nd a mouth half open,
jerking out its breath. She laid her left hand on his shoulder and with
her right she held the limp hand that hung over the mattress.

I heard her say in French, "If only he knew me--"

And the nun, "Perhaps--at the end--he will know you."

And we left her there with his hand in her right hand and her left hand
on his shoulder. She was on her honour to stay with him till the end; but
her eyes were fixed on Jevons, and they followed him as he went through
the doorway of the cell.

* * * * *

The very minute he had left her Jimmy made his bolt for Lokeren. He said
he didn't want me; but I had seen Viola's eyes, and I said it would be
safer. If I took Viola's car and Colville, she couldn't follow us.

"She won't follow us," he said. "She can't leave him."

We made the first bolt into Lokeren together; and we got out, each with a
load of wounded, just as the Germans were coming in. He made his second
bolt by himself and secretly, while Colville and I were lunching. We
followed, and were stopped in a village two miles from Lokeren.

A Belgian Red Cross man met us here and told us that Jevons had got
through in spite of them, and they didn't in the least expect him to come
back again. He shrugged his shoulders and seemed to be disgusted and
annoyed with Jimmy rather than to admire him.

We hung about in that village an interminable time. I do not remember its
name, if I ever knew it; but I know and remember every house in it and
every tree in the avenue at the turn of the grey road that led to
Lokeren, and even now, in my worst dreams, I find myself in the little
plantation at the end of the village on the left where the railway siding
is, and where the trains came in loaded with wounded. I am always waiting
for Jimmy and looking for Jimmy and not finding him. And at one point I
always stumble over Viola's body. I find her lying wounded in a ditch
that runs through the plantation. And when I find her I know that Jimmy
is dead. And that frightens me--Jimmy's death, I mean, not Viola's body.
I take Viola's body as a matter of course.

It is an abominable dream.

But even that dream is not more astonishing, and it is far less
improbable than what I was to see. We were at the end of the village.
Colville had drawn our car up in the middle of the street, and I was
standing by him, when two Belgian soldiers rushed up to us, pointing up
the road, and shouting to Colvil