her own
vitality, until, "virtue gone out" of her, she must seek fresh strength
for herself in the less exhausting toil of a scullery maid. Thus she
pays to man the debt she owes to God for the cross over the grave of one
son dead, and the unconquerable spirit of the other crippled.

It was a slack hour when Private Wakeman, in his grotesquely tattered
clothes, limped through the door. Only a few men were in the hut,
writing or playing draughts. A boy at the piano was laboriously
beating out a discordant version of "Tennessee." Mrs. Jocelyn sat on a
packing-case, a block of paper on her knee, writing a letter to a man
who had left the camp to go up the line again. Another woman, a fellow
worker, was arranging plates of cakes and biscuits on the counter,
piling bowls ready to hand for the crowd of men who would come later,
clamouring for tea.

Private Wakeman stood in the middle of the hut and looked around him. He
sought companionship, longed to find some one to whom he could tell his
story and make his boast about the Prussian Guard. His eyes wandered
from one to another of the men who were writing or playing games. He
found little encouragement. It seemed impossible to join himself to any
one of them. He looked at the lady busy with the bowls and plates. His
eyes rested at last on a great dish of stewed figs which stood on the
counter. He had eaten an incredible quantity of food in the dining-hall
two hours before, soup, beef, potatoes, cabbage, pudding, cheese. But
he had not eaten stewed figs. His whole boy's nature rose in him in one
fierce longing for stewed figs. He remembered. Before he went into the
attack he had possessed half a franc and two sous. He thrust his hand
into his one trouser pocket. It was empty. He tore at the string with
which he had laced up the slit in his trousers. On that side there was
not a pocket left. It and all it ever contained, were gone. He fumbled
in the pockets of his tunic, found three mangled cigarettes, the stump
of a pencil, a letter from his mother, and, at last, two English penny
stamps, survivals of days which seemed years ago, when he had been in
camp in England.

His eyes were fixed on the stewed figs. The longing in him grew fiercer,
intolerable. He approached the counter slowly. He laid on it the two
stamps, dirty almost beyond recognition. He smoothed them out carefully.

"Lady," he said, "I haven't got no money but----"

The worker laid down her bowls, looked at t