than some of them, but they had instinctively recognized the
maternal quality of her interest in them. With all her beauty they had
turned to her for that which was in a sense spiritual.

Hating the war, Drusilla yet loved the work she had to do. There was,
of course, the horror of it, but there was, too, the stimulus of living
in a world of realities. She wondered if she were the same girl who
had burned her red candles and had served her little suppers, safe and
sound and far away from the stress of fighting.

She wondered, too, if women over there were still thinking of their
gowns, and men of their gold. Were they planning to go North in the
summer and South in the winter? Were they still care-free and
comfortable?

People over here were not comfortable, but how little they cared, and
how splendid they were. She had seen since she came such incredibly
heroic things--men as tender as women, women as brave as men--she had
seen human nature at its biggest and best.

"I have never been religious," she told the Captain, earnestly; "our
family is the kind which finds sufficient outlet in a cool intellectual
conclusion that all's right with the world, and it doesn't make much
difference what comes hereafter. You know the attitude? 'If there is
future life, we shall be glad to explore, and if there isn't, we shall
be content to sleep!'

"But since I have been over here, I have carried a little prayer-book,
and I've read things to the men, and when I have come to that part
'Gladly to die--that we may rise again,' I have known that it is true,
Captain--"

He laid his hand over hers. "May I have your prayer-book in exchange
for mine?" He was very serious. With all his heart he loved her, and
never more than at this moment when she had thrown aside all reserves
and had let him see her soul.

She drew the little book from her pocket. It was bound in red leather,
with a thin black cross on the cover. His own was in khaki.

"I want something else," he said, as he held the book in his hand.

"What?"

"This." He touched a lock of hair which lay against her cheek. "A bit
of it--of you--"

A band of _poilus_--marching through the street, saw him cut it off.
But they did not laugh. They had great respect for a thing like
that--and it happened every day--when men went away from their women.

They separated with a promise of perhaps a reunion in Paris, if he
could get leave and if she could be spared. The