My mind was in a sort of riot. It was the suspense--the
not knowing the result, or what the next day might bring. You know, I
am sure, that physical fear is not one of my characteristics. Fear of
Life, dread of Fate, I often have, but not the other. Yet somehow, when
I saw Amelie standing there, I felt that I needed the sense of something
living near me. So I said, "Amelie, do you want to do me a great
service?"
She said she 'd like to try.
"Well, then," I replied, "don't you want to sleep here to-night?"
With her pretty smile, she pulled her nightdress from under her arm:
that was what she had come for. So I made her go to bed in the big bed
in the guest-chamber, and leave the door wide open; and do you know, she
was fast asleep in five minutes, and she snored, and I smiled to hear
her, and thought it the most comforting sound I had ever heard.
As for me, I did not sleep a moment. I could not forget the poor
fellows lying dead out there in the starlight--and it was such a
beautiful night.
XIV
September 8, 1914.
It was about my usual time, four o'clock, the next morning,--Sunday,
September 6,--that I opened my blinds.
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