The weeks, of which each day was a procession of hours too full of work
to leave time for anxiety, began to enrol themselves into months, and
the hope of rescue by a Russian advance made their hearts sick, so long
was it deferred. Refugees from neighbouring villages kept arriving, and
there was the constant problem before these devoted friends of their
flock, as to how to feed them. All such were welcome, and eager was the
welcome they received, though every foot of space in the buildings and
in the yards was occupied. But somehow they managed to make room for all
who came, and for those villagers who, under threat of torture and
massacre, had apostatised, there was but yearning and sorrow, but never
a word of blame or bitterness. Sometimes there was a visit of Turkish
troops to search for concealed Russians, and, as our diarist remarks,
'We can't complain of the monotony of life, for we never know what is
going to happen next. On Tuesday morning we had a wedding in my room
here. The boy and girl were simple villagers.... The wedding was fixed
for the Syrian New Year, but the Kurds came and carried off wedding
clothes and everything else in the house. They all fled here, and were
married in the old dirty garments they were wearing when they ran for
their lives.... Their only present was a little tea and sugar that I
tied up in a handkerchief and gave to the bride.'

The eternal feminine and the eternal human speak there; and there, for
this gallantest of women, were two keys that locked up the endless
troubles and anxieties that ceased not day or night. But sometimes the
flesh was weak, and in the privacy of her diary she says, 'How long, O
Lord?' But for that there was the master-key that unlocks all wards, and
a little further on we read, 'One of the verses that helps to keep my
faith steady is, "He that spared not His own Son." For weeks we have had
no word from the outside world, but we "rest in Jehovah and wait
patiently for Him."'