r of the team, you know, and I must play up to my form. I can't do
a man's work, so all the more reason why I should tackle the thing I
can do.'

'But,' I stammered, 'it's such a ... such a degrading business for a
child like you. I can't bear ... It makes me hot to think of it.'

Her reply was merry laughter.

'You're an old Ottoman, Dick. You haven't doubled Cape Turk yet, and I
don't believe you're round Seraglio Point. Why, women aren't the
brittle things men used to think them. They never were, and the war has
made them like whipcord. Bless you, my dear, we're the tougher sex now.
We've had to wait and endure, and we've been so beaten on the anvil of
patience that we've lost all our megrims.'

She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.

'Look at me, Dick, look at your someday-to-be espoused saint. I'm
nineteen years of age next August. Before the war I should have only
just put my hair up. I should have been the kind of shivering debutante
who blushes when she's spoken to, and oh! I should have thought such
silly, silly things about life ... Well, in the last two years I've
been close to it, and to death. I've nursed the dying. I've seen souls
in agony and in triumph. England has allowed me to serve her as she
allows her sons. Oh, I'm a robust young woman now, and indeed I think
women were always robuster than men ... Dick, dear Dick, we're lovers,
but we're comrades too--always comrades, and comrades trust each other.'

I hadn't anything to say, except contrition, for I had my lesson. I had
been slipping away in my thoughts from the gravity of our task, and
Mary had brought me back to it. I remember that as we walked through
the woodland we came to a place where there were no signs of war.
Elsewhere there were men busy felling trees, and anti-aircraft guns,
and an occasional transport wagon, but here there was only a shallow
grassy vale, and in the distance, bloomed over like a plum in the
evening haze, the roofs of an old dwelling-house among gardens.

Mary clung to my arm as we drank in the peace of it.

'That is what lies for us at the end of the road, Dick,' she said
softly.

And then, as she looked, I felt her body shiver. She returned to the
strange fancy she had had in the St Germains woods three days before.

'Somewhere it's waiting for us and we shall certainly find it ... But
first we must go through the Valley of the Shadow ... And there is the
sacrifice to be made ... the b