“Perhaps, Monsieur had better lie down again now and sleep awhile,” said Picard insinuatingly.

“Sleep!  I need sleep!  Why, Picard, by your own account I’ve just awakened from a sleep four days and four nights long.”

“But, sir, that was not sleep.  It was the stupor of unconsciousness.  Now your sleep will be easy and natural.”

“Very well,” said John, who had really begun to feel a little weary, “I’ll go to sleep, since, in a way, you order it, but if Mademoiselle Julie Lannes should happen to pass my cot again, will you kindly wake me up?”

“If possible, sir,” said Picard, the faintest smile passing over his iron features, and forced to be content with that reply, John soon slept again.  Julie passed by him twice, but Picard did not awaken him, nor try.  The first time she was alone.  Trained and educated like most young French girls, she had seen little of the world until she was projected into the very heart of it by an immense and appalling war.  But its effect upon her had been like that upon John.  Old manners and customs crumbled away, an era vanished, and a new one with new ideas came to take its place.  She shuddered often at what she had seen in this great hospital in the woods, but she was glad that she had come.  French courage was as strong in the hearts of women as in the hearts of men, and the brusque but good Dr. Delorme had said that she learned fast.  She had more courage, yes, and more skill, than many nurses older and stronger than she, and there was the stalwart Suzanne, who worked with her.

She was alone the first time and she stopped by John’s cot, where he slept so peacefully.  He was undeniably handsome, this young American who had come to their house in Paris with Philip.  And her brother, that wonderful man of the air, who was almost a demi-god to her, had spoken so well of him, had praised so much his skill, his courage, and his honesty.  And he had received his wound fighting so gallantly for France, her country.  Her beautiful color deepened a little as she walked away.

John awoke again in the afternoon, and the first sound he heard was that same far rumble of the guns, now apparently a part of nature, but he did not linger in any twilight land between dark and light.  All the mists of sleep cleared away at once and he sat up, healthy, strong and hungry.  Demanding food from an orderly he received it, and when he had eaten it he asked for Surgeon Delorme.

The surgeon did not come for a half hour and then he demanded brusquely what John wanted.

“None of your drugs,” replied happy young Scott, “but my uniform and my arms.  I don’t know your procedure here, but I want you to certify to the whole world that I’m entirely well and ready to return to the ranks.”

Surgeon Delorme critically examined the bandage which he had changed that morning, and then felt of John’s head at various points.

“A fine strong skull,” he said, smiling, “and quite undamaged.  When this war is over I shall go to America and make an exhaustive study of the Yankee skull.  Has bone, through the influence of climate or of more plentiful food, acquired a more tenacious quality there than it has here?  It is a most interesting and complicated question.”