nd to the Convent to tell Miss Ashley-Smith
to be ready with her British before two o'clock.

I sit with him for what seems a very long time. It is appalling to me
that the time should seem long. For it is really such a little while,
and when it is over there will be nothing more that I shall ever do for
him. This thought is not prominent and vivid; it is barely discernible;
but it is there, a dull background of pain under my anxiety for the
safety of the English over there in the Couvent de Saint Pierre. It is
more than time that I should go and tell them to be ready.

He holds out his hands to be sponged "if I don't mind." I sponge them
over and over again with iced water and eau de Cologne, gently and very
slowly. I am afraid lest he should be aware that there is any hurry. The
time goes on, and my anxiety becomes acuter every minute, till with each
slow, lingering turn of my hand I think, "If I don't go soon it will be
too late."

I hear that the children will be all right. Somebody has had a _crise de
nerfs_, and Janet was the victim.

It is past midnight, and very dark. The _Place_ and the boulevards are
deserted. I cannot see the Red Cross flag hanging from the window of the
Convent. The boulevards look all the same in the blackness, and I turn
up the one to the left. I run on and on very fast, but I cannot see the
white flag with the red cross anywhere; I run back, thinking I must have
passed it, turn and go on again.

There is nobody in sight. No sound anywhere but the sound of my own feet
running faster and faster up the wrong boulevard.

At last I know I have gone too far, the houses are entirely strange. I
run back to the _Place_ to get my bearings, and start again. I run
faster than ever. I pass a solitary civilian coming down the boulevard.
The place is so empty and so still that he and I seem to be the only
things alive and awake in this quarter of the town. As I pass he turns
to look after me, wondering at the solitary lady running so fast at
this hour of the morning. I see the Red Cross flag in the distance, and
I come to a door that looks like the door of the Convent. It _is_ the
door of the Convent.

I ring the bell. I ring it many times. Nobody comes.

I ring a little louder. A tired lay sister puts her head out of an upper
window and asks me what I want. I tell her. She is rather cross and says
I've come to the wrong door. I must go to the second door; and she puts
her head in and shuts the