and uncertain. She knew what fear was now. She was afraid all the time of
what he would do next, of what he would not do. Her wounded were not safe
with him. Nothing was safe.

She wished that she could have gone out with Billy; with Billy there
wouldn't be any excitement, but neither would there be this abominable
fear. On the other hand you couldn't let anybody else take the risk of
John; and you couldn't, you simply couldn't let him go alone. Conceive
him going alone--the things that might happen; she could at least see
that some things didn't.

It was odd, but John had never shown the smallest desire to go without
her. If he hadn't liked it he could easily have taken Sutton or Gwinnie
or one of the McClane men. It was as if, in spite of his hostility, he
still felt, as he had said, that where she was everything would be right.

And it looked as if this time nothing could go wrong. When they came into
the village the firing had stopped; it was concentrating further east
towards Zele. Trixie's ambulance was packed, and Trixie was excited and
triumphant.

Her gestures waved them back as useless, much too late; without them she
had got in all the wounded. But in the end they took over two of them,
slight cases that Trixie resigned without a pang. She had had to turn
them out to make room for poor Gurney, the chauffeur, who had hurt
himself, ruptured something, slipping on a muddy bank with his stretcher.

Mr. Conway, she said, could drive her back to Ghent and Charlotte could
follow with the two men. She had settled it all, in her bright,
domineering way, in a second, and now swung herself up on the back step