Nurse Cavell was an Englishwoman. That, was the beginning of her offence. I am not here to say she did no wrong. The full significance of her own brave admissions cannot yet be revealed. Her crime was the crime of humanity. The beginning of her offence, to the suspicious German mind, was that she was English and was popular. Everyone spoke of her untiring kindness and unfailing courage. It was enough. She must be dangerous, or all the world would not speak well of her. Nobody spoke well of the German governors of Brussels. There is reason to believe that Miss Cavell came in contact, once at least, with the terrible Baron Von Bissing, the Governor-General. He formed a strong opinion of her capacity and dauntless courage. The same head that contrived her secret trial and execution, directed, there is little reason to doubt, the weaving of the web that ensnared her. The cleverest spies in Von Bissing’s service were set to watch her. They found out that she had given a greatcoat to a French soldier who afterwards escaped across the Dutch frontier. On another occasion she had given an exhausted Englishman a glass of water. Then the spies said, what was likely enough, that she had given money to Belgians, and that this had enabled them to escape. In every part of the world these would be simple acts of humanity--for the suspicious Von Bissing they were crimes. “This must be stopped,” he ordered. CHAPTER VII. ARREST AND SILENCE. Early in the evening of the 5th of August, a loud knock came to the door of Nurse Cavell’s hospital in the Rue de la Culture. Five heavily-footed German soldiers and a corporal stood outside with a police officer. At that very moment the nurse was changing the bandages of a wounded German. The soldiers broke open the door with the butt-ends of their rifles, and rushed into the ward. At a sign from the police officer--one of the creatures Von Bissing had set to watch the nurse’s movements--the corporal seized Miss Cavell roughly. He tore out of her hand the lint with which she was about to bind the wounded man, and began to drag her away. The Englishwoman, astonished but calm and dignified, asked for an explanation. The answer was a cuff. Von Bissing had not given instructions for any explanation. Nurse Cavell left her hospital for the last time, and was marched through the dark streets to the military prison of St. Gilles. Three weeks of silence followed. Miss Cavell’s friends in England knew nothing of her arrest. It was only by the good offices of a chance traveller from Belgium that the news reached the family near the end of August. At the request of the British Foreign Office, Dr. Page, American Ambassador in London, telegraphed for information to the American Minister in Brussels, Mr. Brand Whitlock.