she asked.

"Nothing, thank you, except to sleep," Ralph said.

"I shall shut this shutter," the farmer said. "Enough light will
come through the cracks to see well, when your eyes get accustomed
to the darkness. I shall shut the trap close down after me, as I
go, and lift down the ladder. It is very light, and my wife can
easily put it into its place again. We will come and see you again,
in the afternoon. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," Ralph answered, faintly; and before the sound of their
footsteps had died away, he fell into a sort of feverish doze.

For a time he turned uneasily, muttered incoherent words, and moved
his hands restlessly. Soon, however, the effects of the cloth
soaked in icy-cold water, which the farmer's wife had placed on the
bandages over the wound, began to subdue the feverish heat; and in
half an hour he was sleeping soundly, and quietly. He woke at last,
with a flash of light in his face and, opening his eyes, saw the
good woman again bending over him.

"I am glad," were her first words. "I thought, for a moment, you
were dead."

"No, no," Ralph said, with a faint smile; "a long way from that,
yet. My sleep has done me a world of good. What o'clock is it?"

"Nine o'clock," his hostess said. "I could not come before, for I
have had several parties going past, and the house was searched
once. I kept on wondering whether you wanted me, until I nearly
worked myself into a fever."

"Thank you," Ralph said. "I have been all the better for being
allowed to sleep on. I have had nearly thirteen hours of it. I feel
queer, about the head; but otherwise I feel all right.

"I am terribly thirsty."

"I have got nothing but water to offer you," the woman said. "The
Germans drank the last drop of our wine up, months ago. But I had a
few apples; and I have roasted them, and put them in this jug of
water. It will give it a taste, and is good for fever.

"In this jug is some herb tea, which you must drink when you feel
feverish.

"And now, do you feel as if you could eat some broth?"

"That I do," Ralph said.

His hostess put her arm under him, and raised him up into a sitting
posture; in which she retained him by kneeling down beside him, and
holding him up as if he had been a child. Then she gave him a basin
of bread broth, and a drink of water; shook up his pillow, arranged
the things over him; and put a fresh cloth, dipped in water, on his
head.

"Here is a box of matches," she said, "and here is