e, no news of any kind had she been able to receive since Carlo's
regiment began its march toward the Rhine. And Bianca had never a very
comfortable sense of Carlo's enduring friendship. It was only when she
had been able to help Carlo in the past that he had seemed especially
fond of her. She did not blame him particularly; he was a good deal
older than she was, and his gift of a wonderful voice made other people
spoil him, beside adding to his own vanity. He had once thought he would
always care more for Sonya Clark than any one in the world, but Bianca
had seen in the last weeks they were together in the hospital near
Chateau-Thierry that Carlo was becoming far more reasonable upon this
subject.

Sonya's marriage had of course made all the difference, although in his
absurd fashion Carlo had protested that it could never alter his
affection.

With a little sigh, Bianca now made an effort to go to sleep again.

She was not in the least interested in continuing to stare out the car
window as the other girls were. She had been doing nothing else for
days.

Whether she slept or not, Bianca did not realize. But suddenly she heard
Sonya murmur.

"Don't go to sleep again, Bianca dear. We are just about to enter
Coblenz and I want you to remember it all your life. See it is a
splendid, prosperous city along the bank of the Rhine."

But Bianca would not rouse herself until their automobile had entered
the centre of the city and gone by the Coblenzhof, one of the finest
hotels in the city, and then past the mammoth statue of Wilhelm I the
grandfather of the deposed Kaiser.

Then Bianca decided to display a mild interest in her surroundings.

Coblenz is known as one of the most beautiful cities in the world and
the German defeat had dimmed none of its outward glory.

Finally the Red Cross automobile drove to the outskirts of the city and
entered a large court yard. On a hill beyond the courtyard rose an old
castle which was to be the new American Red Cross hospital.

The building itself was grim and forbidding with its square, serrated
towers and heavy, dark stone walls.

Bianca gave an instinctive shiver.

"The castle looks more like a dungeon than a hospital," she whispered to
Sonya, "I wish they had given us a more cheerful place for our
headquarters. Perhaps our soldiers will not mind, but I should hate to
be ill in such a dismal place. Yes, I know the outlook over the Rhine is
magnificent but just the same i