rk filled the little room. Presently the nurse crept in with a
shaded lamp and touched Norah's shoulder.

"You could get up," she whispered.

Norah shook her head, pointing to the thin fingers curled in her palm.

"I'm all right," she murmured back.

They came and went in the room from time to time; the mother, holding
her breath as she looked down at the quiet face; the nurse, with her
keen, professional gaze; after a while the doctor stood for a long
time behind her, not moving. Then he bent down to her.

"Sure you're all right?"

Norah nodded. Presently he crept out; and soon the nurse came and sat
down near the window.

"Mrs. Hunt has gone to sleep," she whispered as she passed.

Norah was vaguely thankful for that. But nothing was very clear to
her except Geoffrey's face; neither the slow passing of the hours nor
her own cramped position that gradually became pain. Geoffrey's face,
and the light breathing that grew harder and harder to bear. Fear
came and knelt beside her in the stillness, and the night crept on.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WATCH ON THE RHINE

Evening was closing upon a waste of muddy flats. Far as the eye could
see there was no rise in the land; it lay level to the skyline, with
here and there a glint of still water, and, further off, flat banks
between which a wide river flowed sluggishly. If you cared to follow
the river, you came at length to stone blockhouses, near which
sentries patrolled the banks--and would probably have turned you back
rudely. From the blockhouses a high fence of barbed wire, thickly
criss-crossed, stretched north and south until it became a mere thread
of grey stretching over the country. There was something relentless,
forbidding, in that savage fence. It was the German frontier. Beyond
it lay Holland, flat and peaceful. But more securely than a mountain
range between the two countries, that thin grey fence barred the way.

If you turned back from the sentries and followed the muddy path along
the river bank, you were scarcely likely to meet any one. The guards
in the blockhouses were under strict discipline, and were not
encouraged to allow friends to visit them, either from the scattered
farms or from the town of Emmerich, where lights were beginning to
glimmer faintly in the twilight. It was not safe for them to
disregard regulations, since at any moment a patrol motor-launch might
come shooting down the river, or a surprise visit be paid