"Doing what?"

"Marrying Harvey."

Sara Lee looked at her with startled eyes.

"I'm engaged to him, Belle. I've promised."

"Exactly," said Belle dryly. "But that's hardly a good reason, is it?

It takes more than a promise." She stared down at the flock of children in the yard below. "Harvey's a man," she said. "He doesn't understand, but I do. You've got to care a whole lot, Sara Lee, if you're going to go through with it. It takes a lot of love, when it comes to having children and all that."

"He's so good, Belle. How can I hurt him?"

"You'll hurt him a lot more by marrying him when you don't love him."

"If only I could have a little time," she cried wildly. "I'm so--I'm tired, Belle. And I can't forget about the war and all that. I've tried. Sometimes I think if we could talk it over together I'd get it out of my mind."

"He won't talk about it?"

"He's my own brother, and I love him dearly. But sometimes I think he's hard. Not that he's ever ugly," she hastened to add; "but he's stubborn.

There's a sort of wall in him, and he puts some things behind it. And it's like beating against a rock to try to get at them."

After a little silence she said hesitatingly:

"We've got him to think of too. He has a right to be happy. Sometimes I've looked at you--you're so pretty, Sara Lee--and I've wondered if there wasn't some one over there who--cared for you."

"There was one man, an officer--Oh, Belle, I can't tell you. Not _you_!"

"Why not!" asked Belle practically. "You ought to talk it out to some one, and if Harvey insists on being a fool that's his own fault."

For all the remainder of that sunny morning Sara Lee talked what was in her heart. And Belle--poor, romantic, starved Belle--heard and thrilled. She made b.u.t.tonholes as she listened, but once or twice a new tone in Sara Lee's voice caused her to look up. Here was a new Sara Lee, a creature of vibrant voice and glowing eyes; and Belle was not stupid. She saw that it was Henri whose name brought the deeper note.

Sara Lee had stopped with her recall, had stopped and looked about the room with its shiny new furniture and had shivered. Belle bent over her work.

"Why don't you go back?" she asked.

Sara Lee looked at her piteously.

"How can I? There is Harvey. And the society would not send me again.

It's over, Belle. All over."

After a pause Belle said: "What's become of Henri? He hasn't written, has he?"

Sara Lee got up and went to the window.

"I don't know where he is. He may be dead."

Her voice was flat and lifeless. Belle knew all that she wanted to know.

She rose and gathered up her sewing.

"I'm going to talk to Harvey. You're not going to be rushed into a wedding. You're tired, and it's all nonsense. Well, I'll have to run now and dress the children."

That night Harvey and Belle had almost a violent scene. He had taken Sara Lee over the Leete house that evening. Will Leete's widow had met them there, a small sad figure in her mourning, but very composed, until she opened the door into a tiny room upstairs with a desk and a lamp in it.

"This was Will's study," she said. "He did his work here in the evenings, and I sat in that little chair and sewed. I never thought then--" Her lips quivered.

"Pretty rotten of Will Leete to leave that little thing alone," said Harvey on their way home. "He had his fling; and she's paying for it."

But Sara Lee was silent. It was useless to try to make Harvey understand the urge that had called Will Leete across the sea to do his share for the war, and that had brought him that peace of G.o.d that pa.s.seth all understanding.

It was not a good time for Belle to put up to him her suggestion for a delay in the marriage, that evening after their return. He took it badly and insisted on sending upstairs for Sara Lee.

"Did you ask Belle to do this?" he demanded bluntly.

"To do what?"

"To put things off."

"I have already told you, Harvey," Belle put in. "It is my own idea.

She is tired. She's been through a lot. I've heard the story you're too stubborn to listen to. And I strongly advise her to wait a while."

And after a time he agreed ungraciously. He would buy the house and fix it over, and in the early fall it would be ready.

"Unless," he added to Sara Lee with a bitterness born of disappointment--"unless you change your mind again."

He did not kiss her that night when she and Belle went together up the stairs. But he stared after her gloomily, with hurt and bewilderment in his eyes.

He did not understand. He never would. She had come home to him all gentleness and tenderness, ready to find in him the things she needed so badly. But out of his obstinacy and hurt he had himself built up a barrier.

That night Sara Lee dreamed that she was back in the little house of mercy. Rene was there; and Henri; and Jean, with the patch over his eye.

They were waiting for the men to come, and the narrow hall was full of the odor of Marie's soup. Then she heard them coming, the shuffling of many feet on the road. She went to the door, with Henri beside her, and watched them coming up the road, a deeper shadow in the blackness--tired men, wounded men, homeless men coming to her little house with its firelight and its warmth. Here and there the match that lighted a cigarette showed a white but smiling face. They stopped before the door, and the warm little house, with its guarded lights and its food and cheer, took them in.

XXVII

Very pale and desperate, Henri took the night A train for Folkestone after he had said good-by to Sara Lee. He alternately chilled and burned with fever, and when he slept, as he did now and then, going off suddenly into a doze and waking with a jerk, it was to dream of horrors.

He thought, in his wilder intervals, of killing himself. But his code did not include such a shirker's refuge. He was going back to tell his story and to take his punishment.

He had cabled to Jean to meet him at Calais, but when, at dawn the next morning, the channel boat drew in to the wharf there was no sign of Jean or the car. Henri regarded the empty quay with apathetic eyes.

They would come, later on. If he could only get his head down and sleep for a while he would be better able to get toward the Front. For he knew now that he was ill. He had, indeed, been ill for days, but he did not realize that. And he hated illness. He regarded it with suspicion, as a weakness not for a strong man.

The drowsy girl in her chair at the Gare Maritime regarded him curiously and with interest. Many women turned to look after Henri, but he did not know this. Had he known it he would have regarded it much as he did illness.

The stupid boy was not round. The girl herself took the key and led the way down the long corridor upstairs to a room. Henri stumbled in and fell across the bed. He was almost immediately asleep.

Late in the afternoon he wakened. Strange that Jean had not come. He got up and bathed his face. His right arm was very stiff now, and pains ran from the old wound in his chest down to the fingers of his hand. He tried to exercise to limber it, and grew almost weak with pain.