being able to make phrases. I
suppose you'd say there is neither absolute saintliness nor absolute
wickedness, but that life is helplessly composite of both, and that
black really may be white. You know the old phrase, 'Killing no
murder.'"

She seemed to stiffen, and her lips set tightly for a minute; then, as
though by a great effort, she laughed bitterly.

"Murder isn't always killing," she replied. "Don't you remember the
protest in Macbeth, 'Time was, when the brains were out the man would
die'?" Then, with a little quick gesture towards the camp, she added,
"When you think of to-day, doesn't it seem that the brains are out, and
yet that the man still lives? I'm not a soldier, and this awful
slaughter may be the most wonderful tactics, but it's all beyond my
little mind."

"Your littleness is not original enough to attract notice," he replied
with kindly irony. "There is almost an epidemic of it. Let us hope we
shall have an antidote soon."

There was a sudden cry from inside the hospital. Al'mah shut her eyes
for a moment, clinched her fingers, and became very pale; then she
recovered herself, and turned her face towards the door, as though
waiting for some one to come out.

"What is the matter?" he asked. "Some bad case?"

"Yes--very bad," she replied.

"One you've been attending?"

"Yes."

"What arm--the artillery?" he asked with sudden interest.

"Yes, the artillery."

He turned towards the door of the hospital again. "One of my men? What
battery? Do you know?"

"Not yours--Schiller's."

"Schiller's! A Boer?"

She nodded. "A Boer spy, caught by Boer bullets as he was going back."

"When was that?"

"This morning early."

"The little business at Wortmann's Drift?"

She nodded. "Yes, there."

"I don't quite understand. Was he in our lines--a Boer spy?"

"Yes. But he wore British uniform, he spoke English. He was an
Englishman once."

Suddenly she came up close to him, and looked into his face steadily.
"I will tell you all," she said scarce above a whisper. "He came to
spy, but he came also to see his wife. She had written to ask him not
to join the Boers, as he said he meant to do; or, if he had, to leave
them and join his own people. He came, but not to join his
fellow-countrymen. He came to get money from his wife; and he came to
spy."

An illuminating thought shot into Stafford's mind. He remembered
something that Byng once told him.

"His wife is a nurse?" he asked in a low