In the presence of the priest and of the Sister, the two peasants signed each man his statement, Leopold firmly, the fevered Frans making his mark with a trembling hand. Hinchcliffe shut his note-book and put it back into his pocket.

[184]

[184]

The little group passed into the next room, where the wounded women were gathered. A Sister led Hilda to the bedside of a very old woman, perhaps eighty years old. The eyes were closed, the thin white hair straggled across the pillow. There was no motion to the worn-out body, except for faint breathing.

"Cut through the thigh with a bayonet," said the Sister.

Hilda stepped away on tiptoe, and looked across the ward. There, rising out of the bedclothes, was a little head, a child's head, crowned with the lightest of hair. Gay and vivid it gleamed in that room of pain. It was hair of the very color of Hilda's own. The child was propped up in bed, and half bent over, as if she had been broken at the breast-bone. It was the attitude of a bent old body, weary with age. And yet, the tiny oval face of soft coloring, and the bright hair, seemed made for happiness.

Clear across the room, otherwise so [185]silent in its patient misery, there came a little whistling from the body of the child. With each give of the breath, the sound was forced out. The wheezing, as if the falling breath caught on some jagged bit of bone, and struggled for a moment to tear itself free, hurt Hilda.

[185]

The face of the little girl was heavy with stupor, the eyes half closed. Pain had done its utmost, and a partial unconsciousness was spreading over troubled mind and tortured body. The final release was close at hand.

Hinchcliffe had stepped up. There was an intent look in his face as he watched the child. Then the man's expression softened. The cunning lines about the mouth took on something of tenderness. The shrewd, appraising eyes lost their glint under a film of tears. He went over to the little one, and touched her very lightly on the hair. It was bright and gay, and incongruous on a body that was so visibly dying.[186] It gave a pleasure of sunlight on what was doomed. Still she went on whistling through her broken body, and with each breath she gave a low murmur of pain.

[186]

"Sister," said Hilda, to one of the women, "what is it with the child? She 

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