noon
My Cook 's ticket is taken for Brussels and I leave to-morrow by the Ostende route . '' `` To-morrow '' was the 12th of August , and Dora was not yet in being to interpose every possible obstacle in the way of the civilian traveller . Down to the Battle of the Marne in September , 1914 , very little difficulty was made about crossing the Channel , especially off the main Dover-Calais route . So in the radiant noon of that August day Vivie looked her last on the brown-white promontories , cliffs and grey castle of Dover , scarcely troubling about any anticipations one way or the other , and certainly having no prevision she would not recross the Channel for four years and four months , and not see Dover again for five or six years . British war vessels were off the port and inside it . But there was not much excitement or crowding on the Ostende steamer or any of those sensational precautions against being torpedoed or mined , which soon afterwards oppressed the spirits of cross-Channel passengers . Vessels arriving from Belgium were full of passengers of the superior refugee class , American and British tourists , or wealthy people who though they preferred living abroad had begun to think that the Continent just now was not very healthy and England the securest refuge for those who wished to be comfortable .