hat he had said
this much now, indicated an overpowering mental and physical exhaustion.
Even as she realized this, he realized his weakness, and hastened to
add:

"I will go; you must stay inside."

"No, no," she sprang between him and the dug-out entrance. "You are so
tired! I know you've not slept for two days!"

"Have you?" he smiled at her.

"Lots!" she lied--and he knew she lied. "I want you to rest--you owe it
to them out there! It will take only a second for me to run up and have
one peep!--there's no danger in that, and I can tell you if they're
coming!"

"It will bring them no sooner," he sighed, sinking back again upon the
box, "and there is danger--plenty of it."

Almost immediately he was asleep. She looked at him tenderly for a
moment, then ran into the quadrangle, turning and following the steep
path which led to the high ground above the dug-outs.

The scene beyond, as she now crouched and peered over the crest, was
what she might have expected--yet one can never become quite used to
such pictures as that! Below was the first-line trench, deserted since
the third division had been sent forward, and its emptiness gave her a
feeling of insecurity. She would have preferred a visual line of
stalwart fellows between her and the maddened enemy, instead of one that
had gone into the smoke. She looked back to see if another division were
coming up, but the intervening world seemed destitute of habitation,
save along the smoke-fringed horizon where French artillery spoke. Once
more she turned to the empty trench, her face perplexed and somewhat
frightened.

Just ahead lay the No Man's Land of eight hours ago; the new one for
tomorrow had not yet been plotted out, but would doubtless lie a mile or
so nearer the Rhine. Her staring eyes then caught and held two men,
walking tandem, and she knew they carried a stretcher. They were two
hundred yards away, obscured by smoke, and coming slowly. For an instant
she glanced over the field hoping to discover others, and, on looking
back, was amazed to find that the first were nowhere in sight. The air
was already more or less thick with death, and she gasped at the thought
of what their disappearance must mean.

Indifferent to the warning of Bonsecours--whom she knew would never
hesitate were he in her place--she ran swiftly down to the trench,
kneeled on the narrow bridge and frantically called in the hope that
some one, slightly wounded or ill, perhaps, had be