re the Englishman could say a word more.

"You have nothing to do with the wounded Frenchmen," he croaked, in the
harshest notes of his voice. "The wounded Frenchmen are my business, and
not yours. They are _our_ prisoners, and they are being moved to _our_
ambulance. I am Ingatius Wetzel, chief of the medical staff--and I tell
you this. Hold your tongue." He turned to the sentinel and added in
German, "Draw the curtain again; and if the woman persists, put her back
into this room with your own hand."

Mercy attempted to remonstrate. The Englishman respectfully took her
arm, and drew her out of the sentinel's reach.

"It is useless to resist," he said. "The German discipline never gives
way. There is not the least need to be uneasy about the Frenchmen. The
ambulance under Surgeon Wetzel is admirably administered. I answer for
it, the men will be well treated." He saw the tears in her eyes as he
spoke; his admiration for her rose higher and higher. "Kind as well as
beautiful," he thought. "What a charming creature!"

"Well!" said Ignatius Wetzel, eying Mercy sternly through his
spectacles. "Are you satisfied? And will you hold your tongue?"

She yielded: it was plainly useless to resist. But for the surgeon's
resistance, her devotion to the wounded men might have stopped her
on the downward way that she was going. If she could only have been
absorbed again, mind and body, in her good work as a nurse, the
temptation might even yet have found her strong enough to resist it. The
fatal severity of the German discipline had snapped asunder the last tie
that bound her to her better self. Her face hardened as she walked away
proudly from Surgeon Wetzel, and took a chair.

The Englishman followed her, and reverted to the question of her present
situation in the cottage.

"Don't suppose that I want to alarm you," he said. "There is, I repeat,
no need to be anxious about the Frenchmen, but there is serious reason
for anxiety on your own account. The action will be renewed round this
village by daylight; you ought really to be in a place of safety. I am
an officer in the English army--my name is Horace Holmcroft. I shall be
delighted to be of use to you, and I _can_ be of use, if you will let
me. May I ask if you are traveling?"

Mercy gathered the cloak which concealed her nurse's dress more closely
round her, and committed herself silently to her first overt act of
deception. She bowed her head in the affirmative.

"Are