CHAPTER XI.
"There are more women than those in Belgium who are being swept over by the chariots of war and trampled on by marching feet," the Duchess of Darte said to a group of her women friends on a certain afternoon.
The group had met to work and some one had touched on a woeful little servant-maid drama which had painfully disclosed itself in her household.

A small, plain kitchen maid had "walked out" in triumphant ecstasy with a soldier who, a few weeks after bidding her good-bye, had been killed in Belgium.

She had been brought home to her employer's house by a policeman who had dragged her out of the Serpentine.

An old story had become a modern one.

In her childish ignorance and terror of her plight she had seen no other way, but she had not had courage to face more than very shallow water, with the result of finding herself merely sticking in the mud and wailing aloud.
"The policeman was a kind-hearted, sensible fellow," said the relator of the incident.