But he had her in his arms then, and he drew her close as though he would never let her go. He was one great burst of joy, poor Henri. But when she gently freed herself at last it was to deliver what seemed for a time his death wound.
"You have paid me a great tribute," she said, still simply and gravely.
"I wanted you to kiss me, because of what you said. But that will have to be all, Henri dear."
"All?" he said blankly.
"You haven"t forgotten, have you? I--I am engaged to somebody else."
Henri stood still, swaying a little.
"And you love him? More than you care for me?"
"He is--he is my kind," said Sara Lee rather pitifully. "I am not what you think me. You see me here, doing what you think is good work, and you are grateful. And you don"t see any other women. So I--"
"And you think I love you because I see no one else?" he demanded, still rather stunned.
"Isn"t that part of it?"
He flung out his hands as though he despaired of making her understand.
"This man at home--" he said bitterly; "this man who loves you so well that he let you cross the sea and come here alone--do you love him very dearly?"
"I am promised to him."
All at once Sara Lee saw the little parlor at home, and Harvey, gentle, rather stolid and dependable. Oh, very dependable. She saw him as he had looked the night he had said he loved her, rather wistful and very, very tender. She could not hurt him so. She had said she was going back to him, and she must go.
"I love him very much, Henri."
Very quietly, considering the h.e.l.l that was raging in him, Henri bent over and kissed her hand. Then he turned it over, and for an instant he held his cheek against its warmth. He went out at once, and Sara Lee heard the door slam.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "That I should have hurt you so!" he said softly.]
XVI
Time pa.s.sed quickly, as always it does when there is work to do. Round the ruined houses the gray gra.s.s turned green again, and in travesties of gardens early spring flowers began to show a touch of color.
The first of them greeted Sara Lee one morning as she stood on her doorstep in the early sun. She gathered them and placed them, one on each grave, in the cemetery near the poplar trees, where small wooden crosses, sometimes surmounted by a cap, marked many graves.
Marie, a silent subdued Marie, worked steadily in the little house. She did not weep, but now and then Sara Lee found her stirring something on the stove and looking toward the quiet mill in the fields. And once Sara Lee, surprising that look on her face, put her arms about the girl and held her for a moment. But she did not say anything. There was nothing to say.
With the opening up of the spring came increased movement and activity among the troops. The beach and the sand dunes round La Panne were filled with drilling men, Belgium"s new army. Veterans of the winter, at rest behind the lines, sat in the sun and pared potatoes for the midday meal. Convalescents from the hospital appeared in motley garments from the Ambulance Ocean and walked along the water front, where the sea, no longer gray and sullen, rolled up in thin white lines of foam to their very feet. Winter straw came out of wooden sabots.
Winter-bitten hands turned soft. Ca.n.a.l boats blossomed out with great washings. And the sentry at the gun emplacement in the sand up the beach gave over gathering sticks for his fire, and lay, when no one was about, in a hollow in the dune, face to the sky.
So spring came to that small fragment of Belgium which had been saved, spring and hope. Soon now the great and powerful Allies would drive out the Huns, and all would be as it had been. Splendid rumors were about.
The Germans were already yielding at La Ba.s.see. There was to be a great drive along the entire Front, and hopefully one would return home in time for the spring planting.
A sort of informal council took place occasionally in the little house.
Maps replaced the dressings on the table in the _salle a manger_, and junior officers, armed with Sara Lee"s box of pins, thrust back the enemy at various points and proved conclusively that his position was untenable. They celebrated these paper victories with Sara Lee"s tea, and went away the better for an hour or so of hope and tea and a girl"s soft voice and quiet eyes.
Now and then there was one, of course, who lagged behind his fellows, with a yearning tenderness in his face that a glance from the girl would have quickly turned to love. But Sara Lee had no coquetry. When, as occasionally happened, there was a bit too much fervor when her hand was kissed, she laid it where it belonged--to loneliness and the spring--and became extremely maternal and very, very kind. Which--both of them--are death blows to young love.
The winter floods were receding. Along the Yser Ca.n.a.l mud-caked flats began to appear, with here and there rusty tangles of barbed wire. And with the lessening of the flood came new activities to the little house.
The spring drive was coming.
There was spring indeed, everywhere but in Henri"s heart.
Day after day messages were left with Sara Lee by men in uniform--sometimes letters, sometimes a word. And these she faithfully cared for until such time as Jean came for them. Now and then it was Henri who came, but when he stayed in the village he made his headquarters at the house of the mill. There, with sacking over the windows, he wrote his reports by lamplight, reports which Jean carried back to the villa in the fishing village by the sea.
However, though he no longer came and went as before, Henri made frequent calls at the house of mercy. But now he came in the evenings, when the place was full of men. Sara Lee was doing more dressings than before.
The semi-armistice of winter was over, and there were nights when a row of wounded men lay on the floor in the little _salle a manger_ and waited, in a sort of dreadful quiet, to be taken away.
Rumors came of hard fighting farther along the line, and sometimes, on nights when the clouds hung low, the flashes of the guns at Ypres looked like incessant lightning. From the sand dunes at Nieuport and Dixmude there was firing also, and the air seemed sometimes to be full of scouting planes.
The Canadians were moving toward the Front at Neuve Chapelle at that time. And one day a lorry, piled high with boxes, rolled and thumped down the street, and halted by Rene.
"Rather think we are lost," explained the driver, grinning sheepishly at Rene.
There were four boys in khaki on the truck, and not a word of French among them. Sara Lee, who rolled her own bandages now, heard the speech and came out.
"Good gracious!" she said, and gave an alarmed glance at the sky. But it was the noon hour, when every good German abandons war for food, and the sky was empty.
The boys cheered perceptibly. Here was at last some one who spoke a Christian tongue.
"Must have taken the wrong turning, miss," said one of them, saluting.
"Where do you want to go?" she asked. "You are very close to the Belgian Front here. It is not at all safe."
They all saluted; then, staring at her curiously, told her.
"Dear me!" said Sara Lee. "You are a long way off. And a long way from home too."
They smiled. They looked, with their clean-shaven faces, absurdly young after the bearded Belgian soldiers.
"I am an American, too," said Sara Lee with just a touch of homesickness in her voice. She had been feeling lonely lately. "If you have time to come in I could give you luncheon. Rene can tell us if any German air machines come over."
Would they come in? Indeed, yes! They crawled down off the lorry, and took off their caps, and ate every particle of food in the house. And, though they were mutely curious at first, soon they were asking questions.
How long had she been there? What did she do? Wasn"t it dangerous?
"Not so dangerous as it looks," said Sara Lee, smiling. "The Germans seldom bother the town now. It is not worth while."
Later on they went over the house. They climbed the broken staircase and stared toward the break in the poplar trees, from the roofless floor above.
"Some girl!" one of them said in an undertone.
The others were gazing intently toward the Front. Never before had they been so close. Never had they seen a ruined town. War, until now, had been a thing of Valcartier, of a long voyage, of much drill in the mud at Salisbury Plain. Now here they saw, at their feet, what war could do.