began to come over, screaming, exploding, filling the air with the
rush and clatter of bullets.

"Lie down," he said. "You can't go out in this. It will veer off
in a few moments, when they find out that they're shelling our
hospitals."

"I've got to go," she repeated; "my boys won't understand why I
don't come."

She turned and opened the door; he caught her in his arms, and she
looked up and kissed him.

"Good-bye, dear," she whispered. "You mustn't detain me----"

"You shall not go outside----"

"I've got to. Be reasonable, dear. My sick are under fire."

The bugle was sounding now; his arms fell from her waist; she
smiled at him, stepped outside, and started to run; and found him
keeping pace between her and the west.

"You should not do that!" she panted, striving to pass him, but he
kept his body in line with the incoming missiles. Suddenly he
seized her and dropped flat with her as a shell plunged downward,
exploding in a white cloud laced with flame through which the
humming fragments scattered.

As they rose to their knees in the dust they saw men
gathering--soldiers of all arms, infantry, dismounted cavalrymen,
hospital guards, limping convalescents, officers armed' with
rifles, waggon drivers, negroes.

"They're attacking our works at Cedar Springs," said an officer
wearing one hand in a sling. "This hospital is in a bad place."

Ailsa clapped both hands over her ears as a shell blew up at the
angle of an outhouse and the ground rocked violently; then, pale
but composed, she sprang inside the hospital door and ran for her
ward.

It was full of pungent smoke; a Parrott shell had passed through a
window, carrying everything away in its path, and had burst,
terrifying the sick men lying there, but not injuring anybody.

And now a flare of light and a crash outside marked the descent of
another shell. The confusion and panic among the wounded was
terrible; ward-masters, nurses, surgeons, ran hither and thither,
striving to quiet the excited patients as shell after shell rushed
yelling overhead or exploded with terrific force, raining its
whirring iron fragments over roof and chimney.

Ailsa, calm and collected in the dreadful crisis, stood at the end
of the ward, directing the unnerved stretcher bearers,
superintending the carrying out of cots to the barns, which stood
in the shelter of the rising ground along the course of the little
stream.

Letty appeared from the corridor behind