Aunt Roberta wrote frequently and sent on, too, letters which arrived from America. One came from Sue Blaine—a cheerful and newsy missive and one which the Red Cross nurse read over and over again. Especially this portion of it:
"Oh, my darling Belinda! you should have seen Herr Doktor's face when I told him of your departure for France. It seemed he had called at your house and you were gone. He was actually white when I explained your sudden disappearance—I do not know whether with rage or because he feared for your precious life, honey!
"However, it was not long before the Herr Doktor left us himself. He bade nobody good-by, and I learned on good authority that he had secretly slipped out of the States, homeward bound. Many of the warmer supporters of the Kaiser among our New York Germans are doing so. And, of course, Doctor Herschall would be of infinite help to the Prussian Hospital Staff.
"The trenches will, I presume, separate you and him, if the Herr Doktor succeeds in reaching Germany. At least, you will not have to serve under his direction in your hospital work. Now isn't that a blessing, Belinda?"
Not that this news of Doctor Herschall's departure, presumably for the battlefields, should have been of any moment to the Red Cross nurse. Yet she admitted the fact that he had a certain influence upon her and that this had not been dwarfed by separation from him.
"This war will make him famous I am sure," she told herself. "Those wonderful hands of his will perform operations that other medical men will acclaim as scientific marvels. But the unfortunates whom he operates upon—will it be worth while? Will it be really a Christian act to drag them back from the grave to spend torturing years as cripples and half-men?"
The lull between battles was not to last for long after this letter was received from America. Despite the prophecies that there would be no push until spring, and in spite, indeed, of the pouring October rains, one night at midnight the near-by guns broke out and shook Belinda in her bed.
She got up and dressed. There was no possibility of sleep for her, for neither her ears nor her nerves were attuned to this thunderous music. Belinda went to the window, opened the creaking shutter, and leaned across the sill. She could feel the tremor of the house after the report of each gun.
Toward the north, where she knew the trenches lay, a red flash abruptly illuminated the starless sky. A roar like the blowing up of a gas-tank followed in train of the flash. It was one of the huge German guns.