were eventually victorious, Mrs. Warren could return to England.  There at least she had in safe investments L40,000, ample for the remainder of their lives.  If Germany lost the War, the German securities nominally worth two hundred thousand marks might become simply waste paper; even now they were only computed by the bank at a purchase value of about one fifth what they had stood at before the War.  If Germany were victorious or agreed to a compromise peace, her mother’s shares in Belgian companies might be unsaleable.  Better to secure now a lump sum of four thousand pounds in bank notes that would be legal currency, at any rate as long as the German occupation lasted.  And as one never knew what might happen, it was safer still to have all this money (equivalent to a hundred thousand francs), in their own keeping.  They could live even in war time, on such a sum as this for four, perhaps five years, as they would be very economical and Vivie would try to earn all she could by teaching.  It was useless to hope they would be able to return to Villa Beau-sejour so long as the German occupation lasted, or during that time receive a penny in compensation for the sequestration of the property.

The notes for the hundred thousand francs therefore were carefully concealed in Mrs. Warren’s bedroom at the Hotel Imperial and Vivie for a few months afterwards felt slightly easier in her mind as to the immediate future; for, as a further resource, there were also the jewels and plate at the bank.

They dared hope for nothing from Villa Beau-sejour.  Von Giesselin, after more entreaty than Vivie cared to make, had allowed them with a special pass and his orderly as escort to go in a military motor to the Villa in the month of April in order that they might bring away the rest of their clothes and personal effects of an easily transportable nature.  But the visit was a heart-breaking disappointment.  Their reception was surly; the place was little else than a barrack of disorderly soldiers and insolent officers.  Any search for clothes or books was a mockery.  Nothing was to be found in the chests of drawers that belonged to them; only stale food and unnameable horrors or military equipment articles.  The garden was trampled out of recognition.  There had been a beautiful vine in the greenhouse.  It was still there, but the first foliage of spring hung withered and russet coloured.  The soldiers, grinning when Vivie noticed this, pointed to the base of the far spreading branches.  It had been sawn through, and much of the glass of the greenhouse deliberately smashed.

On their way back, Mrs. Warren, who was constantly in tears, descried waiting by the side of the road the widow of their farmer-neighbour, Madame Oudekens.  She asked the orderly that they might stop and greet her.  She approached.  Mrs. Warren got out of the car so that she might more privately talk to her in Flemish.  Since her husband’s execution, the woman said, she had had to become the mistress of the sergeant-major who resided with her as the only means, seemingly, of saving her one remaining young son from exile in Germany and her daughters from unbearably brutal treatment; though she added, “As to their virtue, that has long since vanished; all I ask is that they be not half-killed whenever the soldiers get drunk.  Oh Madame!  If you could only say a word to that Colonel with whom you are living?”