miles away, playing bridge that
evening. Maitre de Leval went; and I waited.

The nurses from Miss Cavell's school were waiting in a lower room; other
nurses came for news; they, too, had heard, but could not believe. Then
the Reverend Mr. H. Stirling T. Gahan, the British chaplain at Brussels
and pastor of the English church, came. He had a note from some one at
the St. Gilles prison, a note written in German, saying simply:

[Sidenote: English rector summoned.]

"Come at once; some one is about to die."

[Sidenote: A delay of execution expected.]

He went away to the prison; his frail, delicate little wife remained at
the Legation, and there, with my wife and Miss Larner, sat with those
women all that long evening, trying to comfort them, to reassure them.
Outside a cold rain was falling. Up in my chamber I waited; a stay of
execution would be granted, of course; they always were; there was not,
in our time, anywhere, a court, even a court martial, that would condemn
a woman to death at half-past four in the afternoon and hurry her out
and shoot her before dawn--not even a German court martial.

[Sidenote: Miss Cavell calm and courageous.]

When Mr. Gahan arrived at the prison that night Miss Cavell was lying on
the narrow cot in her cell; she arose, drew on a dressing gown, folded
it about her thin form, and received him calmly. She had never expected
such an end to the trial, but she was brave and was not afraid to die.
The judgment had been read to her that afternoon, there in her cell. She
had written letters to her mother in England and to certain of her
friends, and entrusted them to the German authorities.

She did not complain of her trial; she had avowed all, she said; and it
is one of the saddest, bitterest ironies of the whole tragedy that she
seems not to have known that all she had avowed was not sufficient, even
under German law, to justify the judgment passed upon her. The German
chaplain had been kind, and she was willing for him to be with her at
the last, if Mr. Gahan could not be. Life had not been all happy for
her, she said, and she was glad to die for her country. Life had been
hurried, and she was grateful for these weeks of rest in prison.

"Patriotism is not enough," she said, "I must have no hatred and no
bitterness toward any one."

[Sidenote: Notes made in Bible and prayer-book.]

She received the sacrament, she had no hatred for any one, and she had
no regrets. In the touching