n.

And, as she sat there supporting his head with her shoulder, she thought
again. There must have been a wounded man in the house John had come out
of. Was it possible that he had forgotten him, too?... He hadn't
forgotten. She could see him looking back over his shoulder; looking at
something that was lying there, that couldn't be anything but a wounded
man. Or a dead man. Whatever it was, it had been the last thing he had
seen; the last thing he had thought of before he made his dash. It
wasn't possible that he had left a wounded man in there, alive. It was
not possible.

And all the time while she kept on telling herself that it was not
possible she saw a wounded man in the room John had left; she saw his
head turning to the doorway, and his eyes, frightened; she felt his
anguish in the moment that he knew himself abandoned. Not forgotten.
Abandoned.

She would have to go over to the house and see. She must know whether the
man was there or not there. She raised the Belgian's head, gently, from
her shoulder. She would have to wake him and tell him what she was going
to do, so that he mightn't think she had left him and be frightened.

But the Belgian roused himself to a sudden virile determination.
Mademoiselle must _not_ cross the road. It was too dangerous.
Mademoiselle would be hit. He played on her pity with an innocent,
cunning cajolery. "Mademoiselle must not leave me. I do not want
to be left."

"Only for one minute. One little minute. I think there's a wounded man,
like you, Monsieur, in that house."

"Ah--h--A wounded man?" He seemed to acknowledge the integrity of her
purpose. "If only I were not wounded, if only I could crawl an inch, I
would go instead of Mademoiselle."

* * * * *

The wounded man lay on the floor of the room in his corner by the
fireplace where John had left him. His coat was rolled up under his head
for a pillow. He lay on his side, with humped hips and knees drawn up,
and one hand, half clenched, half relaxed, on his breast under the
drooped chin; so that at first she thought he was alive, sleeping. She
knelt down beside him and clasped his wrist; she unbuttoned his tunic
and put in her hand under his shirt above the point of his heart. He was
certainly dead. No pulse; no beat; no sign of breathing. Yet his body
was warm still, and limp as if with sleep. He couldn't have been dead
very long.

And he was young. A boy. Not more than sixteen. John couldn't have