"She is in Holland--at Bergen-op-Zoom. The doctors ordered her to go, otherwise she would have remained here and helped with the wounded. I'll find Yvonne." In less than a minute Thelma Everest returned, accompanied by her Belgian chum. Yvonne Résimont was a girl of medium height and well-proportioned. Her features were dark and clear, her hair of a deep brown. Notwithstanding the grimness of her surroundings she had a natural vivacity that could not fail to charm all with whom she came in contact. "You, then, are Kenneth," she exclaimed in good English, with a slight foreign accent. "I know much about you from Thelma, but I did not expect to see you in the uniform of our brave Belgians." Kenneth coloured slightly. "I wish to goodness the uniform were a little better fitting," he thought; but it would not have mattered in the slightest degree. Yvonne was a patriot to her finger-tips. Every man in the uniform of her beloved country was to her a hero. The uniform, ill-fitting or otherwise, was in her eyes an emblem of right against might. "Tell me, Kenneth," she continued, using his Christian name quite as a matter of course. It was excusable, since Thelma had never spoken of her brother by any other name, and Kenneth had not the faintest objection. "Tell me, how came you to be fighting with us in Belgian uniform?" "Time, old man," announced Rollo, for during the animated conversation the minutes fled with astonishing rapidity. "It's nearly three o'clock." "You'll both come to see us again whenever you have the chance, won't you?" asked Thelma, as the two chums bade the girls farewell. "For the next ten days we are on night duty, so you can call at any hour between eight and eight." "And if we are asleep," added Yvonne, "tell them to awaken us. I will not be cross at being disturbed, and I do not think Thelma will be." "Ripping girl, your sister, old man," remarked Rollo enthusiastically, as the twain hurried towards the staff office. "Is she?" asked Kenneth absent-mindedly. He was thinking deeply of someone else. CHAPTER XXVI Self-accused "We've a few minutes to spare," observed Kenneth, "so I'll get those cigars for Private Labori. There's a swagger shop just across the road." In spite of the threatened bombardment of Antwerp the population was calm. It was a case of "business as usual". The cafés and shops were doing a good trade; the price of provisions, notwithstanding the great influx of refugees, was but a little above the normal. Were it not for the military element in the street, and the occasional visit of a Zeppelin or hostile aeroplane, it would have been difficult to realize that the city was almost within range of the German siege guns, and that day by day those guns were slowly yet steadily advancing.