The New Magdalen | Page 4

and shook them impatiently as he spoke.
"They give me no information that I can rely on. For all I can tell to the
contrary, the main body of the Germans, outnumbering us ten to one,
may be nearer this cottage than the main body of the French. Draw
your own conclusions. I have nothing more to say."
Having answered in those discouraging terms, Captain Arnault got on
his feet, drew the hood of his great-coat over his head, and lit a cigar at
the candle.
"Where are you going?" asked the surgeon.
"To visit the outposts."
"Do you want this room for a little while?"
"Not for some hours to come. Are you thinking of moving any of your
wounded men in here?"
"I was thinking of the English lady," answered the surgeon. "The
kitchen is not quite the place for her. She would be more comfortable
here; and the English nurse might keep her company."
Captain Arnault smiled, not very pleasantly. "They are two fine
women," he said, "and Surgeon Surville is a ladies' man. Let them
come in, if they are rash enough to trust themselves here with you." He
checked himself on the point of going out, and looked back
distrustfully at the lighted candle. "Caution the women," he said, "to
limit the exercise of their curiosity to the inside of this room."
"What do you mean?"
The captain's forefinger pointed significantly to the closed
window-shutter.
"Did you ever know a woman who could resist looking out of

window?" he asked. "Dark as it is, sooner or later these ladies of yours
will feel tempted to open that shutter. Tell them I don't want the light of
the candle to betray my headquarters to the German scouts. How is the
weather? Still raining?"
"Pouring."
"So much the better. The Germans won't see us." With that consolatory
remark he unlocked the door leading into the yard, and walked out.
The surgeon lifted the canvas screen and called into the kitchen:
"Miss Merrick, have you time to take a little rest?"
"Plenty of time," answered a soft voice with an underlying melancholy
in it, plainly distinguishable though it had only spoken three words.
"Come in, then," continued the surgeon, "and bring the English lady
with you. Here is a quiet room all to yourselves."
He held back the canvas, and the two women appeared.
The nurse led the way--tall, lithe, graceful--attired in her uniform dress
of neat black stuff, with plain linen collar and cuffs, and with the scarlet
cross of the Geneva Convention embroidered on her left shoulder. Pale
and sad, her expression and manner both eloquently suggestive of
suppressed suffering and sorrow, there was an innate nobility in the
carriage of this woman's head, an innate grandeur in the gaze of her
large gray eyes and in the lines of her finely proportioned face, which
made her irresistibly striking and beautiful, seen under any
circumstances and clad in any dress. Her companion, darker in
complexion and smaller in stature, possessed attractions which were
quite marked enough to account for the surgeon's polite anxiety to
shelter her in the captain's room. The common consent of mankind
would have declared her to be an unusually pretty woman. She wore
the large gray cloak that covered her from head to foot with a grace that
lent its own attractions to a plain and even a shabby article of dress.
The languor in her movements, and the uncertainty of tone in her voice

as she thanked the surgeon suggested that she was suffering from
fatigue. Her dark eyes searched the dimly-lighted room timidly, and she
held fast by the nurse's arm with the air of a woman whose nerves had
been severely shaken by some recent alarm.
"You have one thing to remember, ladies," said the surgeon. "Beware
of opening the shutter, for fear of the light being seen through the
window. For the rest, we are free to make ourselves as comfortable
here as we can. Compose yourself, dear madam, and rely on the
protection of a Frenchman who is devoted to you!" He gallantly
emphasized his last words by raising the hand of the English lady to his
lips. At the moment when he kissed it the canvas screen was again
drawn aside. A person in the service of the ambulance appeared,
announcing that a bandage had slipped, and that one of the wounded
men was to all appearance bleeding to death. The surgeon, submitting
to destiny with the worst possible grace, dropped the charming
Englishwoman's hand, and returned to his duties in the kitchen. The
two ladies were left together in the room.
"Will you take a chair, madam?" asked the nurse.
"Don't call me 'madam,'" returned the young lady, cordially. "My name
is Grace Roseberry. What is your