That they've lost everything they ever
had?" (I can hear my own voice beating out the horror of it in hard,
cruel jerks.) "That their homes--their _homes_--are burned to ashes
somewhere down there?"

At my last jerk she turned.

"No," she said. "I'm cold and hard and stupid, and I do _not_ realize it.
Neither do you. If either of us realized it for two seconds we should be
either cutting our throats in that ditch or going back to Ostend now with
a load of those women and children, instead of tearing past them like
devils in this damned car.

"I can't realize anything till I know whether Jimmy's all right or not. I
can't see anything, or feel anything, or think of anything but Jimmy.
Bruges is Jimmy and Belgium is Jimmy and the whole war is Jimmy--to me.
I don't care if you _are_ horrified. I can't help it if I _am_ callous.
It is so. And you can't make it different."

I remember saying quite abjectly that I was sorry--that I was only trying
to turn her mind to other things as a relief.

"I'm to turn my mind to _that_--as a relief!"

She showed me a woman I was trying not to see, a woman who carried the
bedding of her household on her back and dragged a four-year-old child by
the hand. The child slipped to its knees at every other yard, and at
every other yard was pulled up whimpering and dragged again--not with
anger or any emotion whatever, but with a sickening repetition, as if its
mother's arm was a mechanism set going to pull and drag.

If ever there was a weathercock it was my sister-in-law. Without even
pretending to consult me, she made Colville, the chauffeur, turn the car
round. (He was _her_ chauffeur, after all, she said.)

"I don't know," she said, "whether I realize that woman or not, or
whether you do. But I'm going to take her into Bruges."

And we took her. (Viola nursed the four-year-old child all the way.) We
also took an old man and a young woman with a baby at her breast, and two
small children. It was the only thing to be done, Viola said.

It was nearly half-past five when we left Bruges the second time.

"God only knows," I groaned, "what time we'll get to Ghent!"

"He does," she said. "He knows perfectly well we shall get there by
half-past seven."

And we did.

It was dark when we turned into the Place d'Armes and drew up before the
long, grey Hotel de la Poste. I jumped out and stood by the kerb to give
Viola my hand.

"But--" she said, "I _know_ this place."

"You ought to.