More officers than she had suspected, a few women, got out.  The latter Sara Lee’s experience on the steamer enabled her to place; buyers mostly, and Americans, on their way to Paris, blockade or no blockade, because the American woman must be well and smartly gowned and hatted.  A man with a mourning band on his sleeve carried a wailing child.

The officers lighted cigarettes.  The civilians formed a line on the jetty under the roof of the shed, and waited, passports in hand, before a door that gleamed with yellow light.  Faces looked pale and anxious.  The blockade was on, and Germany had said that no ships would cross that night.

As if defiantly the Boulogne boat, near at hand, was ablaze, on the shore side at least, with lights.  Stewards came and went.  Beyond it lay the harbor, dark and mysterious save where, from somewhere across, a flashlight made a brave effort to pierce the fog.

One of the buyers ahead of Sara Lee seemed exhilarated by the danger ahead.

“They’ll never get us,” she said.  “Look at that fog!”

“It’s lifting, dearie,” answered a weary voice behind her.  “The wind is carrying it away.”

When Sara Lee’s turn came she was ready.  A group of men in civilian clothes, seated about a long table, looked her over carefully.  Her passports moved deliberately from hand to hand.  A long business, and the baby wailing harder than ever.  But the office was at least warm.  Some of her failing courage came back as she moved, following her papers, round the table.  They were given back to her at last, and she went out.  She had passed the first ordeal.

Suitcase in hand she wandered down the stone jetty.  The Boulogne boat she passed, and kept on.  At the very end, dark and sinister, lay another boat.  It had no lights.  The tide was in, and its deck lay almost flush with the pier.  Sara Lee walked on toward it until a voice spoke to her out of the darkness and near at hand.

“Your boat is back there, madam.”

“I know.  Thank you.  I am just walking about.”

The petty officer—­he was a petty officer, though Sara Lee had never heard the term—­was inclined to be suspicious.  Under excuse of lighting his pipe he struck a match, and Sara Lee’s young figure stood out in full relief.  His suspicions died away with the flare.

“Bad night, miss,” he offered.

“Very,” said Sara Lee, and turned back again.

This time, bewildered and uneasy, she certainly saw Henri.  But he ignored her.  He was alone, and smoking one of his interminable cigarettes.  He had not said he was crossing, and why had he not spoken to her?  He wandered past down the pier, and she lost him in the shadows.  When he came back he paused near her, and at last saluted and spoke.

“Pardon,” he said.  “If you will stand back here you will find less wind.”

“Thank you.”

He carried her suitcase back, and stooping over to place it at her feet he said:  “I shall send him on board with a message to the captain.  When I come back try again.”