Night fell slowly, a luminous night full of stars. She seemed to be hanging among them--to be one of them--watching the earth pass under her. Two of them gleamed like St. Elmo’s lights at the tips of the planes. The sky was clear and bright, of a deep bluish purple, like the skies she remembered high up on the plains of the great West in her own country. The air was bitter cold upon her face and she blessed Cyril’s foresight for the helmet, gloves and old leather jacket that he had put on her in the hangar. In front of her Cyril leaned slightly to one side and his right hand touched a button, throwing an electric light in a hood in front of the wheel upon the face of the compass and barograph. She glanced at them quickly--four thousand feet--the direction north-northwest. She longed to speak to him and shouted his name. But in the roar of the engines she could not hear her own voice. He still sat up, the fingers of his right hand moving from time to time as he gave her the direction. She thanked God for that--he was alive--he would live until they reached Ypres. He _must_ live. He _must_. She set her teeth upon the words and _willed_ it, praying at last aloud with lips that screamed yet made no sound. Below her moved the lights of a city. She did not know what it was. Cologne, perhaps. She had passed it yesterday morning in the train with John Rizzio. Yesterday! It seemed a year ago. Cologne--then Dusseldorf. The river was not difficult to follow. She lost it once and then moving at a lower altitude she found it quickly. But the old terror was gripping her now. Cyril! His fingers no longer moved directing her. He had sunk lower in his seat and his head had fallen back upon one side, his face upturned to the stars. Was he----? She put the thought from her. It was impossible. She had prayed. Not that.... He had only fainted from pain, from sickness. Not dead--she would not--could not believe it. She longed to reach forward--to let him feel her hand upon his neck--that he might know her pity and her pain. It almost seemed better that death should come to them both now than that he should die and not know the comforting touch of her hand. She leaned forward and one hand left the wheel, but she lost her touch of the air and the planes tipped drunkenly, threatening the destruction she courted. The madness passed--and with its passing came a calm, ice-cold. She was no longer a sentient being. She was merely an instinct with wings, flying as the eagle flies straight for its goal. She kept her glance on the compass and followed the river. North-northwest. The silver thread had become a ribbon now, reflecting the starlight. She passed over other towns. She could see their lights, but her gaze was fixed most often on the distant horizon, where after a while she would find the sea.