affectionate smiles. They loved him, this old priest, with his
boyishness, his enthusiasms, his tiny camera, his cigarette, his
beautiful faith. He has promised me the photograph and what he
promises he fulfils. But perhaps it was a failure. I hope not. He
would be so disappointed--and so would I.

So I was glad to meet him again at La Panne--glad and surprised, for
he was fifty miles north of where we had met before. But the abbé was
changed. He was without the smile, without the cigarette. And he was
speaking beseechingly to the smiling young refugee. This is what he
was saying:

"I am glad, daughter, to help you in every way that I can. I have
bought for you in Calais everything that you requested. But I implore
you, daughter, do not ask me to purchase any more ladies' underlinen.
It is most embarrassing."

"But, father--"

"No underlinen," he repeated firmly. But it hurt him to refuse. One
could see that. One imagined, too, that in his life of service there
were few refusals. I left them still debating. The abbé's eyes were
desperate but his posture firm. One felt that there would be no
surrender.

Another picture, and I shall leave La Panne for a time.

I was preparing to go. A telephone message to General Melis, of the
Belgian Army, had brought his car to take me to Dunkirk. I was about
to leave the protection of the Belgian Red Cross and place myself in