Afterward I crossed that bridge many times.  They grew accustomed to me, but they evidently thought me quite mad.  Always they protested and complained, until one day the word went round that the American lady had been received by the King.  After that I was covered with the mantle of royalty.  The sentries saluted as I passed.  I was of the elect.

There were other sentries until the Belgian frontier was passed.  After that there was no further challenging.  The occasional distant roar of a great gun could be heard, and two French aeroplanes, winging home after a reconnaissance over the German lines, hummed overhead.  Where between Calais and Dunkirk there had been an occasional peasant’s cart in the road or labourer in the fields, now the country was deserted, save for long lines of weary soldiers going to their billets, lines that shuffled rather than marched.  There was no drum to keep them in step with its melancholy throbbing.  Two by two, heads down, laden with intrenching tools in addition to their regular equipment, grumbling as the car forced them off the road into the mud that bordered it, swathed beyond recognition against the cold and dampness, in the twilight those lines of shambling men looked grim, determined, sinister.

“We are going through Furnes,” said my companion.  “It has been shelled all day, but at dusk they usually stop.  It is out of our way, but you will like to see it.”

I said I was perfectly willing, but that I hoped the Germans would adhere to their usual custom.  I felt all at once that, properly conserved, a long and happy life might lie before me.  I mentioned that I was a person of no importance, and that my death would be of no military advantage.  And, as if to emphasise my peaceful fireside at home, and dinner at seven o’clock with candles on the table, the fire re-commenced.

“Artillery,” I said with conviction, “seems to me barbarous and unnecessary.  But in a moving automobile—­”

It was a wrong move.  He hastened to tell me of people riding along calmly in automobiles, and of the next moment there being nothing but a hole in the road.  Also he told me how shrapnel spread, scattering death over large areas.  If I had had an idea of dodging anything I saw coming it vanished.

We went into the little town of Furnes.  Nothing happened.  Only one shell was fired, and I have no idea where it fell.  The town was a dead town, its empty streets full of brick and glass.  I grew quite calm and expressed some anxiety about the tires.  Although my throat was dry, I was able to enunciate clearly!  We dared not light the car lamps, and our progress was naturally slow.