men have had a monopoly of physical courage. You have faced storms at sea, and charged up hills, and pulled out drowning children, and footed it up fire-ladders, till you think that bravery is a male characteristic. You've always handed [49]out the passive suffering act to us. We had any amount of compliments as long as we stuck to silent suffering. But now we want to see what shells look like. As long as sons and brothers have to stand up to them, why, we're going to be there, too."

[49]

"But you haven't been in the thick of it," objected Barkleigh. "When the danger is so close you can see it, a woman's nerve isn't as good as a man's. It can't be. She isn't built that way."

"That's the very point," retorted Hilda, "we're going to show you."

"Damn quick," muttered Smith.

In the pleasant heat of their discussion, they hadn't been noticing the roadway. It was full of soldiers, trudging south. The rumble had become a series of reports. The look of the peaceful day was changing. Barkleigh turned from his concentration on the girl, and glanced up the road.

"These troops are all turning," he said.

[50]

[50]

"You are right," Hilda admitted.

"Can't you see," he urged, "they're all marching back. That means they've given the place up."

"Oh, hardly that," corrected Hilda; "it simply means that Nieuport is hot for the present moment."

"You're not going in?" continued Barkleigh. "It is foolish to go into the town, when the troops are coming out of it."

"True enough," assented Hilda, "but it's a curious fact that the wounded can't retreat as fast as the other men, so I'm afraid we shall have to look them up. Of course, it would be a lot pleasanter if they could come to meet us half-way."

Smith let out his motor, and turned up his coat collar, a habit of his when he anticipated a breezy time. They pounded down the road, and into the choice old town.

They had chanced on the afternoon 

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