How long Joan remained there she was never quite sure. There was little difference between day and night. After it had been quiet for an hour or so, Madame Lelanne would go out, to return a little later with a wounded man upon her back; and when one died, she would throw him across her shoulder and disappear again up the steps. Sometimes it was a Frenchman and sometimes a German she brought in. One gathered that the fight for the village still continued. There was but little they could do for them beyond dressing their wounds and easing their pain. Joan and the little chemist took it in turns to relieve one another. If Madame Lelanne ever slept, it was when she would sit in the shadow behind the stove, her hands upon her knees. Dubos had been in the house when it had fallen. Madame Lelanne had discovered him pinned against a wall underneath a great oak beam that had withstood the falling débris. His beard had been burnt off, but otherwise he had been unharmed. “I must try,” agreed Mrs. Phillips, looking up. “What sort of things ought I to talk to him about, do you think?”!

In answer the tears sprang to Joan’s eyes. She knelt down and put her arms about the woman. “I’m not so sure that it isn’t,” he laughed. “It’s the dinner-table that rules in England. We settle everything round a dinner-table.”

She ran down twice to Folkestone during the following week. Her visits made her mind easier. Mrs. Phillips seemed so placid, so contented. There was no suggestion of suffering, either mental or physical. “No,” answered Madge, “but I think I can guess. She hopes—or perhaps ‘fears’ would be more correct—that her husband is going to join the Cabinet, and is trying to fit herself by suddenly studying political and social questions. For a month she’s been clinging like a leech to Helen Lavery, who takes her to meetings and gatherings. I suppose they’ve struck up some sort of a bargain. It’s rather pathetic.” “It’s difficult to tell, isn’t it?” she said. “I wonder how one can?”