She nodded. 'Yes, God,' she answered simply. 'An' after that, that terrible lonesomeness melted all away. I knew that though I had to stand outside an' see 'em suffer, He was inside there with 'em--closer to 'em even than they was to themselves. So I knew it wasn't really lonesome for 'em, even if they were sufferin' an' dyin'. An' I'm right sure that a good many of 'em got to know that, too--anyhow, the faces of some of the ones that had died looked that way when I saw 'em in the mornin'. Maybe it was because I cared so much myself that I kind of broke through into knowin' how much more God cared. Folks always talk like He was a father 'way off in the sky, but I got to know that night that what was really God was something big an' close right in your own heart, that was a heap more like a big mother. 'An' it was all bigger an' sort of simpler than I'd ever thought it would be. Right over there was Hell an' big guns, an' men killin' each other, but here where we were, were just stars overhead, an' folks that you could do things for, an' God. I reckon that's the way,' she said with her grave simplicity, 'when things get too awful you suffer through to God, an' He turns you back to the simplest things--just the little prayer, an' the cup of water for men that were like sick children. This is the cup,' she added, holding it out for my inspection. 'An'--an' that's all, I reckon,' she concluded. 'When daylight came, the stretcher-bearers did get through to us. There was a sort of doctor officer with them, an' I never in my life saw any one look so tired. '"Who are you, an' what in thunder are you doing here?" he stormed out at me--only I don't say it as strong as he did. 'I reckon I must have looked like a wild woman. I had lost my hat and my hair was all falling down, an' I only had on my short alpaca underskirt, 'cause I'd taken off my dress skirt to make a pillow like I said; but I just stood right up in the midst of all those poor bodies, an' says, "I'm Miss Smithson--Sadie Virginia Smithson--an' I've been holdin' Hell back all night." 'I knew I was talkin' crazy but I didn't care--like the way you do comin' out of ether. 'He stared at me for a spell, an' then he says, kind of funny, "Well, Miss Sadie Virginia, I'm glad you held some of it back, for everybody else in the world was letting it loose last night." 'He was mighty kind to me, though, an' helped get me to one of the base hospitals, an' from there over to England. But I don't know what happened to the professor an' his party.' 'Well,' I ventured after a long pause, and not knowing quite what to say, 'the Laurel Literary Society will be glad enough to have you belong to it now.' She flashed bolt upright at that, her eyes staring at me. 'But--but you don't understand,' she cried breathlessly. 'I've been face to face with war an' death an' Hell an' God,--I've been born again,--do you reckon any of them little old things matter now?' I was stunned by the white look of her face.