have died of abuse and cruelty, but others,
broken in body and spirit, are returning for an interval that is brief
and heart-breaking before the end comes.

Three weeks ago an old friend returned from his Red Cross work in
France. By invitation of a Government official he visited a town on the
frontier through which the refugees released by Germany were returning
to France.

It seemed that during the month of September, 1914, the Germans had
carried away a number of girls and young women in a village northeast of
Luneville. When the French officials finished their inquiry as to the
poor, broken creatures returning to France they found a French woman,
clothed in rags, emaciated and sick unto death. In her arms she held a
little babe a few weeks old. Its tiny wrists were scarcely larger than
lead pencils. The child moaned incessantly. The mother was too thin and
weak to do more than answer the simple questions as to her name, age,
parents, and husband.

Moved with the sense of compassion, the French official soon found in
his index the name of her husband, the number of his company and
telegraphed to the young soldier's superior officer, asking that the boy
might be sent forward to the receiving station to take his wife back to
some friend, since the Germans had destroyed his village. By some
unfortunate blunder the officials gave no hint of the real facts in the
case.

Filled with high hope, burning with enthusiasm, exhaling a happiness
that cannot be described, the bronzed farmer-soldier stepped down from
the car to find the French official waiting to conduct him to one of the
houses of refuge where his young wife was waiting.

My American Red Cross friend witnessed the meeting between the girl and
her husband. When the fine young soldier entered the room he saw a poor,
broken, spent, miserable creature, too weak to do more than whisper his
name. When the young man saw that tiny German babe in his young wife's
arms he started as if he had been stung by a scorpion. Lifting his hands
above his head, he uttered an exclamation of horror. In utter amazement
he started back, overwhelmed with revulsion, anguish and terror.

Gone--the beauty and comeliness of the young wife! Gone her health and
allurement! Perished all her loveliness! Her garments were the garments
of a scarecrow. Despite all these things the girl was innocent. But she
realized her husband's horror and mistook it for disgust. She pitched
forward unconsci