“Oh, Mon Dieu!” she ejaculated, startled at the sudden apparition of two scarlet-coated figures standing motionless outside the door, “Oh, m’sieurs, ’ow you fright me!” and the expressive eyes under the white coif and the shoulders and supple hands of the French-Canadian Nursing-Sister made great play.

Yorke saluted her with grave courtesy.  “Sister,” he said anxiously, “how is Constable Redmond doing?  Can we see him?”

She glanced irresolutely a moment at the handsome, imploring countenance of the speaker, and then her gaze flickered to his huge companion.  The silent, wistful appeal she read in the latter’s grim, cadaverous face decided her.

“Eheu!” she said softly, “‘e is a ver’ seeck man . . . but come then, m’sieurs, if you wish it!”

Cautiously they tip-toed into the room behind her.

Yes!  They decided, he was a “seeck” man all right!  So sick that he could not raise his flushed, hollow-cheeked young face from the pillow to salute his comrades with his customary impious bonhomie.  Now, gabbling away to himself in the throes of delirium, ever his feverish eyes stared beyond the hospital-walls westwards to Davidsburg.

With his brow contracted with an expression of vague worry, he was living over and over again the memorable night in which he had gotten his wound.

“Slavin!—­Yorkey!” he kept repeating, in tones of such yearning entreaty that moved those individuals more than they cared to show.  Yes, they were both of them there, standing by the side of his cot; but the poor sufferer’s unseeing eyes betrayed no recognition.

The deep sorrow that oppressed Slavin and Yorke just then those worthies rarely—­if ever—­alluded to afterwards.  Passing the love of women is the unspoken, indefinable spirit of true comradeship that exists between some men.

For one brief, soul-baring moment the comrades stared at each other, their self-conscious faces reflecting mutually their inmost feelings; then Yorke turned to Sister Marthe.

“What does the Doctor say?” he whispered anxiously.

The nurse was about to make answer when the door was softly opened and that gentleman entered the room, accompanied by Captain Bargrave and Inspector Kilbride.

Involuntarily, from long habit of discipline, Slavin and Yorke, stiffened to “attention” in the presence of their superiors, until, with a kindly, yet withal slightly imperious gesture, the O.C. mutely signified them to relax their formal attitude.  The Regimental Surgeon, Dr. Sampson, a tall, gray-moustached, pleasant-faced man, nodded to them familiarly and proceeded to make minute examination of his patient’s wound.  From time to time he questioned and issued low-voiced instructions to Sister Marthe.  Perfectly motionless, the grave-eyed quartette of policemen stood grouped around the cot, silently awaiting the physician’s verdict.

Throughout, poor Redmond had continued to toss and rave incessantly.  Much of his babbling was incoherent and fragmentary—­breaking off short in the middle of a sentence or dying away in a mumbling, indistinct murmur.  At intervals though, his voice rang out with startling clearness.