rife of forces larger than the
largest that Napoleon ever led in battle; as large as fought the
decisive battle in the last war of the Grays. But here was only a
section of the raging whole from frontier end to frontier end. The
immensity of it! All the young manhood of a nation employed! Marta
ceased to see any particular incident of the scene. All was confused in
a red mist--red as blood. She, the one being in that landscape who was a
detached observer, felt herself condemned to watch the war go on
forever.

An edge of the curtain of mist lifted. Sight and mind and soul
concentrated on the nearest horror. She saw the whirlpool at the foot of
the garden, horses and men in a straggle among dead and wounded, which
had grown fiercer now that the portion of the retreat that had not been
cut off in the defile pressed forward the more madly. She had thought of
herself as ashes; as an immovable creature of flayed nerves, incapable
of raising her hand to change the march of events. But the misery that
she saw intimately, almost within stone's throw of her door, broke the
spell with its appeal. The hectic energy of battle speeded her steps in
the blessed oblivion of action.

Some doctors of different regiments thrown together in the havoc of
remnants of many organizations, with the help of hospital-corps men,
were trying to extricate the wounded from among the dead. They heard a
woman's voice and saw a woman's face. They did not wonder at her
presence, for there was nothing left in the world for them to wonder at.
Had an imp from hell or an angel from heaven appeared, or a shower of
diamonds fallen from the sky, they would not have been surprised. Their
duty was clear; there was work of their kind to do, endless work. Units
of the broken machine, in the instinct of their calling they struggled
with the duty nearest at hand.

"What do you need? What can I do?" Marta asked.

"Rest, shelter, safety for these poor fellows," answered one of the
doctors.

"There is the house--our house!" said Marta.

"My God! Aren't you men?" bellowed an officer. "Get away from the road!
Come out here! Form line! You--you; I mean you!"

"You who can walk--you who aren't hurt, you cowards, give us a hand with
the wounded!" shouted another doctor.

The soldiers were deaf to commands, but they heard a feminine voice
above the oaths and groans and heavy breathing and rustle of pressing
bodies and thrusting arms; a feminine voice, clear and stea