I stagger to the door, across the passage, into the little back bed-chamber. The door is closed, the key grates in the lock. I remove my hat, take down my hair and throw my diary in the jug of water. Having pulped it well, I tear it quickly into small pieces. These I hastily cram into my mouth and masticate and swallow as best I may. The pulpy mixture has a horrible flavour, but it goes down—that is the main point. I twist up my hair again and put on my hat. None too soon, for the door opens and the Bourgmestre’s wife and her friend appear. “Take off your hat,” they say. I comply. I even graciously ask them to feel my hair. They both do so. They are satisfied. I show some notes to the English-speaking lady and fervently hope their unspeakable stupidity will convince her of my innocence. The Bourgmestre’s wife looks pleased. I admire her beauty, her fine air of courage. If they only hadn’t such a dreadful sense of duty, these Teutons. “Es ist unsere pflicht,” they say. She would have shot me herself, without a tremor, but she will be glad, I believe, if my innocence is proved. HOMEWARD BOUND A little procession of housewives arrives at the town hall late at night. I see them through the chinks of the door from the room where I lie. “We have given our all to the troops,” they say, “we have nothing to eat.” “Nothing to eat.” So the German _haus-frau_ can be just as compassionate as the Belgian peasant. I go to sleep in a comfortable bed, locked-in prisoner though I am, and dream sweeter dreams than I ever enjoyed in the little Ardennois village. At four in the morning I am told to get up. My door is unlocked and I am taken to the dining-room where the kind Bourgmestre’s wife gives me breakfast. Her husband is in uniform. After surrendering me to the authorities at Cologne he will rejoin his regiment. The wife speaks to me with tears running down her cheeks as if I were an old friend. “It is so hard, so very hard, Fräulein, that he must go. What will happen to me and my three little ones?” On the just or the unjust side, in war as in life, it is always the woman who pays.... The twelve-hour journey to Cologne is uneventful. The Bourgmestre’s manner has quite changed to me to-day. He is almost friendly. He puts me on my _parole d’honneur_ if he leaves the carriage for a moment. Needless to say I do not run away. Many people travel with us, mostly men. They talk of brutal treatment accorded them by the French when escaping from that country at the beginning of the war. Some speak scornfully of the English. The Bourgmestre leans across and says quietly: “I think you do not notice that we have an English lady in the carriage.” There are instant apologies and smiles all round. I begin to feel safe.