Luxuries began to come across the channel, food and dressings and tobacco.
Knitted things, too; for another winter was coming, and already the frost
lay white on the fields in the mornings. The little house took on a new
air of prosperity. There were days when it seemed almost swaggering
with opulence.
It had need of everything, however. With the prospect of a second
winter, when an advance was impossible, the Germans took to hammering
again. Bombardment was incessant. The little village was again under
suspicion, and there came days of terror when it seemed as though even
the fallen masonry must be reduced to powder. The church went entirely.
By December Sara Lee had ceased to take refuge during the bombardments.
The fatalism of the Front had got her. She would die or live according
to the great plan, and nothing could change that. She did not greatly
care which, except for her work, and even that she felt could be carried
on by another as well.
There was no news of Henri, but once the King's equerry, going by, had
stopped to see her and had told her the story.
"He was ill, undoubtedly," he said. "Even when he went to London he was
ill, and not responsible.
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