r to go away to safety in England while Eagle stayed
behind, daily risking his life. But he would not listen to my faltering
hints that I should take up Red Cross work again in Brussels. "If you
want to give me peace of mind, go," he said. So I argued no more, and
smiled my best smile as we clasped hands for the last time. That was in
the thronged railway station, where Eagle came to see me off and help
our pilot parson steer his charges through the crowd. I was glad then
that we had said our real good-bye alone.

It took us two days to get out of Belgium at that busy time of
mobilization. We changed trains so often that we lost count, and
frequently waited for hours at wayside places in pouring rain or
broiling sun. We hadn't much to eat, but most of what we had we gave to
refugees worse off than ourselves, or to tired, hungry soldiers. It was
a hard, almost a terrible journey; but it gave me two friends, and
carried me one stage farther on the strange road along which Fate was
leading me blindfold.

The two friends were old maiden ladies, the sort of old maiden ladies
Father and Di would have avoided like a pestilence if they had met them
travelling on the Continent. They were twin sisters, exactly alike in
figure and face. Their name was Splatchley; their looks were as
repellent as their name; and their natures were angelic. They were tall
and thin and sprawling, with corrugated iron foreheads, and grizzled
hair which they crimped over it in little bunches. They had wistful,
wondering brown eyes, like dogs' eyes (if you can imagine dogs wearing
pince-nez!), the sort of noses manufactured by the gross to fit any
face, and large stick-out teeth, which made you feel sure that no man
would ever have kissed the poor ladies at any price. Their clothes and
hats and shoes resembled French caricatures of British tourists, and
they had a habit of talking together in a way to rasp the nerves. But to
me they were adorable. All their lives they had lived in a country
village, fussing happily over church work; but an uncle, who had made
jam and lots of money, died, leaving everything to his nieces. Part of
that "everything" was a large house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead, in
which, by the uncle's will, the Miss Splatchleys were obliged to live
for nine months of the year. They had done their duty by it for the
first nine months, and had then, with great excitement and some
trepidation, started with a maid as old as themselves f