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 of

venom, nursed during the winter deadlock and now grown to full size and

destructive power.

The rumor of a gas that seared and killed came to the little house as

early as February. In March there came the first victims, poor writhing

creatures, deprived of the boon of air, their seared lungs collapsed

and agonized, their faces drawn into masks of suffering. Some of them

died in the little house, and even after death their faces held the

imprint of horror.

To Sara Lee, burying her own anxiety under the cloak of service, there

came new and terrible thoughts. This was not war. The Germans had sent

their clouds of poisoned gas across the inundation, but had made no

attempt 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 not

known of it before. Now she learned of that gentlemen's agreement among

nations, and that it said: "The use of poison or of poisoned weapons is

forbidden." She pondered that carefully, trying to think dispassionately.

Now and then she received a copy of a home newspaper, and she saw that

the use of poison gases was being denied by Germans in America and set

down to rumor and hysteria.

So, on a cold spring day, she sat down at the table in the salle a manger

and wrote a letter to the President, beginning "Dear Sir"; and telling

what she knew of poison gas. She also, on second thought, wrote one to

Andrew Carnegie, who had built a library in her city. She felt that

the expense to him of sending some one over to investigate would not be

prohibitive, and something must be done.

She never heard from either of her letters, but she felt better for

having 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 it

turned out--a square of folded gauze, soaked in some solution and then

dried, with tapes to tie it over the mouth and nose. To adjust them the

soldiers had but to stoop and wet them in the ever-present water in

the trench, and then to tie them on.

Sara Lee gave them out that night, and there was much mirth in the little

house, such mirth as there had not been since Henri went away. The

Belgians called it a bal masque, and putting them on bowed before one

another and requested dances, and even flirted coyly with each other over

their bits of white gauze. And in the very middle of the gayety some

one propounded one of Henri's idiotic riddles; and Sara Lee went across

to her little room and closed the door and stood there with her eyes

shut, for fear she would scream.




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