They did not know of Jean; so she told them, still in that far-away voice. And at last Mrs. Travers brought an early letter of Mrs. Cameron's and read a part of it aloud.
"He seems to have been delirious," she read, holding her reading glasses to her eyes. "A friend of his, very devoted to him, was missing, and he learned this somehow.
"He escaped from the hospital and got away in an ambulance. He came straight here and wakened us. There had been a wounded man in the machine, and he left him on our doorstep. When I got to the door the car was going wildly toward the Front, with both lamps lighted. We did not understand then, of course, and no one thought of following it. The ambulance was found smashed by a shell the next morning, and at first we thought that he had been in it. But there was no sign that he had been, and that night one of the men from the trenches insisted that he had climbed out of a firing trench where the soldier stood, and had gone forward, bareheaded, toward the German lines.
"I am afraid it was the end. The men, however, who all loved him, do not think so. It seems that he has done miracles again and again. I understand that along the whole Belgian line they watch for him at night. The other night a German on reconnoissance got very close to our wire, and was greeted not by shots but by a wild hurrah. He was almost paralyzed with surprise. They brought him here on the way back to the prison camp, and he still looked dazed."
Sara Lee sat with her hands clenched. Mrs. Travers folded the letter and put it back into its envelope.
"How long ago was that?" Sara Lee asked in a low tone. "Because, if he was coming back at all—"
"Four months."
Suddenly Sara Lee stood up.
"I think I ought to tell you," she said with a dead-white face, "that I am responsible. He cared for me; and I was in love with him too. Only I didn't know it then. I let him bring me to England, because—I suppose it was because I loved him. I didn't think then that it was that. I was engaged to a man at home."
"Sit down," said Mr. Travers. "My dear child, nothing can be your fault."