As Sheila listened, it epitomized for her the tragedy of the mothers of France, this antiphonal chorus of the mothers who had lost all and those who had yet one son left. To the girl's mind there came in almost cruel contrast that chorus of Maeterlinck's mothers raised in rapturous expectancy to the unborn; she knew she was hearing now the agonized antithesis of it. Throughout the first day it rang incessantly, until she could have hummed the haunting melody of it. Then night came. The patches of reds and greens and blues that had sifted through the stained-glass window in the chancel and played all day in grotesque patches on the white cheeks of the wounded faded alike to gray, and the nurse lit the tall wax candles on the altar that the work might go on without stopping. The next day--and the next--passed much the same. There was no end to the wounded. Griggs fainted twice the second day, and the chief and Sheila carried the work alone for a few hours. Each of them was acutely conscious of the strain on the other and did what he and she could to ease the tension. For the girl her greatest comfort was in the scrap of paper crumpled over her breast. It told her Peter was near, coming to her soon. It seemed to transmit some of his strength and optimism. There were moments when, but for his reassurance, the girl would have doubted every normal, happy phase of life and acknowledged only the unending torture and renunciation. Sometimes the horror seemed to wrap them in like an impenetrable fog. As for the chief, it took every ounce of will and sanity to keep him going, and he wondered how the girl beside him could brave it through without a whimper. Always about them roared the great guns like the last booming of a judgment day, and under that noise the moaning chorus of the French mothers. When the strain reached the breaking-point Sheila closed her eyes and looked for the light on the hilltop that Peter had promised would be there--and there it always was. Moreover, she could feel Peter's vital presence and the marvelous reality of his love reaching nearer and nearer to her through the darkness. So she kept her head clear and her hands steady and forced a smile whenever the chief eyed her anxiously. She never failed a boy "going west." To the last breath she let him see the radiating faith of her own soul that believed in the ultimate Love above everything else. Those old illuminating smiles that had won for her her nickname of Leerie never had to be forced, and they lighted the way out for many a groping soul in that little church. And the old Frenchwomen, watching above their prayers for the return of Louis or Charles or Jacques, said: "See, for all she's so young, she knows what the mother-heart is. That is why she feels for us. She knows how our hearts have bled."