ntering Bruges the poor child had made up her mind that Jimmy had
been killed. The smile she had given to the Belfry was the last flicker
of her self-control, and halfway through lunch the grey melancholy that
Bruges had absorbed from Jimmy nine years ago came down on her, as nine
years ago it had come down on me, and it swallowed her up. By the time
the waiter brought the coffee she was done for. Her eyes stared, hard and
hot, over the cup she tried to drink from. She couldn't drink because of
the spasm in her throat.

"Come," I said, "we must clear out of this."

We cleared out.

I too was invaded by the grey melancholy as we came to the bridge by the
eastern gate where I had found Jevons that night leaning over and looking
into the Canal. It was the sentry's sudden springing up to challenge us
that saved me. I hoped that it would save Viola. She enjoyed the
sentries.

But not this time. Her nerves were all on edge and she showed some
irritation at the delay. I felt then that I had to take her in hand.

"My dear child," I said (we were running out on the road to Ghent now),
"do you realize that there's a war?"

She answered, "Yes, Wally, yes, I know there is."

"Do you know that Antwerp's over there, a little way to the north? And
that they've dragged up the big guns from Namur for the siege of
Antwerp?"

"Oh, Wally--_have_ they?"

She turned her face to the north as if she thought she could see or hear
the siege-guns.

"But you _said_ Jimmy was in Ghent."

"Jimmy," I said, "is probably in Ghent. If he isn't, he's in Antwerp. Do
you know that the battlefields are down there--no--there--to the south,
where I'm pointing? There's fighting going on there _now_."

She said, "Yes, dear, I know, I know," very gently; and she put her hand
on my knee, as if she recognized the war as my private tragedy and was
sorry for me. Then she fell back to her brooding.

Somewhere on the great flagged road between Bruges and Ecloo we met a
straggling train of refugees--old men and women and children, bent double
under their enormous bundles, making for Bruges and Ostend. They stared,
not at us, but at the road in front of them, with a dreadful apathy, as
we passed.

"This," I said, "is what finishes _me_--every time I see it."

She said nothing.

"Do you realize," I said, "that those women and those little children are
flying for their lives? That they've come, doubled up like that, for
miles--from Termonde or Alost?