I told her that I knew him well and had seen him in Lille, where he was looking for her, two days ago. He was now in the direction of Courtrai.
The girl was painfully agitated, and uttered pitiful words.
“Oh, my little brother!” she murmured. “My dear little comrade!” She rose from her chair, steadying herself with one hand on the back of it, and with feverish anxiety said that she must go at once. She must leave Lille.
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you want to leave Lille?”
“I am afraid!” she answered again, and burst into tears.
I turned to the doctor and translated her words.
“I can’t understand this fear of hers—this desire to leave Lille.”
Dr. Small had taken something off the mantelpiece—a glass tube with some tablets—which he put in his pocket.
“Hysteria,” he said. “Starvation, war-strain, and—drugs. There’s a jolly combination for a young lady’s nerves! She’s afraid of herself, old ghosts, the horrors. Wants to run away from it all, forgetting that she carries her poor body and brain with her. I know the symptoms—even in little old New York in time of peace.”