"How are you going to get away?" "And you, how are you going to get away?" The tall, slight young man with the little dark moustache is Mr. Jeffries of the _Daily Mail_, who has been staying at the Hotel de l'Europe. With him is the popular Mr. Perry Robinson of the _Times_. The third is Mr. P. Phillips of the _Daily News_. "I have just come from the État Majeur," Mr. Jeffries tells me hurriedly. "There is not a ghost of a hope now! Everyone has gone. We must get away at once." "I am not going," I say. For suddenly the knowledge has come to me that I cannot leave the greatest of my dramas before the curtain rolls up in the last scene. In vain they argue, tell me I am mad. I am not going. So they say good-bye and leave me. CHAPTER XXXV THE CITY SURRENDERS Antwerp has surrendered! It is Friday morning. All hope is over. The Germans are coming in at half-past one. "Well," Says Mr. Lucien Arthur Jones at last, at the end of a long discussion between him and Mr. Frank Fox and myself, "if you have really decided to stay, I'm going to give you this key! It belongs to the house of some wealthy Belgians who have fled to England. There is plenty of food and stores of all kind in the house. If need be, you might take shelter there!" And he gave me the key and the address, and I,--luckily for myself,--I remembered it afterwards. With a queer little choke in my throat, I stood on the hotel door-step, watching those two Englishmen on their bicycles whirling away down the Avenue de Commerce. In a moment they were swallowed up from my sight in the black pall of cloud and smoke that hung above the city, dropping from the leaden skies like long black fringes, and hovering over the streets like thick funeral veils. So they were gone! The die was cast. I was alone now, all alone in the fated city. At first, the thought was a little sickening. But after a minute it gave me a certain amount of relief, as I realised that I could go ahead with my plans without causing anyone distress. To feel that those two men had been worrying about my safety, and were worrying still, was a very wretched sensation. They had enough to think of on their own account! Somehow or other they had now to get to a telegraph wire and send their newspapers in England the story of Antwerp's fall, and the task before them was Herculean. The nearest wires were in Holland, and they had nothing but their bicycles. Turning back into the big, dim, deserted restaurant, I went to look for the old patronne, whose black eyes dilated in her sad, old yellow face at the sight of me in my dark blue suit, and white veil floating from my little black hat. "What, Madame! But they told me _les deux Anglais_ have departed. You have not gone with them?" "Listen, Madame! I want you to help me. I am writing a book about the War, and to see the Germans come into Antwerp is something I ought not to miss. I want to stay here!" "_Mais, c'est dangereux, Madame! Vous êtes Anglaise!_"