A field kitchen had been destroyed. The men were hungry, disheartened, wet through. They needed her, she felt. Even the little she could do would help. All day she had made soup, and at evening Marie led from its dilapidated stable the little horse that Henri had once brought up, trundling its cart behind it. The boiler of the cart was scoured, a fire lighted in the fire box. Marie, a country girl, harnessed the shaggy little animal, but with tears of terror.
"You will be killed, mademoiselle," she protested, weeping.
"But I have gone before. Don't you remember the man whose wife was English, and how I wrote a letter for him before he died?"
"What will become of the house if you are killed?"
"Dear Marie," said Sara Lee, "that is all arranged for. You will send to Poperinghe for your aunt, and she will come until Mrs. Cameron or some one else can come from England. And you will stay on. Will you promise that?"
Marie promised in a loud wail.
"Of course I shall come back," Sara Lee said, stirring her soup preparatory to pouring it out. "I shall be very careful."
"You will not come back, mademoiselle. You do not care to live, and to such—"
"Those are the ones who live on," said Sara Lee gravely, and poured out her soup.
She went quite alone. There was a great deal of noise, but no shells fell near her. She led the little horse by its head, and its presence gave her comfort. It had a sense that she had not, too, for it kept her on the road.