fly told, Henri wandered out among
the men again. He was very happy. He had never thought to be so happy.
He felt the touch on his sleeves of hard brown, not overclean hands,
infinitely tender and caressing; and over there, as though she had never
gone, was Sara Lee, slightly flushed and very radiant.

And as though he also had never gone away, Henri pushed into the _salle
a manger_ and stood before her smiling.

"You bandage well, mademoiselle," he said gayly. "But I? I bandage
better! See now, a turn here, and it is done! Does it hurt, Paul?"

The man in the dressing chair squirmed and grinned sheepishly.

"The iodine," he explained. "It is painful."

"Then I shall ask you a question, and you will forget the iodine. Why
is a dead German like the tail of a pig?"

Paul failed. The room failed. Even Colonel Lilias confessed himself at
fault.

"Because it is the end of the swine," explained Henri, and looked about
him triumphantly. A gust of laughter spread through the room and even
to the kitchen. A door banged. Henri upset a chair. There was noise
again, and gayety in the little house of mercy. And much happiness.

And there I think we may leave them all--Henri and Sara Lee; and Jean
of the one eye and the faithful heart; and Marie, with her kettles; and
even Rene, who still in some strange way belonged to the little house,
as though it were something too precious to abandon.

The amazing interlude had become the play itself. Never again for Sara
Lee would the lights go up in front, and Henri with his adoring eyes
and open arms fade into the shadows.

The drama of the war plays on. The Great Playwright sees fit, now and
then, to take away some well-beloved players. New faces appear and
disappear. The music is the thunder of many guns. Henri still plays
his big part, Sara Lee her little one. Yet who shall say, in the end,
which one has done the better? There are new and ever new standards,
but love remains the chief. And love is Sara Lee's one quality--love
of her kind, of tired men and weary, the love that shall one day knit
this broken world together. And love of one man.

On weary nights, when Henri is again lost in the shadows, Sara Lee,
her work done, the men gone, sits in her little house of mercy and
waits. The stars on clear evenings shine down on the roofless buildings,
on the rubbish that was once the mill, on the ruined poplar trees, and
on the small acre of peace where tiny crosses mark the long s