ver _had_ loved was the dying
woman....

Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne did the deed that won him his
Victoria Cross, in the open, in the hot sunlight and in hot blood,
sword in hand and with hot blood on the sword-hand--fighting for his
life.

His wife did the deed that moved him to transfer the Cross to her, in
darkness, in cold blood, in loneliness, sickness and silence--fighting
for the life of her unborn child against an unseen foe.

Colonel de Warrenne's type of brave deed has been performed thousands
of times and wherever brave men have fought.

His wife's deed of endurance, presence of mind, self-control and cool
courage is rarer, if not unique.

To appreciate this fully, it must be known that she had a horror of
snakes, so terrible as to amount to an obsession, a mental deformity,
due, doubtless, to the fact that her father (Colonel Mortimer Seymour
Stukeley) died of snake-bite before her mother's eyes, a few hours
before she herself was born.

Bearing this in mind, judge of the conduct that led Colonel de
Warrenne, distraught, to award her his Cross "For Valour".

One oppressive June evening, Lenore de Warrenne returned from church
(where she had, as usual, prayed fervently that her soon-expected
first-born might be a daughter), and entered her dressing-room. Here
her Ayah divested her of hat, dress, and boots, and helped her into
the more easeful tea-gown and satin slippers.

"Bootlair wanting ishweets for dinner-table from go-down,[1] please,
Mem-Sahib," observed Ayah, the change of garb accomplished.

"The butler wants sweets, does he? Give me my keys, then," replied
Mrs. de Warrenne, and, rising with a sigh, she left the dressing-room
and proceeded, _via_ the dining-room (where she procured some small
silver bowls, sweet-dishes, and trays), to the go-down or store-room,
situate at the back of the bungalow and adjoining the
"dispense-khana"--the room in which assemble the materials and
ministrants of meals from the extra-mural "bowachi-khana" or kitchen.
Unlocking the door of the go-down, Mrs. de Warrenne entered the small
shelf-encircled room, and, stepping on to a low stool proceeded to
fill the sweet-trays from divers jars, tins and boxes, with
guava-cheese, crystallized ginger, _kulwa_, preserved mango and
certain of the more sophisticated sweetmeats of the West.

It was after sunset and the _hamal_ had not yet lit the lamps, so that
this pantry, a dark room at mid-day, was far from ligh