in hand, the sergeant lumbered towards him. "You
see, he did it," he said. "Did it at once and got it over. Just
hitched his belt to the window-bars and swung himself off. You can't
stop 'em nowadays."

"Take the blanket off," ordered Jovannic.

The manner of the man's death had distorted the face that lay in the
trough of the stretcher, but it was pitiful and ugly rather than
terrible or horrifying. The body, its inertness, the still sprawl of
the limbs, were puppet-like, with none of death's pomp and menace.
Jovannic stood gazing; the sergeant, with the blanket over his arm,
stood by smoking.

"Hey!" cried the sergeant suddenly, and flapped loose the blanket,
letting it fall to cover the body again. "See, Herr Leutnant the
young lady!"

"Eh?" Jovannic started and turned to look. She was yet a hundred
yards off, coming through the wind-wrenched old trees of the orchard
towards them. In her hand and lying along the curve of her arm she
bore what seemed to be the green bough of a tree. The grass was to
her knees, so that she appeared to float towards them rather than to
walk, and, for the lieutenant, her approach seemed suddenly to lift
all that in the affair was mean or little to the very altitude of
tragedy.

He stood away from the body and raised his hand to his cap peak in
silence. Very slowly she lowered her head in acknowledgment. At the
foot of the stretcher she paused, with bowed head, and stood awhile
so; if she prayed, it was with lips that did not move. In the grave
the diggers ceased to work, and stood, sunk to their waists, to
watch. The great open space was of a sudden reverend and solemn. Then
she knelt, and, taking in both hands the bough of laurel which she
carried, she bent above the covered shape and laid it upon the
blanket.

She rose. It seemed to Jovannic that for an instant she looked him in
the face with eyes that questioned; but she did not speak. Turning,
she went from them by the way she had come, receding through the
fantastic trees between whose leaves the sunlight fell on her in
drops like rain.

There was much for Jovannic to do in the days that followed, for
Captain Harm's dragnet was out over the villages and every day had
its tale of arrests. Jovannic, as one of his assistants, was out
early and late, on horseback or motoring, till the daily scenes of
violence and pain palled on him like a routine. Once, in the village
near headquarters, he saw the Contessina; she was enterin