When one of her associates, Miss Mary Boyle O'Reilly, who has recently contributed a moving account of Miss Cavell's work, was expelled from Belgium, she begged Miss Cavell to take the opportunity, while it presented itself, to leave that land of horror, and Miss Cavell, with characteristic bravery, replied smilingly: "Impossible, my friend, my duty is here." It was undoubtedly in connection with this humanitarian work that she violated the German military law by giving refuge to fugitive French and Belgian soldiers until such time as they could escape across the frontier to Holland. For this she suffered the penalty of death, and the validity of this sentence, even under Prussian military law, I will discuss later. It is enough to say that no instinct is so natural in every man and woman, and especially in woman with the maternal instinct characteristic of her sex, than to give a harbor of refuge to the helpless. All nations have respected this instinctive feeling as one of the redeeming traits of human nature and the history of war, at least in modern times, can be searched in vain for any instance in which anyone, especially a woman, has been condemned to death for yielding to the humanitarian impulse of giving temporary refuge to a fugitive soldier. Such an act is neither espionage nor treason, as those terms have been ordinarily understood in civilized countries. It is true, as suggested by a few in America who sought to excuse the Cavell crime, that Mrs. Surratt was tried, condemned and executed because she had permitted the band of assassins, whose conspiracy resulted in the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted murder of Secretary Seward, to hold their meetings in her house; but the difference between this conscious participation in the assassination of the head of the State, in a period of civil war, and the humanitarian aid which Miss Cavell gave to fugitive soldiers to save them from capture is manifest. I am assuming that Miss Cavell did give such protection to her compatriots, for all accessible information supports this view, and if so, however commendable her motive and heroic her conduct, she certainly was guilty of an infraction of military law, which justified some punishment and possibly her forcible detention during the period of the war. To regard her execution as an ordinary incident of war is an affront to civilization, and as it is symptomatic of the Prussian occupation of Belgium and not a sporadic incident, it acquires a significance which justifies a full recital of this black chapter of Prussianism. It illustrates the reign of terror which has existed in Belgium since the German occupation. When the German Chancellor made his famous speech in the Reichstag on August 4th, 1914, and admitted at the bar of the world the crime which was then being initiated, he said: "The wrong--I speak openly--that we are committing we will endeavor to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached."