left
him.

She wasn't certain. She was no nearer certainty so long as she didn't
know when the boy had died. If only she knew--

They hadn't unfastened his tunic and shirt to feel over his heart if he
were dead. So he couldn't have been dead when they left him.... But there
was Sutton. Billy wouldn't have left him unless he had been dead. Her
mind worked rapidly, jumping from point to point, trying to find some
endurable resting place.... He was so young, so small, so light. Light.
It wouldn't take two to carry him. She could have picked him up and
carried him herself. Billy had had the lame man to look after. He had
left the boy to John. She saw John looking back over his shoulder.

She got up and went through the house, through all the rooms, to see if
there were any more of them that John had left there. She felt tired out
and weak, sick with her belief, her fear of what John had done. The dead
boy was alone in the house. She covered his face with her handkerchief
and went back.

The Belgian waited for her at the entrance to the yard. He had
dragged himself there, crawling on his hands and knees. He smiled
when he saw her.

"I was coming to look for you, Mademoiselle."

She had him safe beside her against the stable wall. He let his head rest
on her shoulder now, glad of the protecting contact. She tried not to
think about John. Something closed down between them. Black. Black;
shutting him off, closing her heart against him, leaving her heart hard
and sick. The light went slowly out of the street, out of the sky. The
dark came, the dark sounding with the "Boom--Boom" of the guns, lit with
spiked diamond flashes like falling stars.

The Belgian had gone to sleep again when she heard the ambulance coming
down the street.

* * * * *

"Is that you, Charlotte?"

"Billy--! What made you come?"

"Conway. He's in a frantic funk. Said he'd lost you. He thought you'd
gone on with me."

How awful it would be if Billy knew.

"It was my fault," she lied. "He told me to go on with you." She could
hear him telling her to wait for him in the stable yard.

"I'd have come before only I didn't see him soon enough. I had an
operation.... Is that a wounded man you've got there? I suppose he lost
him, too?"

"He didn't know he was here."

"I see."

Then she remembered. Billy would know. Billy would tell her.

"Billy--was that boy dead when you left him! The boy in the house
over t