"I don't want that sort of love." And he had turned his head away.
But one evening he called for her at Morley's, a white and crushed boy, needing all that she could give him and much more. He came as a man goes to the woman he loves when he is in trouble, much as a child to his mother. Sara Lee, coming down to the reception room, found him alone there, walking rapidly up and down. He turned desperate eyes on her.
"I have brought bad news," he said abruptly.
"The little house—"
"I do not know. I ran away, mademoiselle. I am a traitor. And the Germans broke through last night."
"Henri!"
"They broke through. We were not ready. That is what I have done."
"Don't you think," Sara Lee said in a frozen voice, "that is what I have done? I let you come."
"You? You are taking the blame? Mademoiselle, I have enough to bear without that."
He explained further, still standing in his rigid attitude. If he had been white before at times he was ghastly now. It had not been an attack in force. A small number had got across and had penetrated beyond the railway line. There had been hand-to-hand fighting in the road beyond the poplars. But it looked more like an experiment, an endeavor to discover the possibility of a real advance through the inundation; or perhaps a feint to cover operations elsewhere.