One recent arrival was being conducted about the garden by one of the white clad nurses, who was evidently trying to comfort him in some of his bad moments. The poor chap looked heart broken and one felt, even though dimly, something of his Gethsemane as he realized that the glory of the sun and all the beauties of nature were no more for him,--that before him was only night eternal. Yet a moment afterwards when the supper bell rang the rattle of canes on the walks and the sound of scores of men whistling and singing as they came from all the buildings round about proved most convincingly that hundreds of others had gone through this same struggle and had come out victorious. My visit to the Institute for the blinded soldiers was to me the most inspiring experience that I had in France, strange as that statement may sound, for it showed more conclusively than war itself the infinite capacity for courage that exists in almost every man. Yet the sights that we saw--so terribly pathetic--made one realize as never before the truth of the epigram "War is hell." When we again passed through the gates of St. Denis on our way towards our "home" in the field, it was a sunny day and all the fruit trees were in full bloom, making a broad belt of white for three or four miles around Paris. With the exception of a stop at the cathedral of Amiens to see the wonderful old stained glass windows, unequalled by any in Great Britain, we travelled steadily all day without incident and reached our little home town near the Belgian border by five o'clock to find that all was well. CHAPTER XIV. TABLE TALK AT A FLANDERS MESS. "Look out," warned the Colonel as they stumbled along the Rue de la Gare, "there's a hole somewhere about here." The Canadian officers passed gingerly on feeling their way down the inky street. A Zeppelin had been over the night before and the lighting regulations were being strictly enforced. Suddenly the Captain stopped, passed his hand along a brick wall, gave a pull at a wire, and a gong on the inside rang like a fire alarm. "How in the dickens you can see in this darkness beats me," said the Colonel. "You must have eyes like a French cat." The door was opened by Bittleson, and the three officers entered and walked along the dimly lit, tiled hall into a room at the far end.