Surgeon Surville's manner
altered on the instant. The expression of anxiety left his face;
its professional composure covered it suddenly like a mask. What
was the object of his admiration now? An inert burden in his
arms--nothing more.
The change in his face was not lost on Mercy. Her large gray eyes
watched him attentively. "Is the lady seriously wounded?" she
asked.
"Don't trouble yourself to hold the light any longer," was the
cool reply. "It's all over--I can do nothing for her."
"Dead?"
Surgeon Surville nodded and shook his fist in the direction of
the outposts. "Accursed Germans!" he cried, and looked down at
the dead face on his arm, and shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
"The fortune of war!" he said as he lifted the body and placed it
on the bed in one corner of the room. "Next time, nurse, it may
be you or me. Who knows? Bah! the problem of human destiny
disgusts me." He turned from the bed, and illustrated his disgust
by spitting on the fragments of the exploded shell. "We must
leave her there," he resumed. "She was once a charming
person--she is nothing now. Come away, Miss Mercy, before it is
too late."
He offered his arm to the nurse; the creaking of the
baggage-wagon, starting on its journey, was heard outside, and
the shrill roll of the drums was renewed in the distance.
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