"Thank you, Mam’selle. The conventions have all crumbled, we’re all stripped down to our bare souls. We cannot afford to waste time looking forward or back. Keep that fire burning on the opened hearth, Mam’selle. Some of us will come back to you, God willing, soon. We must hurry. See! there is the child coming up the Right of Way, Nick clinging to her skirt. Donelle!" Law called to her and went to meet her. "Child, I’m going to take you to the States with me. Norval needs you!" Just for an instant the white face twitched and the yellow eyes darkened. "When do we go?" was all the cold lips said. Never a doubt; never a pause. "What did I tell you?" Law turned to Jo. "Conventions be damned! "To-day we start, Donelle. And, Mam’selle, just you ’tend to that fire!" When Norval had been landed in New York he was taken to a hospital—to die. But he did not die, though he tried hard enough, and gave no end of trouble to his doctors and nurses. "Whom shall we send for?" he was asked when, helpless and blinded, he lay in the small, quiet, white room. "Am I going west?" The phrase clung like an idiom of a foreign language. "Good Lord, man, no! You’re getting on rippingly." The young house doctor was tireless in his service to this stricken man. "Then send for no one. I’m not eager to have a chance acquaintance gaping at my useless legs and sightless eyes." "But you’re going to come around all right. It’s the effect of shock, you know. How about your relatives?" "Haven’t got any, thank the Lord." Norval’s chin stiffened. The young doctor gripped the clasped hands on the counterpane. "I wish you’d try a bit to buck up," he said. "What for?" "Well, just for your country’s sake." "My country! Why isn’t my country where I have been, helping to lower the temperature of hell?" The bitter tone rang through the words. Norval was glad for the company of this young doctor; glad to have someone, who, really did not matter, share with him the moments when the memory of horrors he had witnessed overwhelmed him. "Our country is going to be there soon!" The doctor’s voice was strained. "A big country like this has to go slow." "Slow be damned! This is no time to put on brakes. Are they, are they actually steaming up, Burke? You’re not saying this to—to quiet my nerves?" "No. Your nerves are settling into shape. Yes, our country is heaving from the inside." "Thank God!" Norval sighed. "And you bet, Mr. Norval, I’m going on the first ship if I have to go as a stoker. If there’s one blessed trick of my trade that can help fellows like you, lead me to it!" "Burke, you’re a devilish good tonic." A week later Norval had young Burke again to himself. "Old man, I feel that I am not going west. It’s rotten bad form for me to be holding down this bed any longer. I suppose I could be moved?" "Yes, Mr. Norval. It would do you good, I think you ought to make an effort.