"She is your cousin, you say?"
"Certainly, sister. Tell her that Bart of Uncle Henry is here." Again I was switched off, but the communication was this time restored after a few moments, and then I heard a joyful and surprised exclamation:
So at last the lock of the heavy door screeched, and I was admitted. I noticed that about a score of sisters had gathered behind the gate and were anxiously discussing the "strange occurrence." My meeting with Sœur Eulalie, however, was so cordial that the good nuns lost all anxiety, and I was taken inside accompanied by nearly all the inmates of the convent.
They first wanted me to explain what put it into my head to come to Liège, and how I had managed to get there; but as the sisters heard of my empty stomach and my thirty miles, they would not listen to another word before I had put myself round a good square meal.
In the meantime they themselves had a word or two to say about the fright I gave them; for when I stood at the door they mistook me in my sporting habit for a German officer, and the top of my water-bottle for the butt of a revolver!
The work of these sisters is the education of neglected children, and they spoke about their fears during the last momentous days. During the bombardment they stayed night and day with all those little ones in the heavily vaulted cellars of the nunnery, praying all the time before the Blessed Sacrament that had been removed from the chapel and taken into the cellar for safety.
They constantly heard the boom, boom of the shells exploding near by, and each time thought that their last hour had struck. The gloomy cellar depressed them still more, and nobody really believed that there was any chance of being saved. So the little sisters prayed on, preparing each other for death, and looking for the approaching end in quiet resignation.
For the moment all they knew was that the Germans were in the town, as none of them yet had ventured outside the building. At present their great fear was that Germans might be billeted on them.... Oh! they might take everything if only they did not come themselves.
When I left I got a lot of addresses of relations in The Netherlands, and undertook to send a postcard to each of these. They also gave me an introduction to the proprietor of an hotel whom they knew, in which they asked him to give me a bed; and thus armed I succeeded at last. It was high time too, for at nine o'clock everyone had to be at home. In the hotel everything was dark, for there was no gas in the town. At last I could lie down on my bed, and had a good rest, although I could not sleep a wink. I was too tired and had seen and experienced too much that day.