uge range, ladling soup from two immense copper
boilers. There were men, women and children holding out cups and mugs,
a half-dozen dusty cavalrymen were skinning two rabbits in one corner,
and as many other soldiers were peeling vegetables which they threw into
another pot full of boiling water.

This was no time to ask permission. The poor sister was already half
distracted by the demands of the famished refugees and combatants, so
taking a ladle from the wall, I dipped into the pot and strained some
bouillon into a few cups that I found in a cupboard. I intended giving
this to our patients should they wake and call for drink, and I was just
lifting my tray to go when a loud thumping on the front door made me set
it down in haste.

I looked at Soeur Laurent, who was preparing to answer the summons, much
to the dismay of the soldiers.

"I'll go," I called, and hurried out into the vestibule and down the
wide white marble steps. As I threw back the huge oak door someone
brushed past me, calling "Two men and a stretcher," and there in the
brilliant moonlight I beheld the most ghastly spectacle I had as yet
witnessed.

Thrown forward in his saddle, his arms clasped about the horse's neck,
was the form of a dragoon. The animal that bore him had once been
white, but was now so splashed with blood that it was impossible to tell
what color was his originally. Both man and beast were wounded, badly
wounded, and how they had come here was a miracle.

The alarm had reached the kitchen and hurrying forward, the troopers
soon lifted their comrade from his mount and carried him in. A lance
had pierced his thigh and the horse's flank, which meant that it had
been a hand-to-hand fight, and the blood still flowing freely, proved
that the combat was not an hour old!

Madame Guix and I were doing our best when the white face's of my notary
and his wife appeared at the door of the dispensary.

"Madame Huard, we've come to tell you you must go!"

"Go?"

"Yes, it is two o'clock and the general who was quartered on us slept
four hours and has gone. When leaving he warned us that the battle
would be on here by morning. We who have a motor are safe, but you who
have but horses must flee at once!"

"But I can't leave the wounded!"

"But you must. The worst that can happen to them is to be made
prisoners--more than likely they will be carried away by one of our
emergency ambulances. But think of all the young people who