e apron
round his waist, and rolled up his sleeves.

She was resting, after a morning of grim work, on a bench outside the
hospital, struggling with clenched, quivering hands against a craving to
fling herself upon the ground and sob. And he had found her there; and
had sat down beside her.

"So you wanted to see it with your own eyes," he said. He laid his hand
upon her shoulder, and she had some difficulty in not catching hold of
him and clinging to him. She was feeling absurdly womanish just at that
moment.

"Yes," she answered. "And I'm glad that I did it," she added, defiantly.

"So am I," he said. "Tell your children what you have seen. Tell other
women."

"It's you women that make war," he continued. "Oh, I don't mean that you
do it on purpose, but it's in your blood. It comes from the days when to
live it was needful to kill. When a man who was swift and strong to kill
was the only thing that could save a woman and her brood. Every other
man that crept towards them through the grass was an enemy, and her only
hope was that her man might kill him, while she watched and waited. And
later came the tribe; and instead of the one man creeping through the
grass, the everlasting warfare was against all other tribes. So you
loved only the men ever ready and willing to fight, lest you and your
children should be carried into slavery: then it was the only way. You
brought up your boys to be fighters. You told them stories of their
gallant sires. You sang to them the songs of battle: the glory of
killing and of conquering. You have never unlearnt the lesson. Man has
learnt comradeship--would have travelled further but for you. But woman
is still primitive. She would still have her man the hater and the
killer. To the woman the world has never changed."

"Tell the other women," he said. "Open their eyes. Tell them of their
sons that you have seen dead and dying in the foolish quarrel for which
there was no need. Tell them of the foulness, of the cruelty, of the
senselessness of it all. Set the women against War. That is the only
way to end it."

It was a morning or two later that, knocking at the door of her loft, he
asked her if she would care to come with him to the trenches. He had
brought an outfit for her which he handed to her with a grin. She had
followed Folk's advice and had cut her hair; and when she appeared before
him for inspection in trousers and overcoat, the collar turned up