te. How can she know Arnold? She is tired
and worn out. Parbleu, they must have had terrible work there since the
sortie began. It is getting dark, but it is easy to see how pale and
worn out she looked. For my part I would rather go through that fight in
the garden again than work for twenty-four hours in a hospital."

"She knows him," the girl said, positively.

"Well, let us go on. This woman may give you leave to go in."

But Mrs. Stanmore was also firm in her refusal.

"We cannot allow even the nearest relatives to enter," she said, "we are
all taken up by duty and cannot have strangers in the wards; but if the
patient is likely to die and wishes to see a friend or relative in the
city we send for him or her. If you will give me your name and address I
will see that you are sent for should the patient ask for you. The rule
I can assure you is absolute, and I have no power whatever to grant
permission to anyone except in the case I have named."

Minette went away raving, and it needed indeed all Rene's remonstrances
and entreaties to induce her to leave.

"It is clear," he said, "that he cannot be near death; were he so he
would assuredly ask for you. So after all it is good news that you have
received, and as I told you all along, though the surgeon said that it
was a serious wound, he did not say that it was likely to be fatal, as
he did in the case of Cuthbert Hartington. These army surgeons do not
mince matters, and there was no reason why he should not have said at
once to me that the American was likely to die if he thought it would be
so."

"I will go to see him to-morrow," she said, with an angry stamp of her
foot. "If the women try to prevent me I will tear their faces. If the
men interfere to stop me I will scream so loud that they will be forced
to let me in. It is abominable to keep a woman from the bedside of the
man she loves."

"It is of no use you talking in that wild way, Minette," Rene said,
sternly; "how do you suppose a hospital is to be managed if every sick
man is to have women sitting at his bed. It is childish of you to talk
so, and most ungrateful. These foreigners are supporting this ambulance
at their own expense. The ladies are working like slaves to succor our
wounded and you go on like a passionate child because, busy as they
are, they are obliged to adhere to their regulations. At any rate I will
come here with you no more. I am not going to see these kind people
insulted."