Perhaps he had a little fever that day. He was alternately flushed and
pale; and certainly he was not quite rational. His hand shook as he
brought 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 want
you 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 will
not 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 gravely
saluted him. On the deck of the hospital ship the invalid touched his
cap. Word was going about, in the stealthy manner of such things, that
Henri whose family name we may not know, was a brave man and doing brave
things.
The steamer had not yet cast off. As usual, it was to take a flying
start from the harbor, for it was just outside the harbor that the wolves
of the sea lay in wait. Henri, alone at last, opened his letter, and
stood 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 the
ragged remnant of his country. And he looked forward to where Sara Lee,
his letter in her hand, was staring blindly at nothing. Then he looked
out toward the sea, where lay who knew what dangers of death and
suffering.
After that first moment of indecision he never hesitated. He stood on
the deck and watched, rather frozen and rigid, and with a mind that had
ceased working, while the steamer warped out from the quay. If in his
subconsciousness there was any thought it was doubtless that he had done
his best for a long time, and that he had earned the right to protect
for a few hours the girl he loved. That, too, there had been activity
along the German-Belgian line before, without result.
Perhaps subconsciously those things were there. He himself was conscious
of no thought, of only a dogged determination to get Sara Lee across the
channel safely. He put everything else behind him. He counted no cost.
The little admiralty boat sped on. In the bow, on the bridge, and at
different stations lookouts kept watch. The lifeboats were hung
overboard, ready to lower instantly. On the horizon a British destroyer
steamed leisurely. Henri stood for a long time on the deck. The land
fell away quickly. From a clear silhouette of the town against the
sky--the dunes, the spire of the cathedral, the roof of the mairie--it
became vague, shadowy--the height of a hand--a line--nothing.