"Oh! then I will see to it. We have Mass at four o'clock every morning."
"At four o'clock!" exclaimed B. "Every morning! Very well, Sister, to show you we are not miscreants, wake us at half-past three, and we will go to Mass too."
"But it isn't allowed. It is our Mass, in our chapel. No, no, you must sleep.... Get to bed quickly. Good-night. I will wake you at six o'clock."
"Good-night, Sister Gabrielle; good-night.... We shall be so comfortable. You see, you had some spare beds, after all."
"Oh, yes, we had. One can always manage somehow."
And she went off, shutting the door behind her.
And now B. and I thought of nothing but the luxury of sleeping in a bed. How delightful it would be after our sleepless nights in the fogs of the trenches!
But what was that noise resounding through the convent? What was that knocking and those wailing cries? There was some one at the door, hammering at the knocker, some one weeping and sobbing in the dark. I opened my window, and leant out. But the front door had already been opened, and a figure slipped in hurriedly. The sobs came up the stairs to our door, and women's voices, Sister Gabrielle's voice, speaking Flemish, then another voice, sounding like a death-rattle, trying in vain to pronounce words through choking sobs. How horrible that monotonous, inconsolable, continual wail was! It went on for a short time, and then doors were opened and shut, the voices died away, and suddenly the noise ceased.
B. had already got into bed, and, from under the sheets, he begged me, in a voice muffled by the bed-clothes, to put the candle out quickly. But I was haunted by that moaning, though I could not hear it any longer. I wanted to know what tragedy had caused those sobs. I could not doubt that the horrible war was at the bottom of it. And yet we were a long way from the firing line. My curiosity overcame my fatigue. I put on my jacket and went out, taking the candle with me. I ran down the two staircases, and my footsteps seemed to wake dismal echoes in the silent convent.
Just as I came to the hall Sister Gabrielle also arrived, with a small lantern in her hand. I must have frightened her, for she started and gave a little scream. But she soon recovered, and guessed what had disturbed me. She told me all about it in a few simple sentences; a poor woman had fled from her village, carrying her little girl of eighteen months. As she was running distractedly along the road from Lizerne to Boesinghe a German shell had fallen, and a fragment of it had killed her baby in her arms. She had just come six kilometres in the dark, clasping the little corpse to her breast in an agony of despair. She got to Elverdinghe, and knocked at the door of the convent, knowing that there she would find a refuge. And all along the road she had passed convoys, relief troops and despatch-riders; but she took no heed of them; she was obsessed by one thought; to find a shelter for the remains of what had been the joy and hope of her life.