He turned and Belinda saw the queer, twisted face of Erard.
"Mademoiselle," he said simply, "I could not leave you alone with these Boches. Non! non!"
CHAPTER XV
AT THE MERCY OF THE ENEMY
This long and anxious day closed, and night came. Belinda did not go back to old Minerva's. She was sure she would find nobody at the thatch-roofed cottage. Indeed, she might not find even the cottage itself.
Erard, a most unheroic figure in his soiled cook's apron and cap, insisted upon Belinda seeking rest. He took his usual place in nominal charge of the ward at night, after preparing a meal for all that was more filling than dainty.
The nurse lay within call and without removing her clothes; and thus managed to obtain a few hours' sleep.
The rumble and roar of the guns had now become so familiar to her ears that she scarcely noticed the noise—unless of a shell that burst near by. But not many of these startling explosions occurred. The big German guns were throwing their iron beyond the site of the abandoned hospital.
That Belinda had been left behind in the haste and confusion of the final evacuation was not to be wondered at. The injury to the directrice and the shocking death of the médecin chef had made the hurried departure from the hospital almost a rout.
The huddled body of the dead physician lay where it had fallen in the yard. There was no time to give to the dead when the wounded needed so much of her strength.