window with a clang that expresses her just
resentment.

I go to the second door, and ring many times again. And another lay
sister puts her head out of an upper window.

She is gentle but sleepy and very slow. She cannot take it in all at
once. She says they are all asleep in the Convent, and she does not like
to wake them. She says this several times, so that I may understand.

I am exasperated.

"_Mais, Madame--de grace! C'est peut-etre la vie ou la mort!_"

The minute I've said it it sounds to me melodramatic and absurd. _I_ am
melodramatic and absurd, with my running feet, and my small figure and
earnest, upturned face, standing under a Convent wall at midnight, and
talking about _la vie et la mort_. It is too improbable. _I_ am too
improbable. I feel that I am making a fuss out of all proportion to the
occasion. And I am sorry for frightening the poor lay sister all for
nothing.

Very soon, down the south-east road, the Germans will be marching upon
Ghent.

And I cannot realize it. The whole thing is too improbable.

But the lay sister has understood this time. She will go and wake the
porteress. She is not at all frightened.

I wait a little longer, and presently the porteress opens the door. When
she hears my message she goes away, and returns after a little while
with one of the nuns.

They are very quiet, very kind, and absolutely unafraid. They say that
Miss Ashley-Smith and her British wounded shall be ready before [?] two
o'clock.

I go back to the "Flandria."

The Commandant, who went out to Melle in Tom's car, has not come back
yet.

I think Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert have gone to bed. They are not
taking the Germans very seriously.

There is nobody in the mess-room but the other three chauffeurs, Bert,
Tom and Newlands. Newlands has just come back from Ostend. They have had
no supper. We bustle about to find some.

We all know the Germans are coming into Ghent. But we do not speak of
it. We are all very polite, almost supernaturally gentle, and very kind
to each other. The beautiful manners of Newlands are conspicuous in this
hour, the tragedy of which we are affecting to ignore. I behave as if
there was nothing so important in the world as cutting bread for
Newlands. Newlands behaves as if there were nothing so important as
fetching a bottle of formamint, which he has with him, to cure my cough.
(It has burst out again worse than ever after the unnatural repression
of last nig