The Outrage

The young girls in their muslin frocks and satin shoes sped homeward like a flight of startled butterflies. Did they dream it, or was there really, as they ran over the bridge,...

Feldwebel Karl Sigismund Schwarz lay on the internal slope of a crater under a red sunset sky. His eyes were shut. But he was not asleep. He was making up his mind that he must...

The craze for refugees cooled slightly in the neighbourhood after that. The first rush of enthusiastic generosity abated, and when friends met at knitting-parties and compared r...

Loulou is ill, and I am very anxious about her. It must be the English climate perhaps, for I also do not feel as I used to feel in Bomal. I often am deathly sick, and faint and...

The Vicar of Maylands, the Reverend Ambrose Yule, was in his study writing his monthly contribution to the _Northern Ecclesiastical Review_. He was interested in his subject--"O...

The next day's sun rose hot and angry. It was the 30th of July. By ten o'clock Frieda had packed everything. Amour had been put into his picnic-basket and his humped-up back coa...

The low whistle outside was repeated, there was a note of haste, of urgency in it. She must let him in. How had he got here? Surely he was in danger, there in the open street....

This is an important day, August the 4th--Chérie's birthday. Loulou has given her a gold watch and a sky-blue chiffon scarf; and I gave her a box of chocolates--almost full!--an...

This is August the 1st. In three days I shall be eighteen. At eighteen one is grown up; one pins up one's hair, and one may use perfume on one's handkerchief and think of whom o...

It is pleasant to sit in a quiet English garden on a mild September afternoon, sipping tea and talking about the war and weather, while venturesome sparrows hop on the velvety l...

The Curate of Lindfield had arranged a Benefit Concert for the refugees. It was to be held in the schoolhouse on the last Saturday in September, and the proceeds were to be divi...

"Speak English, please, both. This is our English day," said Frieda, standing in her petticoat-bodice in front of the mirror and removing what the girls called her "Wurst" from...

Chérie, kneeling beside her child's cradle, had heard them enter the adjoining room. She rose slowly. She must go and meet them; she must greet Mireille and tell Louise that Flo...

November 2nd (_All Souls_).--It is strange, but even yet the feeling comes over me now and again that somebody was murdered on that night. And, strangest of all, I cannot free m...

On the morrow Chérie awoke early. She could not say what had startled her out of a deep restful slumber, but suddenly she was wide awake, every nerve tense in a kind of strained...

On the 1st of May the Ourthe and the Aisne, each with a crisp Spring wave to its waters, came together at Bomal. "Here I am, as fresh as ever," said the frisky little Aisne.

The child was three weeks old and still Chérie had not seen either friend or acquaintance, nor had she dared to go out of the house. She felt too shy to show herself in the day-...

But one day came the summons to return to Belgium. It was a peremptory order from the German Governor of Brussels to all owners of house or property to return to their country w...

Dusk was falling and a thin grey mist crept up from the two rivers as Louise, with a black scarf over her head, hurried out of the house to fetch Mireille. She was about to turn...

What she had dreaded more than death had come to pass. From the first hour the fear of it had haunted her. Now she knew. She knew that the outrage to which she had been subjecte...

Dusk, the dreary November dusk, had fallen as Louise hurried homeward across the damp fields and deserted country roads. She had refused Mrs. Yule's urgent offer to accompany he...

The mild September days swung past; the peaceful English atmosphere and the wholesome English food, added to the unobtrusive English kindness--which consists mainly in leaving p...

The house seemed very empty without Nurse Elliot. Chérie seldom spoke, for she had nothing to speak about but her baby, and she knew that to such talk Louise would neither wish...

No one answered and she stood for a moment irresolute. Then the sound of a sobbing voice fell on her ear, "Mireille! Mireille!" ... The despair of it wrung her heart. With sudde...

The bugle bidding the inhabitants of Bomal to enter their homes and lock their doors blew shrilly as Louise hurried through the darkening, deserted streets, holding Mireille's c...

During the many weeks she was in the nursing-home she saw neither Chérie nor Mireille; but Mrs. Yule came nearly every day and brought good news of them both, saying how happy s...

Louise stood in the doorway waiting for Chérie, and watched her coming up the stairs rather slowly with fluttering breath. She drew her into the room and shut the door.