and tells him that he may go if he
likes. His tone is admirably casual; it conveys no sense of the
magnificence of his renunciation. He looks also at Mr. Grierson and Mr.
Foster. The lot of honour falls upon these three.

They set out, still with their air of a youthful picnic party. Dr. Bird
is more than ever the boisterous young man in charge of the champagne.

I am contented so long as Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert and Mrs.
Torrence and Janet McNeil and the Commandant do not go yet. To anybody
who knows the Commandant he is bound to be a prominent figure in the
terrible moving pictures made by fear. Smitten by some great idea, he
dashes out of cover as the shrapnel is falling. He wanders, wrapped in a
happy dream, into the enemies' trenches. He mingles with their lines of
communication as I have seen him mingle with the traffic at the junction
of Chandos Street and the Strand. If you were to inform him of a patrol
of Uhlans coming down the road, he would only say, "I see no Uhlans,"
and continue in their direction. It is inconceivable to his optimism
that he should encounter Uhlans in a world so obviously made for peace
and righteousness.

So that it is a relief to see somebody else (whom I do not know quite so
well) going first. Time enough to be jumpy when the Commandant and the
women go forth on the perilous adventure.

That is all very well. But I am jumpy all the same. By the mere fact
that they are going out first Mr. Grierson and Mr. Foster have suddenly
become dear and sacred. Their lives, their persons, their very
clothes--Dr. Bird's cheerful face, which is so like an overgrown
cherub's, his blond, gold lock of infantile hair, Mr. Grierson's pale
eyes that foresee danger, his not too well fitting khaki coat--have
acquired suddenly a priceless value, the value of things long seen and
long admired. It is as if I had known them all my life; as if life will
be unendurable if they do not come back safe.

It is not very endurable now. Of all the things that can happen to a
woman on a field ambulance, the worst is to stay behind. To stay behind
with nothing in the world to do but to devise a variety of dreadful
deaths for Tom, the chauffeur, and Dr. Bird and Mr. Grierson and Mr.
Foster. To know nothing except that Alost is being bombarded and that it
is to Alost that they are going.

And the others who have been left behind are hanging about in gloom,
disgusted with their fate. Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNe