He was silent for a while, with a quiet look on his face. Joan made a swift effort to hide her surprise. She had never heard of her mother having been upon the stage.!

Joan was not in a comprehending mood. Folk had been right. He was not offended. “Dear old chap,” he said. “That was kind of him. He was always generous.”

“It’s war,” he said. “Tell me,” said Joan. “What was my mother like? I can only remember her as more or less of an invalid.” 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.