“You’re not angry with me?” he asked. “I haven’t been rude, have I?” And the big German, again embracing the little Frenchman, had promised, and had sent his compliments to Madame.!

What was plucking at her sleeve—still holding her? “You have chosen the better part,” he informed her, on her granting it. “When I’m not smoking, I’m talking.”

She seemed to be living in a dream. She could not shake from her the feeling that it was not bodies but souls that she was tending. The men themselves gave colour to this fancy of hers. Stripped of their poor, stained, tattered uniforms, they were neither French nor Germans. Friend or foe! it was already but a memory. Often, awakening out of a sleep, they would look across at one another and smile as to a comrade. A great peace seemed to have entered there. Faint murmurs as from some distant troubled world would steal at times into the silence. It brought a pang of pity, but it did not drive away the quiet that dwelt there. “It’s dirty work,” Flossie confided one day to Madge Singleton. “I trade on my silly face. Don’t see that I’m much different to any of these poor devils.” They were walking home in the evening from a theatre. “If I hadn’t been stony broke I’d never have taken it up. I shall get out of it as soon as I can afford to.” “Because to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth,” he answered.