"I know you don't," she cut in, "and that is no fault in you. But what you really mean is that you don't like us, and that, I submit, is your own fault." "But let me explain," urged he. "Go ahead," said Hilda. "Well, what I mean is this," he explained. "Here I find you three women out at the very edge of the battle-front. Here you are in a cellar, sleeping in bags on the straw, living on bully-beef and canned stuff. Now, you could just as well be twenty miles back, nursing in a hospital." "Is there any shortage of nurses for the hospitals?" interposed Hilda. "When I went to the Red Cross at Pall Mall in London, they had over three thousand nurses on the waiting list." "That's true enough," assented Barkleigh. "But what I mean is, this is reckless; you are in danger, without really knowing it." "So are the men in danger," returned Hilda. "The soldiers come in here, hungry, and we have hot soup for them. They come from the trenches, with a gunshot wound in the hand, or a piece of shell in a leg, and we fix them up. That's better than travelling seven or eight miles before getting attention. Why it was only a week ago that Mrs. Bracher here--" "Now none of that," broke in the nurse sternly. "Hush," said Hilda, "it isn't polite to interrupt when a gentleman is asking for information." She turned back to the correspondent. "Last week," she took up her story, "a young Belgian private came in here with his lower lip swollen out to twice its proper size. It had got gangrene in it. A silly old military doctor had clapped a treatment over it, when the wound was fresh and dirty, without first cleaning it out. Mrs. Bracher treated it every two hours for six days. The boy used to come right in here from the trenches. And would you believe it, that lip is looking almost right. If it hadn't been for her, he would have been disfigured for life." "Very good," admitted the correspondent, "but it doesn't quite satisfy me. Wait till you get some real hot shell fire out here, then you'll make for your happy home." "Why," began Scotch, rising slowly but powerfully to utterance. "It's all right, Scotch," interposed Hilda, at a gallop, "save the surprise. It will keep." Scotch subsided into a rich silence. She somehow never quite got into the conversation, though she was always in the action. She was one of those silent, comfortable persons, without whom no group is complete. Into her ample placidity fell the high-pitched clamor of noisier people, like pebbles into a mountain lake. "Now, what do you women think you are doing?" persisted the correspondent. "Why are you here?" "You really want to know?" queried Hilda. "I really want to know," he repeated. "I'll answer you to-morrow," said Hilda. "Come out here to-morrow afternoon and we'll go to Nieuport. We promised to go over and visit the dressing-station there, and on the way I'll tell you why we are here." * * * * *