Then suddenly, beyond the church, separated by it only from the bazaar, was the bareness of the barracks. A dozen or more of them set at different angles, long, low, all to pattern, absolutely indistinguishable from each other save by the big black number painted on the gable-ends. Desolate utterly, lacking for the most part any reason, whatever, why they should stand on that particular spot instead of upon another in the dry, bare, sun-scorched plots of ground intersected by dry, white, dusty roads. But two or three of them--those farthest away--apparently had a somewhat efficient one, for Sir George said, pointing them out-- 'Those are the hospitals, over there, close to the cemetery. I'll drop you and go on to my committee. The carriage can return and take you on to the sports. I can walk--I mean if there is time after we've settled things.' The dubious tone was in his voice once more; perhaps the renewed smell of carbolic, mixed with iodoform, engendered doubt as to the efficacy of anything but heroic treatment. The smell was strong in the comfortable little room where Grace and Lesley waited for Sister Mary, and it came in, still stronger, with the latter's workmanlike grey dress and scarlet facings. 'Dr. Sullivan is here, and can take you round at once, Lady Arbuthnot,' she said cheerfully; 'and then, if you will honour us, he will drive you over to our mess for tea before you go on to the sports.' It was all so cut-and-dried, so commonplace, so, as it were, inevitable, so almost proper, to this kind-faced woman whose work it was; but the first glance into that unnaturally long, unnaturally bare, unnaturally clean room, with its windows set high, so that the twenty-four beds down one side and the twenty-four beds down the other side should be free of draught yet full of air, gave Grace Arbuthnot a sudden almost resistless desire to call aloud, to clap her hands, to do something, anything, to drive the sight from her, to startle it into flight, to rouse herself from the nightmare of it. 'This is the enteric ward,' said Sister Mary in a matter-of-fact tone. 'All the beds are full to-day, and Dr. Sullivan--but he will tell you himself. There he is, coming from the officers' ward.' 'Have you many in there?' asked Lesley. 'Only three, and we are not sure of one. He owns, however, to having drunk a lot of milk when he was thirsty out shooting, and that is always suspicious. We shall know in a day or two.' 'It comes often through the milk, doesn't it?' remarked Grace dreamily; she was absorbed in the face which showed on the bed beside which she was standing. A face on the pillow. No more. All the rest tidy, folded sheet and coverlet. Such a boyish face--sleeping or unconscious. Peaceful absolutely, but so strangely aloof even from that long low room, with its endless appliances, its evidence of energy, time, money, lavished regardlessly in the effort to save.