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. She

went through the next few hours in a sort of frozen composure and ate

nothing at all.

Then came the bombardment.

Henri and Jean, driving out from Dunkirk, had passed on the road

ammunition trains, waiting in the road until dark before moving on to

the Front. Henri had given Sara Lee her letter, had watched jealously

for its effect on her, and then, his own face white and set, had gone on

down the ruined street.

Here within the walls of a destroyed house he disappeared. The place

was evidently familiar to him, for he moved without hesitation. Broken

furniture still stood in the roofless rooms, and in front of a battered

bureau Henri paused. Still whistling under his breath, he took off his

uniform and donned a strange one, of greenish gray. In the pocket of

the blouse he stuffed a soft round cap of the same color. Then, resuming

his cape and Belgian cap, with its tassel over his forehead, he went out

into the street again. He carried in his belt a pistol, but it was not

the one he had brought in with him. As a matter of fact, by the addition

of the cap in his pocket, Henri was at that moment in the full uniform of

a lieutenant of a Bavarian infantry regiment, pistol and all.

He went down the street and along the road toward the poplars. He met

the 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 to

them out of the darkness.

"Bonsoir!" they replied, and saluted stiffly. There were few among them

who did not know his voice, and fewer still who did not suspect his

business.

"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 bearded

man. "But it is a fine life while it continues. A fine life!"

The boy stepped out of the shuffling line and looked behind him. He

could see only the glow of Henri's eternal cigarette. "I should like to

go with him," he muttered wistfully.




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