"We are here at last, dearest, and they tell me I can get off a letter--maybe. We were all day yesterday getting here--about sixty miles--think of that for a car of the Laurences. It is all funny now, but there were moments when it was anything but that. The entire Belgian population between Namur and Brussels seems to be on guard. They are spy mad. We were not out of sight of one set of guards before another had us. We had all sorts of passports, but they took their own time making sure and sometimes it was long, for I don't believe they could always read. There were soldiers and civil guards all holding us up, and when they were not on the road it was the peasants themselves. Why, in one little town a regiment of armed peasants stopped us. Mr. Laurence said they must have raided the firearms' department of a historical museum to get the weapons they carried; rusty old antiques that probably wouldn't work if they did try to fire. They arrested us and took us to the Burgomaster, and it took two hours to convince him we weren't spies. I'm sure he couldn't read our passports. Finally the curé came in and he understood at once. He scolded them like children--told them they would offend their noble English ally if they stopped Americans. So they let us off and even cheered us as we went. "We reached Brussels finally and found that Mr. Laurence's people had arranged everything. You feel so safe here as if you could breathe. I suppose it's because of our embassy and the office, though the office has been turned into a hospital. Hundreds of wounded are coming in. The Red Cross is at work raising money, and somebody jingles a cup under your nose every time you go out. The town is full of boy scouts, too--they say they've taken over all the messenger service. "Mr. Laurence had just come in and says letters will go. He tells me, too, that you've been worried--that his cablegram from Namur didn't get through--that there are inquiries here at the embassy for _me_. He says you think I'm lost. Oh, my dear, I never thought of that. But you'll surely get your wire from Washington to-day, he says. His New York office will wire every day. I couldn't sleep if I thought of you worried. Will see you are regularly posted. Will leave for London as soon as Martha is stronger, and I will sail for America as soon as I can get a ship. "Your loving PATSY." It was on August 22nd that the McCullons received this letter. That afternoon came a message saying that Patsy had reached London. It was many days before they were to know of the experiences of the ten days between letter and message, experiences which were to kindle in the girl that anger and that pity from which her first great passion for other people than her own was to spring.