French organisation is the most perfect in the world, but the fever beat the organisation. If all that M. Deshoulieres wanted had been done, there would scarcely have been room enough for the fresh patients. As it was, there was over-crowding and over-work. Now and then a nurse failed, and was carried away to the infirmary at the convent. It was found that such as fell ill for the first time at the hospital could not recover there, and so they were taken away at once. The precautions to avoid spreading the infection were strongly enforced. Still it spread. People went about the streets softly, with an awe-struck look on their faces. There were special services, litanies. Day after day the fierce sun beat down on Charville; day after day the fever smote its victims; day after day such doctors and such nurses as were spared were at their posts, fighting it. M. Deshoulieres seldom spoke to Therese, unless it was to give special orders, and she was quite unconscious how narrowly he watched her during this terrible time. He was ready to interfere at once if she flagged But she did not flag. Her eye was brighter, her face was alive with keener energy than he had seen in it yet. At first she had a great deal to learn, but by and by it became evident that among all the brave women who laboured there as women can labour, there was not one more self-denying, more courageous, more tender than Mademoiselle Veuillot. Where patient watching was needed, in cases where it seemed impossible not to shrink, she stood her ground. When speech failed, and only mute gestures, difficult to interpret, remained to the sufferer, those pitiful grey eyes were quick to read the hidden meaning. When these, too, ceased, and death followed upon his shadow, more than once dying looks or dying lips faltered blessings upon the faithful nurse who stood there faithful to the last. And so it arrived that Sister Gabrielle told her that she was one of the most popular nurses among them all. M. Deshoulieres watched and wondered. She was different from what she had been. He had known her well enough to know that. But he was ignorant how the change had come, or, rather, how her character had thus ripened and opened out. Perhaps it was the outbreak of a heart tender enough to overcome selfishness. Perhaps there was a touch of shame about it that her own trials had seemed so unendurable, now that she was brought face to face with what we call life's great realities. Least of all did he think, when he had time to think, which was not often, that his own example had any thing to do with it. Yet so it was. Therese had never been the same since that day when he and she had spoken together; and, seeing him in the heart of his work at the hospital, she owned that even yet she had not done him justice.