On a Saturday afternoon we went down to Woolwich, and after a short chat with a nurse in charge were allowed to see the Canadian who had written first.  Private Harold R. Peat was slight, small, and looked almost emaciated.  We talked for some time and he showed us several souvenirs which he had.  We liked him, and promised to come back.  He agreed that he would get a pass for the following Sunday so that we could see him in the regulation hours.

He mentioned during conversation how he had seen the advertisement in The Daily Express, and how he always had the desire to comfort those who had lost relatives, especially when all the official information could give was “missing.”

On the next day it occurred to me that the days must hang long on such a boy’s hands, and I forthwith wrote him a card with some small joke on it.  He replied by a letter.  Soon we wrote to each other every day.  It was quite amusing, and at times our letters amounted to a war of wits and repartee.

Our friendship grew, and then he got well enough to leave the hospital.  We wrote regularly, but finally there were more hospital visits to make when, as a paralyzed wreck of a youth, he was sent back from France.  Private Peat rallied quickly, and to my astonishment one day he walked in to see me at the offices where the Efficiency Engineers had their headquarters.

“Time for me to come and see you!” he exclaimed.  I brought him into the reception room, left him for two minutes until I made some arrangements as to work.  When I returned he was in a faint, from which it took some time to rouse him.  His convalescent camp was in the country, and he had trudged some five miles of muddy road in the rain in his endeavor to reach a railway station with the ultimate object in view of visiting me.

We saw each other frequently from this time.  My dear friend, Amy Naylor, jokingly warned me:  “Be careful, Bebe, you are playing with fire.”  I laughed.  I had other ideas, but nevertheless her words made me think.  I found out that I, for one, was not playing.  It remained to find out whether the other party to the game believed it a pastime, or something of more moment.

Soon there came word that certain of the disabled men were to be returned to Canada for discharge.  Private Peat was among them.  He had word that he would soon receive a commission, though he would not again be fit for active service.

Without one word spoken, it came to be understood between us that it would only be a matter of time before I would go to Canada to join him.  Fate seemed to arrange the matter silently that at some indefinite time when “he” had had time to look around and “see how things were,” he would send for me.

It was a matter of weeks before I got a cable:  “Come now.”  I came.

We met through tragedy.  My husband has all the sacredness to me of having come back to me from the brink of the grave.  He has all the wonder of a man who has offered, and is willing to offer his life again for right.  He has all the glory of a man who had not to be “fetched.”  He went.