evening," he began, "and you promised to
answer my question. Why are you out here? Why isn't a hospital good
enough for you, back in Furnes or Dunkirk?"

"I remember," returned Hilda. "I'll tell you. I could answer you by
saying that we're out to help, and that would be true, too. But it
wouldn't be quite the whole truth, for there's a tang of adventure in
Pervyse, where we can see the outposts of the other fellows, that there
isn't in the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg, let us say. Yes, we're out
to help. But we're out for another reason, too. For generations now, you
men have had a monopoly of physical courage. You have faced storms at
sea, and charged up hills, and pulled out drowning children, and footed
it up fire-ladders, till you think that bravery is a male
characteristic. You've always handed out the passive suffering act to
us. We had any amount of compliments as long as we stuck to silent
suffering. But now we want to see what shells look like. As long as sons
and brothers have to stand up to them, why, we're going to be there,
too."

"But you haven't been in the thick of it," objected Barkleigh. "When the
danger is so close you can see it, a woman's nerve isn't as good as a
man's. It can't be. She isn't built that way."

"That's the very point," retorted Hilda, "we're going to show you."

"Damn quick," muttered Smith.

In the pleasant heat of their discussion, they hadn't been noticing the
roadway. It was full of soldiers, trudging south. The rumble had become
a series of reports. The look of the peaceful day was changing.
Barkleigh turned from his concentration on the girl, and glanced up the
road.

"These troops are all turning," he said.

"You are right," Hilda admitted.

"Can't you see," he urged, "they're all marching back. That means
they've given the place up."

"Oh, hardly that," corrected Hilda; "it simply means that Nieuport is
hot for the present moment."

"You're not going in?" continued Barkleigh. "It is foolish to go into
the town, when the troops are coming out of it."

"True enough," assented Hilda, "but it's a curious fact that the wounded
can't retreat as fast as the other men, so I'm afraid we shall have to
look them up. Of course, it would be a lot pleasanter if they could come
to meet us half-way."

Smith let out his motor, and turned up his coat collar, a habit of his
when he anticipated a breezy time. They pounded down the road, and into
the choice old town.

They had