'I reckon I must have looked like a wild woman. I had lost my hat and my hair was all falling down, an' I only had on my short alpaca underskirt, 'cause I'd taken off my dress skirt to make a pillow like I said; but I just stood right up in the midst of all those poor bodies, an' says, "I'm Miss Smithson—Sadie Virginia Smithson—an' I've been holdin' Hell back all night."
'I knew I was talkin' crazy but I didn't care—like the way you do comin' out of ether.
'He stared at me for a spell, an' then he says, kind of funny, "Well, Miss Sadie Virginia, I'm glad you held some of it back, for everybody else in the world was letting it loose last night."
'He was mighty kind to me, though, an' helped get me to one of the base hospitals, an' from there over to England. But I don't know what happened to the professor an' his party.'
'Well,' I ventured after a long pause, and not knowing quite what to say, 'the Laurel Literary Society will be glad enough to have you belong to it now.'
She flashed bolt upright at that, her eyes staring at me.
'But—but you don't understand,' she cried breathlessly. 'I've been face to face with war an' death an' Hell an' God,—I've been born again,—do you reckon any of them little old things matter now?'
I was stunned by the white look of her face.
'What does matter—now?' I whispered at last.
'Nothin',' she answered, 'nothin' but God an' love an' doin' things for folks. That was why I had to tell you.'