"We have done the best we could for you," the doctor said, "and I am sure there is not one of those who have provided funds for this ambulance but feels well rewarded by the knowledge that it has been the means of saving many lives. I think we may say that we have not lost one whom it was humanly possible to save, while in the French hospitals they have lost hundreds from over-crowding, want of ventilation, and proper sanitary arrangements. The mortality there has been fearful, and the percentage of deaths after amputations positively disgraceful." Rene came late that afternoon to pay a visit to Cuthbert, and was delighted to find that he was to be out next morning. "I have kept your rooms in order," he said, "and will have a big fire lighted in them before you arrive. They will give you breakfast before you leave, I hope." "They will do that, Rene, but I shall manage very well if there is still anything left of that store of mine in the big cupboard." "You may be sure that there is," Rene replied. "I am always most particular in locking up the doors when I come away, and I have not used the key you gave me of the cupboard. I was positively afraid to. I am virtuous, I hope, but there are limits to one's power to resist temptation. I know you told me to take anything I liked but if I had once began I could never have stopped." "Then we will have a feast to-morrow, Rene. Ask all the others in to supper, but you must act as cook. Tell them not to come to see me till eight o'clock. If they kept dropping in all day it would be too much for me. I wish Dampierre could be with us, but he has not got on so fast as I have. His wounds were never so serious, but the doctor said the bones were badly smashed and take longer to heal. He says he is not a good patient either, but worries and fidgets. I don't think those visits of Minette were good for him, the doctor had to put a stop to them. He would talk and excite himself so. However, I hear that he is likely to be out in another fortnight." "By that time it will be all over," Rend said, "negotiations are going on now, and they say that in three or four days we shall surrender." "The best thing to do, Rene. Ever since that last sortie failed all hope has been at an end, and there has been no point in going on suffering, for I suppose by this time the suffering has been very severe." "Not so very severe, Cuthbert. Of course, we have been out of meat for a long time, for the ration is so small it is scarcely worth calling meat, but the flour held out well and so did the wine and most other things. A few hundred have been killed by the Prussian shells, but with that exception the mortality has not been very greatly above the average, except that smallpox has been raging and has carried off a large number. Among young children, too, the mortality has been heavy, owing to the want of milk and things of that sort. I should doubt if there has been a single death from absolute starvation."