h and decided to show it to the Belgian woman who had passed so
swiftly from abundance and happiness to the utmost of poverty and
heart-break. Almost unwillingly at first the woman looked at the print.
A moment later she held the picture out at arm's length, rose to her
feet, then drew it to her lips and hugged it to her breast.

With streaming eyes she almost shouted, "Thank God! Julia is dead!
Thank God! Julia is dead! Now I know there is a God in Israel, for Julia
is dead, is dead--is dead! Thank God! Thank God!"

Though for a long time the doves had been in the clutches of the German
hawks; though for a long time the lambs had been in the jaws of the
German wolves; when all else failed death came and released the lovely
girls from the clutch of German assassins.

6. "Why Did You Leave Us in Hell for Two Years?"

For British soldiers it had been a long trying day on Messines Ridge.
For many nights the boys had been coming up towards the front trenches.
The next morning at 3:50 they were to go "over the top"; a feat which
they accomplished, driving in a mile and a half deep, on a long, long
line, only to be stopped by four days and nights of rain that drowned
the trenches and drove them back out of the flooded valley to the
hillside. Because the Germans knew what must come the next day, the
German cannon were trying to bomb out the British guns.

That night--tired out--we drove back eighteen miles behind the line for
one good night's sleep. After dinner an English lieutenant told me this
tragic tale:

"It was an April night last spring. All day the wind and fog and rain
had been coming in from the North Sea. The chill and damp went into the
very marrow of the bones. When night fell a few of us officers crept
down the long stair into a shell-proof room. There we had our pipes and
gossiped about the events of the day and talked with the French captain,
our guest, who was spending a week studying our sector. Finally the time
came when we must go back into the trench to take our turn in the rain.

"We were putting on our raincoats, when in my happiness I said, 'Well,
men, you should congratulate me. One week from to-night I shall not be
here in this rain and mud. I shall be home in England and have my little
wife and my baby girl. Just one week! It seems like seven eternities
instead of seven days and nights!'

"I little dreamed the little tragedy that I had precipitated. My colonel
was very kind. He told me tha