shutting him off, closing her heart against him, leaving her heart hard
and sick. The light went slowly out of the street, out of the sky. The
dark came, the dark sounding with the "Boom--Boom" of the guns, lit with
spiked diamond flashes like falling stars.

The Belgian had gone to sleep again when she heard the ambulance coming
down the street.

* * * * *

"Is that you, Charlotte?"

"Billy--! What made you come?"

"Conway. He's in a frantic funk. Said he'd lost you. He thought you'd
gone on with me."

How awful it would be if Billy knew.

"It was my fault," she lied. "He told me to go on with you." She could
hear him telling her to wait for him in the stable yard.

"I'd have come before only I didn't see him soon enough. I had an
operation.... Is that a wounded man you've got there? I suppose he lost
him, too?"

"He didn't know he was here."

"I see."