st. The sorrow
that was Belgium had become famous, and this cellar of loyal women in
Pervyse was one of the few spots left on Belgium soil where work was
being done for the little hunted field army.

The days were filled with care of the hurt, and food for the hungry, and
clothing for the dilapidated. And the nights--she knew she would not
forget those nights, when the three of them took turns in nursing the
wounded men resting on stretchers. The straw would crackle as the
sleepers turned. The faint yellow light from the lantern threw shadows
on the unconscious faces. And she was glad of the smile of the men in
pain, as they received a little comfort. She had never known there was
such goodness in human nature. Who was she ever to be impatient again,
when these men in extremity could remember to thank her. Here in this
worst of the evils, this horror of war, men were manifesting a humanity,
a consideration, at a higher level than she felt she had ever shown it
in happy surroundings in a peaceful land. Hilda won the sense, which was
to be of abiding good to her, that at last she had justified her
existence. She, too, was now helping to continue that great tradition of
human kindness which had made this world a more decent place to live in.
No one could any longer say she was only a poor artist in an age of big
things. Had not the poor artist, in her own way, served the general
welfare, quite as effectively, as if she had projected a new breakfast
food, or made a successful marriage. Her fingers, which had not gathered
much gold, had at least been found fit to lessen some human misery. In
that strength she grew confident.

As the fair spring days came back and green began to put out from the
fields, the soldiers returned to their duty.

Now the killing became brisk again. The cellar ran full with its tally
of scotched and crippled men. Dr. van der Helde was in command of the
work. He was here and there and everywhere--in the trenches at daybreak,
and gathering the harvest of wounded in the fields after nightfall.
Sometimes he would be away for three days on end. He would run up and
down the lines for seven miles, watching the work. The Belgian nation
was a race of individualists, each man merrily minding his own business
in his own way. The Belgian army was a volunteer informal group of
separate individuals. The Doctor was an individualist. So the days went
by at a tense swift stride, stranger than anything in the story