And now there’s tomorrow, and my getting away.  You won’t be anxious, dear mother.  You’ll wait quietly and patiently till I come.  I’ll write to you on the way if I can.  It may take several days to get to Switzerland, and it may be difficult to get out of Germany.  I think I shall say I’m an American.  Frau Berg, poor thing, will be relieved to find me gone.  She only took me in tonight because of Bernd.  While she was demurring on the threshold, when at last I got to her after a terrifying walk through the crowds,—­for I was afraid they would notice me and see, as they always do, that I’m English,—­his soldier servant brought her a note from him which just turned the scale for me.  I’m afraid humanity wouldn’t have done it, nor pity, for patriotism and pity don’t go well together here.

I wonder if you’ll believe how calmly I’m going to bed and to sleep tonight, on the night of what might seem to be the ruin of my happiness.  I’m glad I’ve written everything down that has happened this evening.  It has got it so clear to me.  I don’t want ever to forget one word or look of Bernd’s tonight.  I don’t want ever to forget his patience, his dear look of untouchable dignity, when the Colonel, because he is in authority and can be cruel, at such a moment in the lives of two poor human beings was so unkind.

God bless and keep you, my mother,—­my dear sweet mother.

  Your Chris.

  Halle, Wednesday night, August 5th, 1914.

I’ve got as far as this, and hope to get on in an hour or two.  We’ve been stopped to let troop trains pass.  They go rushing by one after the other, packed with waving, shouting soldiers, all of them with flowers stuck about them, in their buttonholes and caps.  I’ve been watching them.  There’s no end to them.  And the enthusiasm of the crowds on the platform as they go by never slackens.  I’m making for Zurich.  I tried for Bale. but couldn’t get into Switzerland that way,—­it is abgesperrt.  I hadn’t much difficulty getting a ticket in Berlin.  There was such confusion and such a rush at the ticket office that the man just asked me why I wanted to go; and I said I was American and rejoining my mother, and he flung me the ticket, only too glad to get rid of me.  Don’t expect me till you see me, for we shall be held up lots of times, I’m sure.

I’m all right, mother darling.  It was fearfully hot all day, squeezed tight in a third class carriage—­no other class to be had.  It’s cold and draughty in this station by comparison, and I wish I had my coat.  I’ve brought nothing away with me, except my fiddle and what would go into its case, which was handkerchiefs.  Bernd will see that my things get sent on, I expect.  I locked everything up in my trunk,—­your letters, and all my precious things.  An official came along the train at Wittenberg, and after eyeing us all in my compartment suddenly held out his hand to me and said, “Ihre Papiere.”  As I haven’t got any I told him about being an American, and as much family history not till then known to me as I could put into German.  The other passengers listened eagerly, but not unfriendly.  I think if you’re a woman, not being old helps one in Germany.