You remember you asked me if the Allies would ever bring themselves to replying in sort to the gas attacks.  You see what Litigue says so simply.  They did have asphyxiating bombs.  Naturally the most honorable army in the world cannot neglect to reply in sort to a weapon like that.  When the Boches have taken some of their own medicine the weapon will be less freely used.  Besides, today our men are all protected against gas.

I had hardly settled down to the feeling that the offensive was over and that there was another long winter of inaction—­a winter of the same physical and material discomforts as the first—­lack of fuel, suspense,—­when the news came which makes my feeling very personal.  The British offensive in the north has cost me a dear friend.  You remember the young English officer who had marched around me in September of last year, during the days preceding the battle of the Marne?  He was killed in Belgium on the morning of September 26—­the second day of the offensive.  He was in command of an anti-aeroplane battery advanced in the night to what was considered a well-concealed position.  The German guns, however, got the range.  Shrapnel nearly wiped out the command, and the Captain was wounded in the head.  He died at the hospital at Etaples half an hour after he arrived, and lies buried in the English cemetery on the dunes, with his face towards the country for which he gave his young life.

I know one must not today regret such sacrifices.  Death is—­and no one can die better than actively for a great cause.  But, when a loved one goes out in youth; when a career of achievement before which a really brilliant future opened, is snapped, one can still be proud, but it is through a veil of tears.

I remember so well that Sunday morning, the 26th of September.  It was a beautiful day.  The air was clear.  The sun shone.  I sat all the morning on the lawn watching the clouds, so small and fleecy, and listening to the far-off cannon, not knowing then that it meant the “big offensive.”  Oddly enough we spoke of him, for Amelie was examining the cherry tree, which she imagined had some sort of malady, and she said:  “Do you remember when Captain Noel was here last year how he climbed the tree to pick the cherries?” And I replied that the tree hardly looked solid enough now to bear his weight.  I sat thinking of him, and his life of movement and activity under so many climes, and wondered where he was, little thinking that already, that very morning, the sun of his dear life was told, and that we should never, as I had dreamed, talk over his adventures in France as we had so often talked over those in India, in China, and in Africa.

It is odd, but when a friend so dear as he was, yet whom one only saw rarely, in the etapes of his active career, goes out across the great bourne, into the silence and the invisible, it takes time to realize it.  It is only after a long waiting, when not even a message comes back, that one comprehends that there are to be no more meetings at the cross-roads.  I moved one more portrait into the line under the flags tied with black—­that was all.