They went out without further speech into the clear cold night. Henri,
as if from custom, threw his head back and scanned the sky. Then they
went on and crossed into the square.
"The plan," Henri began abruptly, "is this: You will be provided
to-morrow with a passport to Boulogne. You will, if you agree, take the
midnight train for Folkestone. At the railway station here you will
be searched. At Folkestone a board, sitting in an office on the quay,
will examine your passport."
"Does any one in Boulogne speak English?" Sara Lee inquired nervously.
Somehow that babel of French at the Savoy had frightened her. Her
little phrase book seemed pitifully inadequate for the great things
in her mind.
"That hardly matters," said Henri, smiling faintly. "Because I think
you shall not go to Boulogne."
"Not go!" She stopped dead, under the monument, and looked up at him.
"The place for you to go, to start from, is Calais," Henri explained.
He paused, to let pass two lovers, a man in khaki and a girl. "But
Calais is difficult. It is under martial law--a closed city. From
Boulogne to Calais would be perhaps impossible."
Sara Lee was American and her methods were direct.
"How can I get to Calais?"
"Will you take the chance I spoke of?"
"For goodness' sake," said Sara Lee in an exasperated tone, "how can I
tell you until I know what it is?"
Henri told her. He even, standing under a street lamp, drew a small
sketch for her, to make it clear. Sara Lee stood close, watching him,
and some of the lines were not as steady as they might have been. And
in the midst of it he suddenly stopped.
"Do you know what it means?" he demanded.
"Yes, of course."
"And you know what date this is?"
"The eighteenth of February."
But he saw, after all, that she did not entirely understand.
"To-night, this eighteenth of February, the Germans commence a blockade
of this coast. No vessels, if they can prevent them, will leave the
harbors; or if they do, none shall reach the other side!"
"Oh!" said Sara Lee blankly.
"We are eager to do as you wish, mademoiselle. But"--he commenced
slowly to tear up the sketch--"it is too dangerous. You are too young.
If anything should go wrong and I had--No. We will find another way."