The next day she asked Sara Lee to stay with her, at least through the summer.  Sara Lee hesitated, but at last she agreed to cable.  As Henri had disappeared with the arrival of Mrs. Cameron it was that lady’s chauffeur who took the message to Dunkirk and sent it off.

She had sent the cable to Harvey.  It was no longer a matter of the Ladies’ Aid.  It was between Harvey and herself.

The reply came on the second day.  It was curt and decisive.

“Now or never,” was the message Harvey sent out of his black despair, across the Atlantic to the little house so close under the guns of Belgium.

Henri was half mad those last days.  Jean tried to counsel him, but he was irritable, almost savage.  And Jean understood.  The girl had grown deep into his own heart.  Like Henri, he believed that she was going back to unhappiness; he even said so to her in the car, on that last sad day when Sara Lee, having visited Rene’s grave and prayed in the ruined church, said good-by to the little house, and went away, tearless at the last, because she was too sad for tears.

It was not for some time that Jean spoke what was in his mind, and when he had done so she turned to him gravely: 

“You are wrong, Jean.  He is the kindest of men.  Once I am back, and safe, he will be very different.  I’m afraid I’ve given you a wrong impression of him.”

“You think then, mademoiselle, that he will forget all these months—­ he will never be unhappy over them?”

“Why should he?” said Sara Lee proudly.  “When I tell him everything he will understand.  And he will be very proud that I have done my share.”

But Jean’s one eye was dubious.

At the wharf in Dunkirk they found Henri, a pale but composed Henri.  Jean’s brows contracted.  He had thought that the boy would follow his advice and stay away.  But Henri was there.

It was as well, perhaps, for Sara Lee had brought him a letter, one of those missives from the trenches which had been so often left at the little house.

Henri thrust it into his pocket without reading it.

“Everything is prepared,” he said.  “It is the British Admiralty boat, and one of the officers has offered his cabin.  You will be quite comfortable.”

He appeared entirely calm.  He saw to carrying Sara Lee’s small bag on board; he chatted with the officers; he even wandered over to a hospital ship moored near by and exchanged civilities with a wounded man in a chair on the deck.  Perhaps he swaggered a bit too much, for Jean watched him with some anxiety.  He saw that the boy was taking it hard.  His eyes were very sunken now, and he moved his right arm stiffly, as though the old wound troubled him.

Jean did not like leave-takings.  Particularly he did not like taking leave of Sara Lee.  Some time before the boat sailed he kissed her hand, and then patted it and went away in the car without looking back.