nd sear her eyes; the flames of a devastated land
dazzled and pained her; every drop of French blood that drenched
the mother-land seemed drawn from her own veins--every cry of
terror, every groan, every gasp, seemed wrenched from her own
slender body. The quiet, wide-eyed dead accused her, the stark
skeletons of ravaged houses reproached her.

She turned to the man she loved, but it was the voice of a dying
land that answered, "Come!" and she responded with all a passion
of surrender. What had she accomplished as yet? In the bitterness
of her loneliness she answered, "Nothing." She had worked by the
wayside as she passed--in the field, in the hospital, in the
midst of beleaguered soldiers. But what was that? There was
something else further on that called her--what she did not know,
and yet she knew it was waiting somewhere for her. "Perhaps it is
death," she mused, leaning on Jack's shoulder. "Perhaps it is
_his_ death." That did not frighten her; if it was to be, it
would be; but, through it, through the hideous turmoil of fire
and blood and pounding guns and shouting--through death
itself--somewhere, on the other side of the dreadful valley of
terror, lay salvation for the mother-land. Thither they were
bound--she and the man she loved.

All around them lay the flat, colourless plains of Luxembourg; to
the east, the wagon-train of wounded crawled across the landscape
under a pallid sky. The road now bore towards the frontier again;
Jack shook the reins listlessly; the horse loped on. Slowly they
approached the border, where, on the French side, the convoy
crept forward enveloped in ragged clouds of dust. Now they could
distinguish the drivers, blue-bloused and tattered, swinging
their long whips; now they saw the infantry, plodding on behind
the wagons, stringing along on either flank, their officers
riding with bent heads, the red legs of the fantassins blurred
through the red dust.

At the junction of the two roads stood a boundary post. A
slovenly Luxembourg gendarme sat on a stone under it, smoking and
balancing his rifle over both knees.

"You can't pass," he said, looking up as Jack drew rein. A moment
later he pocketed a gold piece that Jack offered, yawned,
laughed, and yawned again.

"You can buy contraband cigars at two sous each in the village
below," he observed.

"What news is there to tell?" demanded Jack.

"News? The same as usual. They are shelling Strassbourg with
mortars; the city is on