of my son."

Gradually as the peasant talked, the time of his suffering came upon
him. His eyes began to see it again in front of him. They became fixed
and wild, the white of them visible. His voice was shrill and broken
with sobs. There was a helpless unresisting agony in his tone and the
look on his face.

"My boy!" he said. "I haven't seen him." His body shook with sobbing.

"Enough," said the priest. "_Bonne chance_, comrade; courage."

In the presence of the priest and of the Sister, the two peasants signed
each man his statement, Leopold firmly, the fevered Frans making his
mark with a trembling hand. Hinchcliffe shut his note-book and put it
back into his pocket.

The little group passed into the next room, where the wounded women were
gathered. A Sister led Hilda to the bedside of a very old woman, perhaps
eighty years old. The eyes were closed, the thin white hair straggled
across the pillow. There was no motion to the worn-out body, except for
faint breathing.

"Cut through the thigh with a bayonet," said the Sister.

Hilda stepped away on tiptoe, and looked across the ward. There, rising
out of the bedclothes, was a little head, a child's head, crowned with
the lightest of hair. Gay and vivid it gleamed in that room of pain. It
was hair of the very color of Hilda's own. The child was propped up in
bed, and half bent over, as if she had been broken at the breast-bone.
It was the attitude of a bent old body, weary with age. And yet, the
tiny oval face of soft coloring, and the bright hair, seemed made for
happiness.

Clear across the room, otherwise so silent in its patient misery, there
came a little whistling from the body of the child. With each give of
the breath, the sound was forced out. The wheezing, as if the falling
breath caught on some jagged bit of bone, and struggled for a moment to
tear itself free, hurt Hilda.

The face of the little girl was heavy with stupor, the eyes half closed.
Pain had done its utmost, and a partial unconsciousness was spreading
over troubled mind and tortured body. The final release was close at
hand.

Hinchcliffe had stepped up. There was an intent look in his face as he
watched the child. Then the man's expression softened. The cunning lines
about the mouth took on something of tenderness. The shrewd, appraising
eyes lost their glint under a film of tears. He went over to the little
one, and touched her very lightly on the hair. It was bright and gay,
and