hind the inscrutability of his weather-beaten
countenance with its misty, coal-black eyes, Sally never inquired. There
were enough problems to meet without this. The important fact was that
Jean never failed her and that he made an otherwise impossible task
possible.

[Illustration: She and Old Jean Took an Entirely Opposite Direction.]

After discovering the serious illness of the wounded soldier in hiding,
Sally Ashton had continued the amazing task of caring for him at the
chateau.

She did not come to this decision immediately; indeed, it had grown so
slowly that at times it did not appear as a decision at all. Nor did
Sally attempt to justify herself. She felt compelled to take a
courageous attitude with her sister, but she never had been convinced of
her own patriotism or good sense. Even up to the present time she was
not sure of the nationality of her patient, although it had been a
relief that during his delirium he had spoken occasionally in French.

The truth is that as the days passed on and Sally's responsibility
increased her attitude toward the soldier changed. At first she had been
annoyed, bored with the entire adventure and with the circumstances
resulting from it. But as the young man's illness became more alarming
and Sally's anxiety increased, a new characteristic awoke in her. Sally
Ashton belonged to the type of girl who is essentially maternal. She
would be one of the large group of women who love, marry and bring up a
family and are nearly always adored by their husbands, but feel no
passionate affection until the coming of their children.

So unconsciously the wounded soldier's dependence upon her for food and
attention, for life itself, aroused Sally's motherly instinct, although
she did not dream of the fact and would have been angry at the
suggestion.

One convincing proof. In the beginning she had been both physically and
mentally repelled by the soiled and blood-stained soldier and by his
confused confession. She had not surrendered him to justice because she
did not feel called upon to appear as the arbiter of any human being's
fate and because she had not the dramatic instinct of most girls. But
Sally had presumed the soldier would be arrested later and was not
particularly concerned with his future one way or the other.

Now her point of view had completely altered. At first her idea was
merely that the soldier should recover with no other nursing save that
which she and old Jea