And this, too, she remembered:  Once in a wild moment Henri had said he would follow her to America, and that there he would prove to her that his and not Harvey’s was the real love of her life—­the great love, that comes but once to any woman, and to some not at all.  Yet on that last night at Morley’s he had said what she now felt was a final farewell.  That last look of his, from the doorway—­that had been the look of a man who would fill his eyes for the last time.

She got up and stood by the window.  What had they done to him?  What would they do?  She looked at her watch.  It was four o’clock in the morning over there.  The little house would be quiet now, but down along the lines men would be standing on the firing step of the trench, and waiting, against what the dawn might bring.

Through the thin wall came the sound of Harvey’s heavy, regular breathing.  She remembered Henri’s light sleeping on the kitchen floor, his cap on the table, his cape rolled round him—­a sleeping, for all his weariness, so light that he seemed always half conscious.  She remembered the innumerable times he had come in at this hour, muddy, sometimes rather gray of face with fatigue, but always cheerful.

It was just such an hour that she found him giving hot coffee to the German prisoner.  It had been but a little earlier when he had taken her to the roof and had there shown her Rene, lying with his face up toward the sky which had sent him death.

A hundred memories crowded—­Henri’s love for the Belgian soldiers, and theirs for him; his humor; his absurd riddles.  There was the one he had asked Rene, the very day before the air attack.  He had stood stiffly and frowningly before the boy, and he had asked in a highly official tone: 

“What must a man be to be buried with military honors?”

“A general?”

“No.”

“An officer?”

“No, no!  Use your head boy!  This is very important.  A mistake would be most serious.”

Rene had shaken his head dejectedly.

“He must be dead, Rene,” Henri had said gravely.  “Entirely dead.  As I said, it is well to know these things.  A mistake would be unfortunate.”

His blue eyes had gleamed with fun, but his face had remained frowning.  It was quite five minutes before she had heard Rene chuckling on the doorstep.

Was he still living, this Henri of the love of life and courting of death?  Could anything so living die?  And if he had died had it been because of her?  She faced that squarely for the first time.

“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.”

Beyond the partition Harvey slept on, his arms under his head.

XXVI

Harvey was clamoring for an early wedding.  And indeed there were few arguments against it, save one that Sara Lee buried in her heart.  Belle’s house was small, and though she was welcome there, and more than that, Sara Lee knew that she was crowding the family.