Nevertheless the next morning when she could take stock she found nearly all the poultry except the pigeons had disappeared; and most of the apples, ripe and unripe, had vanished from the orchard trees. The female servants of the farm, however, came back; and finding no violence was offered took up their work again. Two days afterwards, von Giesselin sent Vivie into Brussels in his motor, with his orderly to escort her, so that she might deposit her valuables at a bank. She found Brussels, suburbs and city alike, swarming with grey-uniformed soldiers, most of whom looked tired and despondent. Those who were on the march, thinking Vivie must be the wife of some German officer of high rank, struck up a dismal chant from dry throats with a refrain of "Gloria, Viktoria, Hoch! Deutschland, Hoch!" At the bank the Belgian officials received her with deference. Apart from being the daughter of the well-to-do Mrs. Warren, she was English, and seemed to impose respect even on the Germans. They took over her valuables, made out a receipt, and cashed a fairly large cheque in ready money. Vivie then ventured to ask the bank clerk who had seen to her business if he had any news. Looking cautiously round, he said the rumours going through the town were that the Queen of Holland, enraged that her Prince Consort should have facilitated the crossing of Limburg by German armies, had shot him dead with a revolver; that the Crown Prince of Germany, despairing of a successful end of the War, had committed suicide at his father's feet; that the American Consul General in Brussels--to whom, by the bye, Vivie ought to report herself and her mother, in order to come under his protection--had notified General Sixt von Arnim, commanding the army in Brussels, that, _unless he vacated the Belgian capital immediately_, England would bombard Hamburg and the United States would declare war on the Kaiser. Alluring stories like these flitted through despairing Brussels during the first two months of German occupation, though Vivie, in her solitude at Tervueren, seldom heard them.