Page:Wounded Souls.djvu/85

 "Monsieur, I beg of you to help me. I beseech you to think of some way in which I may get away from Lille to-night. It is a matter of extreme importance to me."

A group of young men and women came up the street arm-in-arm, shouting, laughing, singing the "Marseillaise." They were civilians, with two of our soldiers among them, wearing women's hats.

Before I could answer the girl's last words she made a sudden retreat into the dark doorway, and I could see dimly that she was cowering back.

Dr. Small spoke to me.

"That girl is scared of something. The poor child has got the jim-jams."

I went closer to her and heard her breathing. It was quite loud. It was as though she were panting after hard running.

"Are you ill?" I asked.

She did not answer until the group of civilians had passed. They did not pass at once, but stood for a moment looking up at a light burning in an upper window. One of the men shouted something in a loud voice—some word in argot—which I did not understand, and the women screeched with laughter. Then they went on, dancing with linked arms, and our two soldiers in the women's hats lurched along with them.

"I am afraid!" said the girl.

"Afraid of what?" I asked.

I repeated the question—"Why are you afraid, mademoiselle?" and she answered by words which I had heard a million times since the war began as an explanation of all trouble, tears, ruin, misery.

"C'est la guerre!"

"Look out!" said the little doctor. "She's fainting."

She had risen from her cowering position and stood upright for a moment, with her hand against the door