“AND, AFTER ALL, HE CAME TO THE WARS!”

A perfect day, with men lying dead by thousands on the battlefield; twilight, with a young moon; night and the stars—­

Drusilla’s throat was dry with singing—­there had been so many hurt, and she had found that it helped them to hear her, so when a moaning, groaning, cursing ambulance load stopped a moment, she sang; when walking wounded came through sagging with pain and dreadful weariness, she sang; and when night fell, and an engine was stalled, and she took in her own car a man who must be rushed to the first collecting station, she found herself still singing—.  And this time it was “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

The man propped up beside her murmured, “My Captain liked that—­he used to sing it—­”

“Yes?” She was listening with only half an ear.  There were so many Captains.

“He was engaged to an American.”

She listened now.  “Your Captain—?”

“Captain Hewes.”

She guided the car steadily.  “Dawson Hewes?”

“Yes.  Do you know him?”

“I—­I am the girl he is going to marry—­”

He froze into silence.  She bent towards him.  “What made you say—­was—?”

“He’s—­gone West—­”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

“When?” She still drove steadily through the dark.

“To-day.”

She looked up at the stars.  So—­he would never come blowing in with the sweet spring winds.

“I’d rather have been—­shot—­than to have told you that—­” the man beside her was saying, “but, you see, I didn’t know you were the girl—­”

“Of course you couldn’t.  You mustn’t blame yourself.”

She delivered her precious charge at the hospital and put up her car for the night.  Standing alone under the stars she wondered what she should do next.  There was no one to tell—­the women who had worked with her in the town which had since been recaptured by the Germans had gone to other towns.  But she had stayed as near the front as possible, and she had never felt lonely because at any moment her lover might come—­there had always been the thought that he might come—.

And now he would never come!

She had a room in the house of an old woman, all of whose sons were in the war.  So far two of them had escaped death.  But the old woman said often, fatalistically, “They will not always escape—­but it will be for France.”

The old woman had soup on the fire for Drusilla’s supper.  The room was faintly lighted.  “What is it?” she asked, as the girl dropped down on the doorstep.

“My Captain is dead—­”

The old woman rose and stood over her.  “It comes to all.”

“I know.”

“Will you eat your soup?  When the heart fails, the body must have strength.”

Drusilla covered her face with her bands.  The room was very still.  The old woman went back to her chair by the fire and waited.  At last she rose and filled a small bowl with the soup—­she broke into it a small allowance of bread.  Then she came and sat on the step beside the girl.