hriek of terror. Mercy, without losing
her self-possession, advanced to the window and looked out.

"The moon has risen," she said. "The Germans are shelling the village."

Grace rose, and ran to her for protection.

"Take me away!" she cried. "We shall be killed if we stay here." She
stopped, looking in astonishment at the tall black figure of the nurse,
standing immovably by the window. "Are you made of iron?" she exclaimed.
"Will nothing frighten you?"

Mercy smiled sadly. "Why should I be afraid of losing my life?" she
answered. "I have nothing worth living for!"

The roar of the cannon shook the cottage for the second time. A second
shell exploded in the courtyard, on the opposite side of the building.

Bewildered by the noise, panic-stricken as the danger from the shells
threatened the cottage more and more nearly, Grace threw her arms round
the nurse, and clung, in the abject familiarity of terror, to the woman
whose hand she had shrunk from touching not five minutes since. "Where
is it safest?" she cried. "Where can I hide myself?"

"How can I tell where the next shell will fall?" Mercy answered,
quietly.

The steady composure of the one woman seemed to madden the other.
Releasing the nurse, Grace looked wildly round for a way of escape from
the cottage. Making first for the kitchen, she was driven back by the
clamor and confusion attending the removal of those among the wounded
who were strong enough to be placed in the wagon. A second look round
showed her the door leading into the yard. She rushed to it with a cry
of relief. She had just laid her hand on the lock when the third report
of cannon burst over the place.

Starting back a step, Grace lifted her hands mechanically to her
ears. At the same moment the third shell burst through the roof of the
cottage, and exploded in the room, just inside the door. Mercy sprang
forward, unhurt, from her place at the window. The burning fragments of
the shell were already firing the dry wooden floor, and in the midst
of them, dimly seen through the smoke, lay the insensible body of her
companion in the room. Even at that dreadful moment the nurse's presence
of mind did not fail her. Hurrying back to the place that she had just
left, near which she had already noticed the miller's empty sacks lying
in a heap, she seized two of them, and, throwing them on the smoldering
floor, trampled out the fire. That done, she knelt by the senseless
woman, and lifted her he