“Why are they sending you away?” asked Vivie drily, compelled to interest herself in his affairs since they so closely affected her own and her mother’s.

“Because of this,” said von Giesselin, nearly in tears, pulling from a small portfolio a press cutting.  “Do you remember a fortnight ago I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and sent it to me for one of our newspapers?  I showed it to you at the time and you said—­you said ’it was well enough, but it did not seem to have much point.’” Vivie did remember having glanced very perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed unobjectionable piffle.  She hadn’t cared two straws whether he accepted it or not, only did not want to be too markedly indifferent.  Now she took it up and still read it through uncomprehendingly, her thoughts absent with the fate of Miss Cavell.  “Well! what is all the fuss about?  I still see nothing in it.  It is just simply the ordinary sentimental flip-flap that a French versifier can turn out by the yard.”

“It is far worse than that!  It is a horrible—­what the French call ‘acrostiche,’ a deadly insult to our people.  And I never saw it, the Editor never saw it, and you, even, never guessed its real meaning![1] The original, as you say, was in typewriting, and at the bottom was the name and address of a very well-known homme de lettres:  and the words:  ‘Offert a la redaction de l’Ami de L’Ordre.’  He say now, never never did he send it.  It was a forgery.  When we came to understand what it meant all the blame fall on me.  I am sent back to the Army—­I shall be killed before Verdun, so good-bye dear Miss—­We have been good friends.  Oh this War:  this d-r-r-eadful War—­It has spoilt everything.  Now we can never be friends with England again.”

  [Footnote 1:  I have obtained a copy and give it here as it had an
  almost historical importance in the events of the German occupation. 
  But the reader must interpret its meaning for himself.

        LA GUERRE

        Ma soeur, vous souvient-il qu’aux jours de notre enfance,
        En lisant les hauts fails de l’histoire de France,
        Remplis d’admiration pour nos freres Gaulois,
        Des generaux fameux nous vantions les exploits?

        En nos ames d’enfants, les seuls noms des victoires
        Prenaient un sens mystique evocateur de gloires;
        On ne revait qu’assauts et combats; a nos yeux
        Un general vainqueur etait l’egal des dieux.

        Rien ne semblait ternir l’eclat de ces conquetes. 
        Les batailles prenaient des allures de fetes
        Et nous ne songions pas qu’aux hurrahs triomphants
        Se melaient les sanglots des meres, des enfants.

        Ah! nous la connaissons, helas, l’horrible guerre: 
        Le fleau qui punit les crimes de la terre,
        Le mot qui fait trembler les meres a genoux
        Et qui seme le deuil et la mort parmi nous!