"Yes. I told you it wasn't for the sole purpose of testing my feelings at St. George's Church. Being in London——"
"I understand. But, oh, Eagle! To think you would have gone away for years without bidding me good-bye!"
"You don't quite understand yet or you wouldn't say that." His eyes were wistful. "I was disgraced—put beyond the pale, down and out, unless I could work my way up again out of the mud. Mentally, I was a sick man. Now I see clearer. I'm on my way to get well in spite of scars. Life or death will cure me soon. It doesn't much matter which!"
It mattered to me—mattered so much that I could not speak.
A few hours later I had said good-bye to all my friends at the Liége hospital. Again I was a passenger of the Golden Eagle, flying through darkness as once I had flown through sunshine. Hidden by the night, we winged our way to Brussels safely and surely, and landed outside the town after forty minutes in the air—forty minutes which seemed to me worth as many years.
We came down in a farm field, safely but not silently, and waked the farmer, and his three sons not yet of soldier age. They ran out with rifles prepared for any emergency, but a few words of explanation warmed their hearts to welcome us.
I with my little bundle—my only luggage—was taken to the wife and mother, who exclaimed over me as if I had dropped from another planet, and gave me a bed for the rest of the night. One of the boys offered to guard the monoplane while Eagle went off on the bicycle of the other into town with dispatches from General Leman to the king.
In the morning "Monsieur Mars" came back with the news that a party of English ladies were starting for home in the care of a clergyman, and that he had asked if I might go with them. They had consented to take me, and I must be ready in twenty minutes. An automobile belonging to an officer would call for me at the farm. It came promptly, and in it Eagle and I had our last minutes alone together. We talked cheerfully; but I knew as well as he knew that the chances were ten to one against our ever meeting again on earth.