Late in May she started for home. It had not been necessary to close
the little house. An Englishwoman of mature years and considerable
wealth, hearing from Mr. Travers of Sara Lee's recall, went out a day or
two before she left and took charge. She was a kindly woman, in deep
mourning; and some of the ache left Sara Lee's heart when she had talked
with her successor.
Perhaps, too, Mrs. Cameron understood some of the things that had
puzzled her before. She had been a trifle skeptical perhaps about Sara
Lee before she saw her. A young girl alone among an army of men! She
was a good woman herself, and not given to harsh judgments, but the
thing had seemed odd. But Sara Lee in her little house, as virginal, as
without sex-consciousness as a child, Sara Lee with her shabby clothes
and her stained hands and her honest eyes--this was not only a good
girl, this was a brave and high-spirited and idealistic woman.
And after an evening in the house of mercy, with the soldiers openly
adoring and entirely respectful, Mrs. Cameron put her arms round Sara
Lee and kissed her.
"You must let me thank you," she said. "You have made me feel what I
have 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 there
is something worth while in life."
The next day she asked Sara Lee to stay with her, at least through the
summer. Sara Lee hesitated, but at last she agreed to cable. As Henri
had disappeared with the arrival of Mrs. Cameron it was that lady's
chauffeur who took the message to Dunkirk and sent it off.
She had sent the cable to Harvey. It was no longer a matter of the
Ladies' 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 of
Belgium.
Henri was half mad those last days. Jean tried to counsel him, but he
was irritable, almost savage. And Jean understood. The girl had grown
deep into his own heart. Like Henri, he believed that she was going
back to unhappiness; he even said so to her in the car, on that last sad
day when Sara Lee, having visited Rene's grave and prayed in the ruined
church, said good-by to the little house, and went away, tearless at the
last, because she was too sad for tears.