Retrospection flickering as a shadow picture on the brain has more than once averted tragedies. In the passing of a second she now saw two long-ago scenes: one, his desperate and victorious fight with a boy who had kicked her puppy; the other, neighbors rushing with blankets to a nearby pond, calling that he had swum out and saved a drowning lad--nearly perishing in the effort! While she stared, still horrified; while shells rent the air, and dust and smoke half blinded her, a spirit of maternalism began to plead for this one-time schoolmate--champion of her little dog, life-saver to a comrade! What had she done but add to the agony of one already agonized beyond his power to escape! A great pity filled her soul, and her body seemed to become liquefied into a tossing sea of tears. With a sob she bent over him and, as all ages of womanhood instinctively understand, gently drew his head against her breast. "Oh, Jeb! Can't you pull yourself together? Won't you try to be a man?" she asked fiercely. He staggered up and backed against the crater, holding his hands out to keep her off when she would have followed. But his cheeks had turned from white to crimson, and his eyes flashed a holy, or an unholy, fire. "I hope to God I never get back to-night," he cried hoarsely. "I hope to God you'll never have to look at anything as despicable as I've been!" It was he now who occupied the place of the mighty, and she the one who felt like cowering. Turning savagely he all but tossed the unconscious soldier to his shoulders, struggled up the shell hole and ran toward the dressing-stations. Scarcely knowing that her feet touched ground, she flew behind him; sobbing, laughing, wringing her hands--lifted by the great storm of victory which swept her soul. But at the deserted trench he stopped, laid his burden on the little bridge and turned back. "Jeb, take him all the way in," she pleaded, catching at his sleeve--but he shook off her hand, yelling like a madman: "You can get help from here!--don't touch me!--I ain't fit!" The next instant he was dashing headlong into the smoke. Frantically she screamed: "Come back!--Jeb!--your unit!" But she might have made the men on Mars hear as easily. Once she started to run after him, yet the fruitlessness of such a chase--and, more important still, the unconscious soldier's claim for aid--checked her. Blinded by tears, she dashed up the road and down to the quadrangle, staggered into the dug-out, and cried in a strange voice to Bonsecours: "There's a man out there I can't bring in!" He sprang up as if electrified. But her words had not alarmed him so much as her appearance and, in desperation catching her by the shoulders, he demanded: "What has happened--tell me!" "N--nothing," she sank upon the box, burying her face in her folded arms. She was sobbing hysterically now, and nurses rarely did this--until they snapped!