“That’s not true!” she flashed at him.  “He is sending for me, not to get me back to him, but to get me back to safety.”

“What sort of safety?” Henri demanded in an ominous tone.  “Is he afraid of me?”

“He doesn’t know anything about you.”

“You have never told him?  Why?” His eyes narrowed.

“He wouldn’t have understood, Henri.”

“You are going back to him,” he said slowly; “and you will always keep these days of ours buried in your heart.  Is that it?” His eyes softened.  “I am to be a memory!  Do you know what I think?  I think you care for me more than you know.  We have lived a lifetime together in these months.  You know me better than you know him, already.  We have faced death together.  That is a strong tie.  And I have held you in my arms.  Do you think you can forget that?”

“I shall never want to forget you.”

“I shall not let you forget me.  You may go—­I cannot prevent that perhaps.  But wherever I am; Saralie, I shall stand between that lover of yours and you.  And sometime I shall come from this other side of the world, and I shall find you, and you will come back with me.  Back to this country—­our country.”

They were boyish words, but back of them was the iron determination of a man.  His eyes seemed sunken in his head.  His face was white.  But there was almost a prophetic ring in his voice.

Sara Lee went out and left him there, went out rather terrified and bewildered, and refusing absolutely to look into her own heart.

XXIII

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.”