Dr. Bonsecours had turned with a sigh of relief from the last of his cases and stepped outside for a breath of air, when the sound of cheering reached him. "There is some good news," he called to Marian, who came and stood nearby, listening. Yet, even at that moment, his thoughts were of her, and he turned, saying gently: "You must rest; I really insist upon it! If you don't, I--I shall break down, myself." She looked at him searchingly, reading well the fatigue, the unutterable strain, which marked his face, and whispered: "You're the one who needs it! Don't you realize how helpless we would be here without you?" "And how helpless I would be without _you_?" he murmured. "Oh, my wonderful Marian----!" He checked himself with an effort; yet, had the moon been brighter, he would have seen the pallor in her face yield to a flood of warm color. The tramp of men was coming nearer, men who slipped and stumbled down the steep road, and then a group of curious figures staggered into view, seeming in the uncertain light scarcely to be human. Turning right they marched heavily to the dressing-station entrance and, at Jeb's command, halted. Bonsecours, with mouth agape, stepped back at their approach, while Marian drew slightly closer to him. There is nothing in the French language which exactly corresponds to our expression of amazement: "Well, I'll be damned!" but whatever comes nearest to it is what the great surgeon now said, like a common sapper. At the same instant the nurse at his side gave a low cry. She was not looking at Jeb, but at the children. CHAPTER XVI Scarcely were the children lifted down before Marian had kneeled and taken them in her arms. Quicker than Bonsecours she had read the story of their destruction, and now sobbed over them as though her heart would break. One had clasped her neck, but the other two, unable to stand, merely stared with wide-open eyes devoid of the slightest understanding. It was when the great French surgeon looked upon these--little tots whose minds were shattered by cruelties purposely conceived for them, and whose bodies were starved to skeleton thinness in order that thieves and degenerates might grow fat--that he swore a mighty oath and buried his face in his hands. "_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu_," he muttered fiercely, "how many more will they add to the thousands I have already seen!"