"Al'mah," he said again, gently. Then, with a bitter humour, he added, "You here—I thought you were a prima donna!"
The flicker of a smile crossed her odd, fine, strong face. "This is grand opera," she said. "It is the Nibelungen Ring of England."
"To end in the Twilight of the Gods?" he rejoined with a hopeless kind of smile.
They turned to the outer door of the hospital and stepped into the night. For a moment they stood looking at the great camp far away to right and left, and to the lone mountains yonder, where the Boer commandoes held the passes and trained their merciless armament upon all approaches. Then he said at last: "Why have you come here? You had your work in England."
"What is my work?" she asked.
"To heal the wounded," he answered.
"I am trying to do that," she replied.
"You are trying to heal bodies, but it is a bigger, greater thing to heal the wounded mind."
"I am trying to do that too. It is harder than the other."
"Whose minds are you trying to heal?" he questioned, gently.