Was she wounded? or dead?
Mercy raised one helpless hand, and laid her fingers on the wrist.While she was still vainly trying to feel for the beating of the pulse, Surgeon Surville (alarmed for the ladies) hurried in to inquire if any harm had been done.
Mercy called to him to approach."I am afraid the shell has struck her," she said, yielding her place to him."See if she is badly hurt."The surgeon's anxiety for his charming patient expressed itself briefly in an oath, with a prodigious emphasis laid on one of the letters in it--the letter R."Take off her cloak," he cried, raising his hand to her neck."Poor angel! She has turned in falling; the string is twisted round her throat."Mercy removed the cloak.It dropped on the floor as the surgeon lifted Grace in his arms."Get a candle," he said, impatiently; "they will give you one in the kitchen." He tried to feel the pulse: his hand trembled, the noise and confusion in the kitchen bewildered him."Just Heaven!" he exclaimed."My emotions overpower me!" Mercy approached him with the candle.The light disclosed the frightful injury which a fragment of the shell had inflicted on the Englishwoman's head.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.The retreat had begun.
Mercy drew aside the canvas, and saw the badly wounded men, left helpless at the mercy of the enemy, on their straw beds.She refused the offer of Monsieur Surville's arm.
"I have already told you that I shall stay here," she answered.
Monsieur Surville lifted his hands in polite remonstrance.Mercy held back the curtain, and pointed to the cottage door.
"Go," she said."My mind is made up."
Even at that final moment the Frenchman asserted himself.He made his exit with unimpaired grace and dignity."Madam," he said, "you are sublime!" With that parting compliment the man of gallantry--true to the last to his admiration of the ***--bowed, with his hand on his heart, and left the cottage.
Mercy dropped the canvas over the doorway.She was alone with the dead woman.