hout a break, as the sewing hand went
diligently to and fro, and the recurrent convulsive shudders shook the
girl's slight frame, and the irrepressible cry of anguish was wrung from
her at each ear-splitting shellburst. And yet, with all her agony of love
intensifying her gaze, the Mother did not see as much as Saxham, who took
in every detail and symptom with skilled, consummate ease, realizing the
desperate effort that strove for self-command, noting the exhaustion of
suspense in the dropped lines of the half-open, colourless mouth, the
incipient mental breakdown in the vacant stare of the dilated eyes, the
mechanical action of the stitching needle-hand, the convulsive shudder
that rippled through the slight figure at each boom, or crash, or
fusillade of rifle-fire that drifted over the shrapnel-torn veld and
through the battered town. He threw a swift whisper over his shoulder
presently, that only reached the ear of the Mother-Superior, standing
behind him, her tall shape concealed from the sufferer's sight by his
great form.

"How long has this been going on?"

She whispered back: "I am told ever since the bombardment began. Every
day, and at night too, should duty detain me at one or another of the
Hospitals."

He added in the same low tone:

"She has a morbid terror of death under ordinary circumstances?"

The Mother-Superior murmured, a hand upon the ache in her bosom:

"Not of death for herself. For--another."

His purely scientific attitude must have already abandoned him when he
knew gladness that Self was not the dominant note in this dumb threnody of
fear. But he wore the professional mask of the physician as he ordered:

"Let one of the Sisters speak to her."

The Mother-Superior glanced at the nun who was ironing, and then at the
figure on the stool. The Sister was about to obey when the Boer
Maxim-Nordenfelt on the southern position rattled. There was a hissing
rush overhead, and as a series of sharp, splitting cracks told that a
group of the shining little copper-banded shells had burst, and that their
splinters were busily hunting far and wide for somebody to kill, the
stitching hand dropped by the girl's side. A new wave of shuddering went
over the desolate young figure, pitiable and horrible to see. Dull drops
of sweat broke out upon her temples in the shadow of her red-brown hair.

"How are you getting on with your work, dearie?"

Sister Tobias had spoken to her gently. She moved her head