As for me, I did not sleep a moment.  I could not forget the poor fellows lying dead out there in the starlight—­and it was such a beautiful night.

XIV

September 8, 1914.

It was about my usual time, four o’clock, the next morning,—­Sunday, September 6,—­that I opened my blinds.  Another lovely day.  I was dressed and downstairs when, a little before five, the battle recommenced.

I rushed out on the lawn and looked off.  It had moved east—­behind the hill between me and Meaux.  All I could see was the smoke which hung over it.  Still it seemed nearer than it had the day before.  I had just about room enough in my mind for one idea—­“The Germans wish to cross the Marne at Meaux, on the direct route into Paris.  They are getting there.  In that case to-day will settle our fate.  If they reach the Marne, that battery at Coutevroult will come into action,”—­that was what Captain Edwards had said,—­“and I shall be in a direct line between the two armies.”

Amelie got breakfast as if there were no cannon, so I took my coffee, and said nothing.  As soon as it was cleared away, I went up into the attic, and quietly packed a tiny square hat-trunk.  I was thankful that this year’s clothes take up so little room.  I put in changes of underwear, stockings, slippers, an extra pair of low-heeled shoes, plenty of handkerchiefs,—­just the essentials in the way of toilette stuff,—­a few bandages and such emergency things, and had room for two dresses.  When it was packed and locked, it was so light that I could easily carry it by its handle on top.  I put my long black military cape, which I could carry over my shoulder, on it, with hat and veil and gloves.  Then I went down stairs and shortened the skirt of my best walking-suit, an/d hung it and its jacket handy.  I was ready to fly,—­if I had to,—­and in case of that emergency nothing to do for myself.

I had got all this done systematically when my little French friend—­I call her Mile.  Henriette now—­came to the door to say that she simply “could not stand another day of it.”  She had put, she said, all the ready money they had inside her corset, and a little box which contained all her dead father’s decorations also, and she was ready to go.  She took out the box and showed the pretty jeweled things,—­his cross of the Legion d’Honneur, his Papal decoration, and several foreign orders,—­her father, it seems, was an officer in the army, a great friend of the Orleans family, and grandson of an officer of Louis XVI’s Imperial Guard.  She begged me to join them in an effort to escape to the south.  I told her frankly that it seemed to me impossible, and I felt it safer to wait until the English officers at Coutevroult notified us that it was necessary.  It would be as easy then as now—­and I was sure that it was safer to wait for their advice than to adventure it for ourselves.  Besides, I had no intention of leaving my home and all the souvenirs of my life without making every effort I could to save them up to the last moment.  In addition to that, I could not see myself joining that throng of homeless refugies on the road, if I could help it.