“Don’t be so silly,” she cried. “There’s nothing going to happen. You’re going to get fat and well again; and live to see him Prime Minister.” “Oh, the plainer you make it that you don’t want them, the more sport they think it,” interrupted the girl with a laugh.!

“I’m just running round to the doctor’s,” she whispered. “His medicine hasn’t come. I shan’t be long.” “You are a wicked God,” Joan told Him. “Yes, You are. A cruel, wicked God.”

“Oh, she! She’s all right,” agreed the girl. “Having the time of her life: someone to look after for twenty-four hours a day that can’t help themselves.” 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. Seated in the great, sombre library, Joan hazarded the suggestion. Mrs. Denton might almost have been waiting for it. It would be quite easy. A little opening of long fastened windows; a lighting of chill grates; a little mending of moth-eaten curtains, a sweeping away of long-gathered dust and cobwebs.