The doctor looked. “All the better,” said he firmly. “I thought he was dead. His blood flows; then I will save him. Don’t clutch me so, Josephine; don’t cling to me like that. Now is the time to show your breed: not turn sick at the sight of a little blood, like that foolish creature, but help me save him.” “Take him in-doors,” cried the baroness. “Into our house, mamma?” gasped Rose; “no, no.” “What,” said the baroness, “a wounded soldier who has fought for France! leave him to lie and die outside my door: what would my son say to that? He is a soldier himself.” Rose cast a hasty look at Josephine. Josephine’s eyes were bent on the ground, and her hands clenched and trembling. “Now, Jacintha, you be off,” said the doctor. “I can’t have cowards about him to make the others as bad. Go and stew down a piece of good beef for him. Stew it in red wine and water.” “That I will: poor thing!” “Why, I know him,” said the baroness suddenly; “it is an old acquaintance, young Dujardin: you remember, Josephine. I used to suspect him of a fancy for you, poor fellow! Why, he must have come here to see us, poor soul.” “No matter who it is; it is a man. Now, girls, have you courage, have you humanity? Then come one on each side of him and take hands beneath his back, while I lift his head and Dard his legs.” “And handle him gently whatever you do,” said Dard. “I know what it is to be wounded.” These four carried the lifeless burden very slowly and gently across the Pleasaunce to the house, then with more difficulty and caution up the stairs. All the while the sisters’ hands griped one another tight beneath the lifeless burden, and spoke to one another. And Josephine’s arm upheld tenderly but not weakly the hero she had struck down. She avoided Rose’s eye, her mother’s, and even the doctor’s: one gasping sob escaped her as she walked with head half averted, and vacant, terror-stricken eyes, and her victim on her sustaining arm. The doctor selected the tapestried chamber for him as being most airy. Then he ordered the women out, and with Dard’s help undressed the still insensible patient. Josephine sat down on the stairs in gloomy silence, her eyes on the ground, like one waiting for her deathblow. Rose, sick at heart, sat silent too at some distance. At last she said faintly, “Have we done well?” “I don’t know,” said Josephine doggedly. Her eyes never left the ground. “We could not let him die for want of care.” “He will not thank us. Better for him to die than live. Better for me.” At this instant Dard came running down. “Good news, mesdemoiselles, good news! the wound runs all along; it is not deep, like mine was. He has opened his eyes and shut them again. The dear good doctor stopped the blood in a twinkle. The doctor says he’ll be bound to save him. I must run and tell Jacintha. She is taking on in the kitchen.”