“He means it kindly,” laughed Phillips. “He is offering me an excuse to surrender gracefully. We must have a public meeting or two after Christmas, and clear the ground.” They had got into the habit of speaking in the plural. Flossie caught sight of the clock and jumped up. “Who was it said that woman would be the last thing man would civilize?” she asked.!

They dined in state in the great dining-room. The Human Document looked offended. “You do not think I would have permitted any power on earth to separate them from me, do you?” she answered. “I said to him, ‘They are mine, mine. Where I go, they go. Where I stay, they stay.’ He saw the justice of my argument.”

A very little while ago, Mr. Airlie, in his capacity of second cousin to one of the ladies concerned, a charming girl but impulsive, had been called upon to attend a family council of a painful nature. The gentleman’s name took Joan’s breath away: it was the name of one of her heroes, an eminent writer: one might almost say prophet. She had hitherto read his books with grateful reverence. They pictured for her the world made perfect; and explained to her just precisely how it was to be accomplished. But, as far as his own particular corner of it was concerned, he seemed to have made a sad mess of it. Human nature of quite an old-fashioned pattern had crept in and spoilt all his own theories. “Oh, I don’t blame them,” she added. “It isn’t a thing to be dismissed with a toss of your head. I thought it all out. Don’t know now what decided me. Something inside me, I suppose.” 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.