It was with a troubled mind, therefore, that Sister Grace, the head of the nursing staff, went out one evening into the patch of enclosed garden which surrounded the hospital buildings, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked far along the road that led to the hill country. There was a fierce, fiery sunset; it seemed as if the very sky were stained with blood, and the cross on the top of the little chapel stood out dark and startling against the lurid background. She passed slowly down the walk to shut the great gate, which, though open by day to every comer, was always safely barred at night, and she was in the act of sliding the bolt and securing the chain, when she paused suddenly and listened. She had heard a moan outside, a distinct, long-drawn, suffering sigh, that quivered a moment and then died away into silence. Someone on the other side of the gate was in distress or pain, and it was clearly her duty to enquire into the cause. With a beating heart she undid the fastening and peeped out. Crouched down on the step, as if she could drag herself no farther, was a Chinese woman bearing a baby fastened on to her back. She was desperately wounded, the blood still flowed from a gash on her head, and stains on the roadside marked the track along which she must have crawled in her agony to reach the friendly shelter of the wooden archway. Life was almost spent, but with an effort of desperation she managed to raise herself into a kneeling posture, and, clasping her hands together, cried out in Chinese: "Mercy! Mercy! The child!" and, with a last glance of supplicating appeal, fell across the threshold at the feet of the trembling nurse. Help was summoned at once, and she was carried into the hospital; but she was already past all human aid. She had accomplished her errand with the last spark of her dying strength, and had gone out into the light beyond the sunset. Sister Grace took the baby from her and laid the little creature gently on the bed, unfolding some of the curious Chinese clothing in which it was closely wrapped. She had unloosed the wadded coat, and now pulled off the queer double-peaked crimson cap, disclosing as she did so, not the expected shaved head, with its fringe of coarse black hair, but a crop of short, tight, flaxen curls, like rings of floss silk, falling round a pair of flushed cheeks as pink as appleblossom. She uttered a cry that drew both doctor and nurses to her side. "Look! Look!" she exclaimed, "the child is white!"