I started for the Continent on a bright day early in January. I was
searched by a woman from Scotland Yard before being allowed on the
platform. The pockets of my fur coat were examined; my one piece of
baggage, a suitcase, was inspected; my letters of introduction were
opened and read.

"Now, Mrs. Rinehart," she said, straightening, "just why are you
going?"

I told her exactly half of why I was going. I had a shrewd idea that
the question in itself meant nothing. But it gave her a good chance to
look at me. She was a very clever woman.

And so, having been discovered to be carrying neither weapons nor
seditious documents, and having an open and honest eye, I was allowed
to go through the straight and narrow way that led to possible
destruction. Once or twice, later on, I blamed that woman for letting
me through. I blamed myself for telling only half of my reasons for
going. Had I told her all she would have detained me safely in
England, where automobiles sometimes go less than eighty miles an
hour, and where a sharp bang means a door slamming in the wind and not
a shell exploding, where hostile aeroplanes overhead with bombs and
unpleasant little steel darts, were not always between one's eyes and
heaven. She let me through, and I went out on the platform.

The leaving of the one-o'clock train from Victoria Station, London, is
an event and a tragedy. Wounded who have recovered are going back;
soldiers who have been having their week at home are returning to that