first rudiments of surgery as the greatest of scientific
marvels. At the same time, she was astonished at the avidity with which
she was assimilating these hitherto unsuspected mysteries. Sometimes
with a funny assumption of assurance, she would even believe she had
mistaken her vocation.

"Who knows but what I was born to be a famous doctor?" she would
exclaim.

Her great fear was that she might lose her self-control when the time
came to put her newly acquired knowledge into practice. To see herself
before the foul odors of decomposing flesh, to contemplate the flow
of blood--a horrible thing for her who had always felt an invincible
repugnance toward all the unpleasant conditions of ordinary life! But
these hesitations were short, and she was suddenly animated by a dashing
energy. These were times of sacrifice. Were not the men snatched every
day from the comforts of sensuous existence to endure the rude life of
a soldier? . . . She would be, a soldier in petticoats, facing pain,
battling with it, plunging her hands into putrefaction, flashing like
a ray of sunlight into the places where soldiers were expecting the
approach of death.

She proudly narrated to Desnoyers all the progress that she was making
in the training school, the complicated bandages that she was learning
to adjust, sometimes over a mannikin, at others over the flesh of an
employee, trying to play the part of a sorely wounded patient. She, so
dainty, so incapable in her own home of the slightest physical effort,
was learning the most skilful ways of lifting a human body from the
ground and carrying it on her back. Who knew but that she might render
this very service some day on the battlefield! She was ready for the
greatest risks, with the ignorant audacity of women impelled by flashes
of heroism. All her admiration was for the English army nurses, slender
women of nervous vigor whose photographs were appearing in the papers,
wearing pantaloons, riding boots and white helmets.

Julio listened to her with astonishment. Was this woman really
Marguerite? . . . War was obliterating all her winning vanities. She was
no longer fluttering about in bird-like fashion. Her feet were treading
the earth with resolute firmness, calm and secure in the new strength
which was developing within. When one of his caresses would remind her
that she was a woman, she would always say the same thing,

"What luck that you are a foreigner! . . . What happiness to kno