The boat was preparing to get under way.  Henri was standing by her very quietly.  He had not slept the night before, but then there were many nights when Henri did not sleep.  He had wandered about, smoking incessantly, trying to picture the black future.

He could see no hope anywhere.  America was far away, and peaceful.  Very soon the tranquillity of it all would make the last months seem dreamlike and unreal.  She would forget Belgium, forget him.  Or she would remember him as a soldier who had once loved her.  Once loved her, because she had never seemed to realize the lasting quality of his love.  She had always felt that he would forget her.  If he could only make her believe that he would not, it would not be so hopeless.

He had written a bit of a love letter on the little table at Dunkirk that morning, written it with the hope that the sight of the written words might carry conviction where all his protests had failed.

“I shall love you all the years of my life,” he wrote.  “At any time, in any place, you may come to me and know that I am waiting.  Great love like this comes only once to any man, and once come to him it never goes away.  At any time in the years to come you may know with certainty that you are still to me what you are now, the love of my life.

“Sometimes I think, dearest—­I may call you that once, now that you have left me—­that far away you will hear this call of mine and come back to me.  Perhaps you will never come.  Perhaps I shall not live.  I feel to-day that I do not care greatly to live.

“If that is to be, then think of me somewhere, perhaps with Rene by my side, since he, too, loved you.  And I shall still be calling you, and waiting.  Perhaps even beyond the stars they have need of a little house of mercy; and, God knows, wherever I am I shall have need of you.”

He had the letter in the pocket of his tunic, and at last the moment came when the boat must leave.  Suddenly Henri knew that he could not allow her to cross to England alone.  The last few days had brought many stories of submarine attacks.  Here, so far north, the Germans were particularly active.  They had for a long time lurked in waiting for this British Admiralty boat, with its valuable cargo, its officers and the government officials who used it.

“Good-by, Henri,” said Sara Lee.  “I—­of course it is no use to try to tell you—­”

“I am going across with you.”

“But—­”

“I allowed you to come over alone.  I shiver when I think of it.  I shall take you back myself.”

“Is it very dangerous?”

“Probably not.  But can you think of me standing safe on that quay and letting you go into danger alone?”

“I am not afraid.”

“I know that.  I have never seen you afraid.  But if you wish to see a coward, look at me.  I am a coward for you.”

He put his hand into his pocket.  It occurred to him to give her the letter now so that if anything happened she would at least have had it.  He wanted no mistake about that appointment beyond the stars.  But the great world of eternity was very large, and they must have a definite understanding about that meeting at the little house of mercy Over There.