“Mademoiselle has come from America to help us, Jean,” he said quietly.  “And now for Dunkirk.”

The road from Dunkirk to Calais was well guarded in those days.  From Nieuport for some miles inland only the shattered remnant of the Belgian Army held the line.  For the cry “On to Paris!” the Germans had substituted “On to Calais!”

So, on French soil at least, the road was well guarded.  A few miles in the battered car, then a slowing up, a showing of passports, the clatter of a great chain as it dropped to the road, a lowering of leveled rifles, and a salute from the officer—­that was the method by which they advanced.

Henri sat with the driver and talked in a low tone.  Sometimes he sat quiet, looking ahead.  He seemed, somehow, older, more careworn.  His boyishness had gone.  Now and then he turned to ask if she was comfortable, but in the intervals she felt that he had entirely forgotten her.  Once, at something Jean said, he got out a pocket map and went over it carefully.  It was a long time after that before he turned to see if she was all right.

Sara Lee sat forward and watched everything.  She saw little evidence of war, beyond the occasional sentries and chains.  Women were walking along the roads.  Children stopped and pointed, smiling, at the battered car.  One very small boy saluted, and Henri as gravely returned the salute.

Some time after that he turned to her.

“I find that I shall have to leave you in Dunkirk,” he said.  “A matter of a day only, probably.  But I will see before I go that you are comfortable.”

“I shall be quite all right, of course.”

But something had gone out of the day for her.

Sara Lee learned one thing that day, learned it as some women do learn, by the glance of an eye, the tone of a voice.  The chauffeur adored Henri.  His one unbandaged eye stole moments from the road to glance at him.  When he spoke, while Henri read his map, his very voice betrayed him.  And while she pondered the thing, woman-fashion they drew into the square of Dunkirk, where the statue of Jean Bart, pirate and privateer stared down at this new procession of war which passed daily and nightly under his cold eyes.

Jean and a porter carried in her luggage.  Henri and a voluble and smiling Frenchwoman showed her to her room.  She felt like an island of silence in a rapid-rolling sea of French.  The Frenchwoman threw open the door.

A great room with high curtained windows; a huge bed with a faded gilt canopy and heavy draperies; a wardrobe as vast as the bed; and for a toilet table an enormous mirror reaching to the ceiling and with a marble shelf below—­that was her room.

“I think you will be comfortable here, mademoiselle.”

Sara Lee, who still clutched her small bag of gold, shook her head.

“Comfortable, yes,” she said.  “But I am afraid it is very expensive.”