The maid found her in rather a dismal mood.

“Going across, miss!” she said.  “Fancy that!”

“It’s a secret,” cautioned Sara Lee.  “I am really not sure I am going.  I am only trying to go.”

The maid, who found Sara Lee and the picture of Harvey on her dressing table both romantic and appealing, offered to pack.  From the first moment it was evident that she meant to include the white dress.  Indeed she packed it first.

“You never know what’s going to happen over there,” she asserted.  “They do say that royalties are everywhere, going about like common people.  You’d better have a good frock with you.”

She had an air of subdued excitement, and after she had established the fact that not only the white frock but slippers and hose also would go in she went to the door and glanced up and down the passage.  Then she closed the door.

“There was queer goings-on here last night, miss,” she said cautiously.  “Spies!”

“Oh, no!” cried Sara Lee.

“Spies,” she repeated.  “A man and a woman, pretending to be Belgian refugees.  They took them away at daylight.  I expect by now they’ve been shot.”

Sara Lee ate very little breakfast that morning.  All through England it was confidently believed that spies were shot on discovery, a theory that has been persistent—­and false, save at the battle line—­since the beginning of the war.  And Henri’s plan assumed new proportions.  Suppose she made her attempt and failed?  Suppose they took her for a spy, and that tomorrow’s sun found her facing a firing squad?  Not, indeed, that she had ever heard of a firing squad, as such.  But she had seen spies shot in the movies.  They invariably stood in front of a brick wall, with the hero in the center.

So she absent-mindedly ate her kippered herring, which had been strongly recommended by the waiter, and tried to think of what a spy would do, so she might avoid any suspicious movements.  It struck her, too, that war seemed to have made the people on that side of the ocean extremely ready with weapons.  They would be quite likely to shoot first and ask questions afterwards—­which would be too late to be helpful.

She remembered Henri, for instance, and the way, without a word, he had shot the donkey.

That day she wrote Harvey a letter.

“Dearest:”  it began; “I think I am to leave for France to-night.  Things seem to be moving nicely, and I am being helped by the Belgian Relief Commission.  It is composed of Belgians and is at the Savoy Hotel.”

Here she stopped and cried a little.  What if she should never see Harvey again—­never have his sturdy arms about her?  Harvey gained by distance.  She remembered only his unfailing kindness and strength and his love for her.  He seemed, here at the edge of the whirlpool, a sort of eddy of peace and quiet.  Even then she had no thought of going back until her work was done, but she did an unusual thing for her, unused to demonstration of any sort.  She kissed his ring.