Of Ypres Madame said, “It smells of lilac and death.”  Some Englishmen were looking for the body of a comrade there, and failed to find it amongst the ruins of the burning and devastated town.  By seeming chance they opened the door of a house which still stood, and found in a room within an old man of eighty-six, sitting placidly in a chair.  He said, “How do you do?” and bade them be seated, and when they exclaimed, aghast at his being still in Ypres, he replied that he was paralysed and couldn’t move, but that he knew God would send someone to take him away; and he smiled gently at them, and was taken away in their ambulance.

Madame gave me a shell-case, and asked Mr. Thompson if he would bring in his large piece to show us.  He wheeled it across the hall, as no one could lift it, and this was only the base of a 15-inch shell.  It was picked up in the garden of the hospital, and had travelled fifteen miles!

The other day I went to see for myself some of the poor refugees at Coxide.  There were twenty-five people in one small cottage.  Some were sleeping in a cart.  One weeping woman, wearing the little black woollen cap which all the women wear, told me that she and her family had to fly from their little farm at Lombaertzyde because it was being shelled by the Germans, but afterwards, when all seemed quiet, they went back to their home to save the cows.  Alas, the Germans were there!  They made this woman (who was expecting a baby) and all her family stand in a row, and one girl of twenty, the eldest daughter, was shot before their eyes.  When the poor mother begged for the body of her child it was refused her.

The Times list of atrocities is too frightful, and all the evidence has been sifted and proved to be true.

20 May.—­Yesterday I arranged with Major du Pont about leaving the station to go home and give lectures in England.  Then I had a good deal to do, so I abandoned my plan of visiting refugees with Etta Close, and stayed on at the station.  At 5.30 I came back to La Panne to see Countess de Caraman Chimay, the dame d’honneur of the Queen of the Belgians; then I went on to dine with the nurses at the “Ocean.”  Here I heard that Adinkerke, which I had just left, was being shelled.  Fortunately, the station being there, I hope the inhabitants got away; but it was unpleasant to hear the sound of guns so near.  I knew the three Belgian Sisters would be all right, as they have a good cellar at their house, and I could trust Lady Bagot’s staff to look after her.  All the same, it was a horrible night, full of anxiety, and there seems little doubt that La Panne will be shelled any day.  My one wish is—­let’s all behave well.

I watched the sunset over the sea, and longed to be in England; but, naturally, one means to stick it, and not leave at a nasty time.

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21 May.—­Yesterday, at the station, there was a poor fellow lying on a stretcher, battered and wounded, as they all are, an eye gone, and a foot bandaged.  His toes were exposed, and I went and got him rather a gay pair of socks to pull on over his “pansement.”  He gave me a twinkle out of his remaining eye, and said, “Madame, in those socks I could take Constantinople!”