even then I was assured by railway officials that there was no such
train. I had faith, however, in a young French officer who pledged his
word to me that I should get to Nancy if I took my place in the
carriage before which he stood. He was going as far as Toul himself.

I could see by the crimson velvet round his kepi that he was an army
doctor, and by the look of sadness in his eyes that he was not glad to
leave the beautiful woman by his side who clasped his arm. They
spoke to me in English.

"This war will be horrible!" said the lady. "It is so senseless and so
unnecessary. Why should Germany want to fight us? There has been
no quarrel between us and we wanted to live in peace."

The young officer made a sudden gesture of disgust.

"It is a crime against humanity--a stupid, wanton crime!"

Then he asked a question earnestly and waited for my answer with
obvious anxiety:

"Will England join in?"

I said "Yes!" with an air of absolute conviction, though on that night
England had not yet given her decision. During the last twenty-four
hours I had been asked this question a score of times. The people of
Paris were getting impatient of England's silence. Englishmen in Paris
were getting very anxious. If England did not keep her unwritten
pledge to France, it would be dangerous and a shameful thing to be
an Englishman in Paris. Some of my friends were already beginning
to feel their throats with nervous fingers.

"I think so too!" said the officer, when he heard my answer. "England
will be dishonoured otherwise!"

16

The platform was now thronged with young men, many of them being
officers in a variety of brand-new uniforms, but most of them still in
civilian clothes as they had left their workshops or their homes to
obey the mobilization orders to join their military depots. The young
medical officer who had been speaking to me withdrew himself from
his wife's arm to answer some questions addressed to him by an old
colonel in his own branch of service. The lady turned to me and
spoke in a curiously intimate way, as though we were old friends.

"Have you begun to realize what it means? I feel that I ought to weep
because my husband is leaving me. We have two little children. But
there are no tears higher than my heart. It seems as though he were
just going away for a week-end--and yet he may never come back to
us. Perhaps to-morrow I shall weep."

She did not weep even when the train was signalled to