repair about her appearance, and something unrebuking, too. "Do
with me what you please," she seemed to say, "I shall make no complaint.
I am too old and feeble to make you any trouble. Leave me here in the
gutter if you like. No one will ever blame you for it, surely not I."

"Lift her back," ordered the Doctor; "we'll go hunting."

He had seen a convent near the market square when they had gone through
in the morning. They rode to the door, and pulled the hanging wire. The
bell resounded down long corridors. Five minutes passed. Then the bolt
was shot, and a sleepy-eyed Sister opened the door, candle in hand.

"Sister, I beg you to take this poor old peasant woman in my car,"
pleaded Hilda, "she is wounded in the leg."

The Sister made no reply but threw the door wide open, then turned and
shuffled off down the stone corridor.

"Come," said Hilda; "we have found a home."

The men lifted the stretcher out, and followed the dim twinkling light
down the passage. It turned into a great room. They followed in. Every
bed was occupied--perhaps fifty old women sleeping there, grey hair and
white hair on the pillows, red coverlets over the beds. To the end of
the room they went, where one wee little girl was sleeping. The Sister
spread bedding on the floor, and lifted the child from the cot. She
stretched herself a moment in the chilly sheets, then settled into
sleep, with her face, shut-eyed, upturned toward the light. Hilda sighed
with relief. Their work was ended.

"Now for home," she said. "Fifteen and a half hours of work."

It was half an hour after midnight, when they drew up in Ypres market
square and glanced down the beautiful length of the Cloth Hall, that
building of massive and light-winged proportion. It was the last time
they were ever to see it. It has fallen under the shelling, and cannot
be rebuilt. They paused to pick their road back to Furnes, for in the
darkness it was hard to find the street that led out of the town. They
thought they had found it, and went swiftly down to the railway station
before they knew their mistake. As they started to turn back and try
again, a great shell fell into the little artificial lake just beyond
them. It roared under the surface, and then shot up a fountain of water
twenty feet high, with edges of white foam.

"It is time to go," said Hilda; "they will send another shell. They
always do. They are going to bombard the town."

They spurted back to the square, and a