"Why, of course, Doctor. I'm ready at once." Trenchard put his hand on her arm. "You are not to go--Marie, do you hear? I have a right ... I tell you, you are not to go!" "Don't be so stupid, John," she shook off his arm. "Please, Doctor, I'm ready." Semyonov turned to Trenchard with a smile: "Mr. (they all called him Mr. now), it will be quite well ... I will look after her." "You ... you" (Trenchard could not control his voice), "you can't prevent shrapnel--bullets. You don't care, you...." Semyonov's voice was sharp: "I think it better that Sister Marie Ivanovna should come with me. You understand, the rest of you.... We shall meet at dusk." Trenchard only said "Marie ..." then turned away from us. Anna Petrovna, who had said nothing during this scene and had, indeed, seemed to be oblivious of it, plunged with her heavy clumsy walk across the road to the Red Cross house. The Doctor and Marie Ivanovna disappeared behind the trench. I was, as was always my case with Trenchard, both sympathetic and irritated. It was difficult for him, of course, but what did he expect the girl to do? Could he have supposed for a single moment that she would remain? Could it be possible that he knew her so little as that? And why make a scene now before Semyonov when he obviously could do nothing? I knew, moreover, with a certainty that was almost ironic in its clarity, that Marie Ivanovna did not love, did not, perhaps, even care for him. By what moment in Petrograd, a moment flaming with their high purposes and the purple shadows of a Russian "white night," had she been entranced into some glorious vision of him? On the very day that followed, she had known, I was convinced, her mistake. At the station she had known it, and instead of the fine Sir Galahad "without reproach" of the previous night she saw some figure that, had she been English born, would have appeared to her as Alice's White Knight perchance, or at best the warm-hearted Uncle Toby, or that most Christian of English heroes--Parson Adams. I could imagine that life had been so impulsive, so straightforward, so simple a thing to her that this sudden implication in an affair complicated and even dishonest caused her bitter disquiet. Looking back now I could trace again and again the sudden flashes, through her happiness, of this distress. He perhaps should have perceived it, but I could understand that he could not believe that his treasure had at last after all these years been given to him for so brief a moment. He could not, he would not, believe it. Well, I knew that his eyes must very soon be opened to the truth.... As I turned to see him sitting on the stretcher with his back to me, his head hanging a little as though it were too heavy for his neck, his back bent, his long arms fallen loose at his sides, I thought that Alice's White Knight he, in solemn truth, presented.