"There is a Sister of Mercy out on the skirmish-line across the lawn," said a soldier of the hospital corps, pointing with bloody hands towards the smoke-veiled river.
Jack looked at Lorraine in utter despair.
"I must go; she can't stay there," he muttered.
"Yes, you must go," repeated Lorraine. "She will be shot."
"Will you wait here?" he asked.
"Yes."
So he went away, thinking bitterly that she did not care whether he lived or died—that she let him leave her without a word of fear, of kindness. Then, for the first time, he realized that she had never, after all, been touched by his devotion; that she had never understood, nor cared to understand, his love for her. He walked out across the smoky lawn, the din of the rifles in his ears, the bitterness of death in his heart. He knew he was going into danger—that he was already in peril. Bullets whistled through the smoke as he advanced towards the firing-line, where, in the fog, dim figures were outlined here and there. He passed an officer, standing with bared sword, watching his men digging up the sod and piling it into low breastworks. He went on, passing others, sometimes two soldiers bearing a wounded man, now and then a maimed creature writhing on the grass or hobbling away to the rear. The battle-line lay close to him now—long open ranks of men, flat on their stomachs, firing into the smoke across the river-bank. Their officers loomed up in the gloom, some leaning quietly back on their sword-hilts, some pacing to and fro, smoking, or watchfully steadying the wearied men.
Almost at once he saw Alixe. She was standing beside a tall wounded officer, giving him something to drink from a tin cup.
"Alixe," said Jack, "this is not your place."
She looked at him tranquilly as the wounded man was led away by a soldier of the hospital corps.