian line they watch for him at night.The other night a German on reconnoissance got very close to our wire,and was greeted not by shots but by a wild hurrah. He was almostparalyzed with surprise. They brought him here on the way back to theprison camp, and he still looked dazed."

Sara Lee sat with her hands clenched. Mrs. Travers folded the letterand put it back into its envelope.

"How long ago was that?" Sara Lee asked in a low tone. "Because, if hewas coming back at all—"

"Four months."

Suddenly Sara Lee stood up.

"I think I ought to tell you," she said with a dead-white face, "that Iam responsible. He cared for me; and I was in love with him too. OnlyI didn't know it then. I let him bring me to England, because—Isuppose it was because I loved him. I didn't think then that it wasthat. I was engaged to a man at home."

"Sit down," said Mr. Travers. "My dear child, nothing can be your fault."

"He came with me, and the Germans got through. He had had word, but—"

"Have you your salts?" Mr. Travers asked quietly of his wife.

"I'm not fainting. I'm only utterly wretched."

The Traverses looked at each other. They were English. They had takentheir own great loss quietly, because it was an individual grief andmust not be intruded on the sorrow of a nation. But they found thiswhite-faced girl infinitely appealing, a small and fragile figure, towhose grief must be added, without any fault of hers, a bitter andlasting remorse.

Sara Lee stood up and tried to smile.

"Please don't worry about me," she said. "I need something to do, that'sall. You see, I've been worrying for so long. If I can get to work andtry to make up I'll not be so hopeless. But I am not quite hopeless,either," she added hastily. It was as though by the very word she hadconsigned Henri to death. "You see, I am like the men; I won't give himup. And perhaps some night he will come across from the other side, outof the dark."

Mr. Travers took her back to the hotel. When he returned from payingoff the taxi he found her looking across at the square.

"Do you remember," she asked him, "the time when the little donkey washurt over there?"

"I shall never forget it."

"And the young officer who ran out when I did, and shot the poor thing?"

Mr. Travers remembered.

"That was he—the man we have been speaking of."

For the first time that day her eyes filled with tears.

Sara Lee, at twenty, was already living in her memories.

So again the lights went down in front, and the back drop became but aveil, and invisible. And to Sara Lee there came back again some of thecharacters of the early mise en scène—marching men, forage wagons,squadrons of French cavalry escorting various staffs, commandeered farmhorses with shaggy fetlocks fastened in rope corrals, artillery rumblingalong rutted roads which shook the gunners almost off the limbers.

Nothing was changed—and everything. There was no René to smile hisadoring smile, but Marie came out, sobbing and laughing, and threwherself into the girl's arms. The little house was the same, save fora hole in the kitchen wall. There were the great piles of white bowlsand the shining kettles. There was the corner of her room, patched byRené's hands, now so long quiet. A few more shell holes in the street,many more little crosses in the field near the poplar trees, more Alliedaëroplanes in the air—that was all that was changed.

But to Sara Lee everything was changed, for all that. The little housewas grave and still, like a house of the dead. Once it had echoed toyoung laughter, had resounded to the noise and excitement of Henri'severy entrance. Even when he was not there it was as though it butwaited for him to stir it into life, and small echoes of his gayety hadseemed to cling to its old walls.

Sara Lee stood on the doorstep and looked within. She had come back.Here she would work and wait, and if in the goodness of providence heshould come back, here he would find her, all the empty months gone andforgotten.

If he did not—

"I shall still be calling you, and waiting," he had written. She, too,would call and wait, and if not here, then surely in the fullness oftime which is eternity the call would be answered.

In October Sara Lee took charge again of the little house. Mrs. Cameronwent back to England, but not until the Traverses' plan had beenrevealed. They would support the little house, as a memorial to the sonwho had died. It was, Mrs. Travers wrote, the finest tribute they couldoffer to his memory, that night after night tired and ill and woundedmen might find sanctuary, even for a little time, under her care.

Luxuries began to come across the channel, food and dressings and tobacco.Knitted things, too; for another winter was coming, and already the frostlay white on the fields in the mornings. The little house took on a newair of prosperity. There were days when it seemed almost swaggeringwith opulence.

It had need of everything, however. With the prospect of a secondwinter, when an advance was impossible, the Germans took to hammeringagain. Bombardment was incessant. The little village was again undersuspicion, and there came days of terror when it seemed as though eventhe fallen masonry must be reduced to powder. The church went entirely.

By December Sara Lee had ceased to take refuge during the bombardments.The fatalism of the Front had got her. She would die or live accordingto the great plan, and nothing could change that. She did not greatlycare which, except for her work, and even that she felt could be carriedon by another as well.

There was no news of Henri, but once the King's equerry, going by, hadstopped to see her and had told her the story.

"He was ill, undoubtedly," he said. "Even when he went to London he wasill, and not responsible. The King understands that. He was a braveboy, mademoiselle."

But the last element of hope seemed to go with that verification of hisillness. He was delirious, and he had gone in that condition into thefilthy chill waters of the inundation. Well and sane there had been achance, but plunging wild-eyed and reckless, into that hell across,there was none.

She did her best in the evenings to be cheerful, to take the place, inher small and serious fashion, of Henri's old gayety. But the soldierswhispered among themselves that mademoiselle was in grief, as they were,for the blithe young soldier who was gone.

What hope Sara Lee had had died almost entirely early in December. Onthe evening of a day when a steady rain had turned the roads into slimypitfalls, and the ditches to canals, there came, brought by a Belgiancorporal, the man who swore that Henri had passed him in his trenchwhile the others slept, had shoved him aside, which was unlike his usualcourtesy, and had climbed out over the top.

To Sara Lee this Hutin told his story. A short man with a red beard anda kindly smile that revealed teeth almost destroyed from neglect, he wasat first diffident in the extreme.

"It was the captain, mademoiselle," he asserted. "I know him well. Hehas often gone on his errands from near my post. I am"—he smiled—"Iam usually in the front line."

"What did he do?"

"He had no cap, mademoiselle. I thought that was odd. And as youknow—he does not wear his own uniform on such occasions. But he worehis own uniform, so that at first I did not know what he intended."

"Later on," she asked, "you—did you hear anything?"

"The usual sniping, mademoiselle. Nothing more."

"He went through the inundation?"

"How else could he go? Through the wire first, at the barrier, wherethere is an opening, if one knows the way, I saw him beyond it, by thelight of a fusee. There is a road there, or what was once a road. Hestood there. Then the lights went out."

XXX

On a wild night in January Sara Lee inaugurated a new branch of service.There had been a delay in sending up to the Front the men who had beenon rest, and an incessant bombardment held the troops prisoners in theirtrenches.

A field kitchen had been destroyed. The men were hungry, disheartened,wet through. They needed her, she felt. Even the little she could dowould help. All day she had made soup, and at evening Marie led fromits dilapidated stable the little horse that Henri had once brought up,trundling its cart behind it. The boiler of the cart was scoured, afire lighted in the fire box. Marie, a country girl, harnessed theshaggy little animal, but with tears of terror.

"You will be killed, mademoiselle," she protested, weeping.

"But I have gone before. Don't you remember the man whose wife wasEnglish, and how I wrote a letter for him before he died?"

"What will become of the house if you are killed?"

"Dear Marie," said Sara Lee, "that is all arranged for. You will sendto Poperinghe for your aunt, and she will come until Mrs. Cameron orsome one else can come from England. And you will stay on. Will youpromise that?"

Marie promised in a loud wail.

"Of course I shall come back," Sara Lee said, stirring her souppreparatory to pouring it out. "I shall be very careful."

"You will not come back, mademoiselle. You do not care to live, and tosuch—"

"Those are the ones who live on," said Sara Lee gravely, and poured outher soup.

She went quite alone. There was a great deal of noise, but no shellsfell near her. She led the little horse by its head, and its presencegave her comfort. It had a sense that she had not, too, for it kept heron the road.

In those still early days the Belgian trenches were quite accessiblefrom the rear. There were no long tunneled ways to traverse to reachthem. One went along through the darkness until the sound of men'svoices, the glare of charcoal in a bucket bored with holes, the flickerof a match, told of the buried army almost underfoot or huddled in itsflimsy shelters behind the railway embankment.

Beyond the lines a sentry stopped her, hailing her sharply.

"Qui vive?"

"It is I," she called through the rain. "I have brought some chocolateand some soup."

He lowered his bayonet.

"Pass, mademoiselle."

She went on, the rumbling of her little cart deadened by the Belgianguns.

Through the near-by trenches that night went the word that near theRepose of the Angels—which was but a hole in the ground and scarcelyreposeful—there was to be had hot soup and chocolate and cigarettes.A dozen or so at a time, the men were allowed to come. Officers broughttheir great capes to keep the girl dry. Boards appeared as if by magicfor her to stand on. The rain and the bombardment had both ceased, anda full moon made the lagoon across the embankment into a silver lake.

When the last soup had been dipped from the tall boiler, when the finaldrops of chocolate had oozed from the faucet, Sara Lee turned and wentback to the little house again. But before she went she stood a momentstaring across toward that land of the shadow on the other side, whereHenri had gone and had not returned.

Once, when the King had decorated her, she had wished that, whereverUncle James might be, on the other side, he could see what was happening.And now she wondered if Henri could know that she had come back, and wasagain looking after his men while she waited for that reunion he had sofirmly believed in.

Then she led the little horse back along the road.

At the poplar trees she turned and looked behind, toward the trenches.The grove was but a skeleton now, a strange and jagged thing of twistedbranches, as though it had died in agony. She stood there while thepony nuzzled her gently. If she called, would he come? But, then, allof life was one call now, for her. She went on slowly.

After that it was not unusual for her to go to the trenches, on suchnights as no men could come to the little house. Always she was joyouslywelcomed, and always on her way back she turned to send from the poplartrees that inarticulate aching call that she had come somehow tobelieve in.

January, wet and raw, went by; February, colder, with snow, was halfover. The men had ceased to watch for Henri over the parapet, and hisbrave deeds had become fireside tales, to be told at home, if everthere were to be homes again for them.

Then one night Henri came back—came as he had gone, out of the shadowsthat had swallowed him up; came without so much as the sound of asniper's rifle to herald him. A strange, thin Henri, close tostarvation, dripping water over everything from a German uniform, andvery close indeed to death before he called out.

There was wild excitement indeed. Bearded private soldiers, forgettingthat name and rank of his which must not be told, patted his thinshoulders. Officers who had lived through such horrors as also may notbe told, crowded about him and shook hands with him, and with each other.

It was as though from the graveyard back in the fields had come, aliveand smiling, some dearly beloved friend.

He would have told the story, but he was wet and weary.

"That can wait," they said, and led him, a motley band of officers andmen intermixed, for once forgetting all decorum, toward the village.They overtook the lines of men who had left the trenches and were movingwith their slow and weary gait up the road. The news spread through thecolumn. There were muffled cheers. Figures stepped out of the darknesswith hands out. Henri clasped as many as he could.

When with his escort he had passed the men they fell, almost withoutorders, into columns of four, and swung in behind him. There was noband, but from a thousand throats, yet cautiously until they passed thepoplar trees, there gradually swelled and grew a marching song.

Behind Henri a strange guard of honor—muddy, tired, torn, evenwounded—they marched and sang:

Trou là là, ça ne va guère;

Trou là là, çe ne va pas.

Sara Lee, listening for that first shuffle of many feet that sounded solike the wind in the trees or water over the pebbles of a brook, pausedin her work and lifted her head. The rhythm of marching feet camethrough the wooden shutters. The very building seemed to vibrate withit. And there was a growling sound with it that soon she knew to be thedeep voices of singing men.

She went to the door and stood there, looking down the street. Behindher was the warm glow of the lamp, all the snug invitation of the littlehouse.

A group of soldiers had paused in front of the doorway, and from themone emerged—tall, white, infinitely weary—and looked up at her withunbelieving eyes.

After all, there are no words for such meetings. Henri took her hand,still with that sense of unreality, and bent over it. And Sara Leetouched his head as he stooped, because she had called for so long, andonly now he had come.

"So you have come back!" she said in what she hoped was a composedtone—because a great many people were listening. He raised his headand looked at her.

"It is you who have come back, mademoiselle."

There was gayety in the little house that night. Every candle waslighted. They were stuck in rows on mantel-shelves. They blazed—andmelted into strange arcs—above the kitchen stove. There werecigarettes for everybody, and food; and a dry uniform, rather small, forHenri. Marie wept over her soup, and ran every few moments to the doorto see if he was still there. She had kissed him on both cheeks whenhe came in, and showed signs, every now and then, of doing it again.

Sara Lee did her bandaging as usual, but with shining eyes. And soonafter Henri's arrival a dispatch rider set off post haste with certainpapers and maps, hurriedly written and drawn. Henri had not onlyreturned, he had brought back information of great value to all theAllied armies.

So Sara Lee bandaged, and in the little room across the way, where nolonger Harvey's photograph sat on the mantel, Henri told his story tothe officers—of his imprisonment in the German prison at Crefeld; ofhis finding Jean there, weeks later when he was convalescing fromtyphoid; of their escape and long wandering; of Jean's getting intoHolland, whence he would return by way of England. Of his own business,of what he had done behind the lines after Jean had gone, he saidnothing. But his listeners knew and understood.

But his dispatches off, his story briefly told, Henri wandered out amongthe men again. He was very happy. He had never thought to be so happy.He felt the touch on his sleeves of hard brown, not overclean hands,infinitely tender and caressing; and over there, as though she had nevergone, was Sara Lee, slightly flushed and very radiant.

And as though he also had never gone away, Henri pushed into the salleà mangerand stood before her smiling.

"You bandage well, mademoiselle," he said gayly. "But I? I bandagebetter! See now, a turn here, and it is done! Does it hurt, Paul?"

The man in the dressing chair squirmed and grinned sheepishly.

"The iodine," he explained. "It is painful."

"Then I shall ask you a question, and you will forget the iodine. Whyis a dead German like the tail of a pig?"

Paul failed. The room failed. Even Colonel Lilias confessed himself atfault.

"Because it is the end of the swine," explained Henri, and looked abouthim triumphantly. A gust of laughter spread through the room and evento the kitchen. A door banged. Henri upset a chair. There was noiseagain, and gayety in the little house of mercy. And much happiness.

And there I think we may leave them all—Henri and Sara Lee; and Jeanof the one eye and the faithful heart; and Marie, with her kettles; andeven René, who still in some strange way belonged to the little house,as though it were something too precious to abandon.

The amazing interlude had become the play itself. Never again for SaraLee would the lights go up in front, and Henri with his adoring eyesand open arms fade into the shadows.

The drama of the war plays on. The Great Playwright sees fit, now andthen, to take away some well-beloved players. New faces appear anddisappear. The music is the thunder of many guns. Henri still playshis big part, Sara Lee her little one. Yet who shall say, in the end,which one has done the better? There are new and ever new standards,but love remains the chief. And love is Sara Lee's one quality—loveof her kind, of tired men and weary, the love that shall one day knitthis broken world together. And love of one man.

On weary nights, when Henri is again lost in the shadows, Sara Lee,her work done, the men gone, sits in her little house of mercy andwaits. The stars on clear evenings shine down on the roofless buildings,on the rubbish that was once the mill, on the ruined poplar trees, andon the small acre of peace where tiny crosses mark the long sleep ofweary soldiers.

And sometimes, though she knows it now by heart, she reads aloud thatletter of Henri's to her. It comforts her. It is a promise.

"If that is to be, then think of me, somewhere, perhaps with René by myside, since he, too, loved you. And I shall still be calling you, andwaiting. Perhaps, even beyond the stars, they have need of a littlehouse of mercy. And God knows, wherever I am, I shall have need of you."

(THE END)

Related articles