She must think the whole thing over quietly. The stone hall was still vibrating to the voices of the last departed guests. Joan was seated on a footstool before the fire in front of Mrs. Denton’s chair.!

“Not much to look at, if that’s what you mean,” answered Madge. “Began life as a miner, I believe. Looks like ending as Prime Minister.” “Why didn’t we all kiss and be friends after the Napoleonic wars?” she demanded, “instead of getting up Peterloo massacres, and anti-Corn Law riots, and breaking the Duke of Wellington’s windows?”

He looked straight into her eyes. “You are,” he said. “I have been reading your articles. They are splendid. I’m going to help.” The doctor himself was a broad-shouldered, bullet-headed man, clean shaven, with close-cropped, bristly hair. He had curiously square hands, with short, squat fingers. He had been head surgeon in one of the Paris hospitals, and had been assigned his present post because of his marvellous quickness with the knife. The hospital was the nearest to a hill of great strategical importance, and the fighting in the neighbourhood was almost continuous. Often a single ambulance would bring in three or four cases, each one demanding instant attention. Dr. Poujoulet, with his hairy arms bare to the shoulder, would polish them off one after another, with hardly a moment’s rest between, not allowing time even for the washing of the table. Joan would have to summon all her nerve to keep herself from collapsing. At times the need for haste was such that it was impossible to wait for the anaesthetic to take effect. The one redeeming feature was the extraordinary heroism of the men, though occasionally there was nothing for it but to call in the orderlies to hold some poor fellow down, and to deafen one’s ears. “I may not see you again before I go,” he said. “Look after Mary. I shall try to persuade her to go down to her aunt in Hampshire. It’s rather a bit of luck, as it turns out, the paper being finished with. I shouldn’t have quite known what to do.”