"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.
A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Château. I think she was hurt."
"Hurt!"
"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables; Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.
"Where is Alixe?" he asked.
"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"
"I don't know."
He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.
"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone with Sir Thorald." And he climbed the stairs and knocked softly at the door of the death-chamber.
"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay here."