earchingly, reading well the fatigue, the unutterable
strain, which marked his face, and whispered:

"You're the one who needs it! Don't you realize how helpless we would be
here without you?"

"And how helpless I would be without _you_?" he murmured. "Oh, my
wonderful Marian----!" He checked himself with an effort; yet, had the
moon been brighter, he would have seen the pallor in her face yield to a
flood of warm color.

The tramp of men was coming nearer, men who slipped and stumbled down
the steep road, and then a group of curious figures staggered into view,
seeming in the uncertain light scarcely to be human. Turning right they
marched heavily to the dressing-station entrance and, at Jeb's command,
halted.

Bonsecours, with mouth agape, stepped back at their approach, while
Marian drew slightly closer to him. There is nothing in the French
language which exactly corresponds to our expression of amazement:
"Well, I'll be damned!" but whatever comes nearest to it is what the
great surgeon now said, like a common sapper. At the same instant the
nurse at his side gave a low cry. She was not looking at Jeb, but at the
children.

CHAPTER XVI

Scarcely were the children lifted down before Marian had kneeled and
taken them in her arms. Quicker than Bonsecours she had read the story
of their destruction, and now sobbed over them as though her heart would
break. One had clasped her neck, but the other two, unable to stand,
merely stared with wide-open eyes devoid of the slightest understanding.
It was when the great French surgeon looked upon these--little tots
whose minds were shattered by cruelties purposely conceived for them,
and whose bodies were starved to skeleton thinness in order that thieves
and degenerates might grow fat--that he swore a mighty oath and buried
his face in his hands.

"_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu_," he muttered fiercely, "how many more will they
add to the thousands I have already seen!"

Jeb had glanced only once at Marian, being afraid of the reproach her
eyes might still hold for him; but as soon as a squad trotted up to
receive the prisoners he turned away, welcoming another duty which
sternly summoned him back to the plain. For the machine-gun redoubts had
to be taken before their deadly fire could pour into those brave fellows
who had swept ahead--and this must be done before uncompromising
daylight made the work too costly! So he turned without glancing again
at Marian. Yet no dec