The road from Dunkirk to Calais was well guarded in those days. From

Nieuport for some miles inland only the shattered remnant of the Belgian

Army held the line. For the cry "On to Paris!" the Germans had

substituted "On to Calais!"

So, on French soil at least, the road was well guarded. A few miles in

the battered car, then a slowing up, a showing of passports, the clatter

of 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 they

advanced.

Henri sat with the driver and talked in a low tone. Sometimes he sat

quiet, looking ahead. He seemed, somehow, older, more careworn. His

boyishness had gone. Now and then he turned to ask if she was

comfortable, but in the intervals she felt that he had entirely forgotten

her. Once, at something Jean said, he got out a pocket map and went

over it carefully. It was a long time after that before he turned to

see if she was all right.

Sara Lee sat forward and watched everything. She saw little evidence of

war, beyond the occasional sentries and chains. Women were walking along

the 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 matter

of a day only, probably. But I will see before I go that you are

comfortable."

"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 adored

Henri. His one unbandaged eye stole moments from the road to glance

at him. When he spoke, while Henri read his map, his very voice betrayed

him. And while she pondered the thing, woman-fashion they drew into

the square of Dunkirk, where the statue of Jean Bart, pirate and

privateer stared down at this new procession of war which passed daily

and nightly under his cold eyes.

Jean and a porter carried in her luggage. Henri and a voluble and

smiling Frenchwoman showed her to her room. She felt like an island of

silence in a rapid-rolling sea of French. The Frenchwoman threw open

the door.

A great room with high curtained windows; a huge bed with a faded gilt

canopy and heavy draperies; a wardrobe as vast as the bed; and for a

toilet table an enormous mirror reaching to the ceiling and with a

marble shelf below--that was her room.




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