It was very strange to be there, very strange indeed! This was the Métropole and yet not the Métropole! Sometimes I could not believe it was the Métropole at all--the gay, bright, lively, friendly, companionable Métropole--so sad was this big red-carpeted hotel, so full of gloomy echoing silences, and with never a soul to arrive or leave, to ask for a room or a time-table. There were Italians in charge of the hotel, for which I was profoundly thankful. How nice they were to me, those kindly sons of the South. They allowed me to look in their visitors' book, and as I expected, I found that the dry hotel register had suddenly become transformed into a vital human document, of surpassing interest, of intense historic value. As I glanced through the crowded pages I came at last upon an ominous date in August upon which there were no names entered. It was the day on which Brussels surrendered to the Germans. On that day the register was blank, entirely blank. And next day also, and the next, and the next, and the next, were those white empty sheets, with never a name inscribed upon them. For weeks this blankness continued. It was stifling in its significance. It clutched at one's heart-strings. It shouted aloud of the agony of those days when all who could do so left Brussels, and only those who were obliged to remained. It told its desolate tale of the visitors that had fled, or ceased to come. Only, here and there after a long interval, appeared a German name or two. Frau Schmidt arrived; Herr Lemberg; Fräulein Gottmituns. There was a subdued little group of occupants when I was there; Mr. Morse, the American pill-maker, Mr. Williams, another American, an ex-Portuguese Minister and his wife and son (exiles these from Portugal), a little Dutch Baroness who was said to be a great friend of Gyp's, half a dozen English nurses and two wounded German officers. I made friends quickly with the nurses and the Americans, and to look into English eyes again gave me a peculiarly soothing sense of relief that taught me (if I needed teaching) how alone I was in all these dangers and agitations. Mr. Williams had a queer experience. I have often wondered why America did not resent it on his account. He was arrested and taken prisoner for talking about the horrors of Louvain in a train. He was released while I was there. I saw him dashing into the hotel one evening, a brown paper parcel under his arm. There was quite a little scene in the waiting-room; everyone came round him asking what had happened. It seemed that as he stepped out of the tram he was confronted by German officers, who promptly conducted him into a "detention honorable." There he was stripped and searched, and in the meanwhile private detectives visited his room at the Métropole and went through all his belongings.