She was only one of many women who did full duty through the darkest days the nation ever knew—­saints in homespun, martyrs uncanonised save in the hearts of the stricken.

There was a small wooden foot-bridge spanning the brook, with a rough seat nailed against the rail.

“One of my convalescents made it for me,” she said proudly.  “He could use only one arm, and he had such a hard time sawing and hammering! and the foolish boy wouldn’t let anybody help him.”

She seated herself in the cool shade of a water oak, retaining his hand in hers and making room for him beside her.

“I wonder,” she said, “if you know how good you have been to me.  You changed all my life.  Do you realise it?”

“You changed it yourself, Letty.”

She sighed, leaned back, dreamy eyed, watching the sun spots glow and wane on the weather-beaten footbridge.

“In war time—­here in the wards—­men seem gentler to women—­kinder—­than in times of peace.  I have stood beside many thousands; not one has been unkind—­lacking in deference. . . .”  A slight smile grew on her lips; she coloured a little, looked up at Berkley, humorously.

“It would surprise you to know how many have asked me to marry them. . . .  Such funny boys. . . .  I scolded some of them and made them write immediately to their sweethearts. . . .  The older men were more difficult to manage—­men from the West—­such fine, simple-natured fellows—­just sick and lonely enough to fall in love with any woman who fanned them and brought them lemonade. . . .  I loved them all dearly.  They have been very sweet to me. . . .  Men are good. . . .  If a woman desires it. . . .  The world is so full of people who don’t mean to do wrong.”

She bent her head, considering, lost in the retrospection of her naive philosophy.

Berkley, secretly amused, was aware of several cadaverous convalescents haunting the bushes above, dodging the eyes of this pretty nurse whom one and all adored, and whom they now beheld, with jealous misgivings, in intimate and unwarrantable tete-a-tete with a common and disgustingly healthy cavalryman.

Then his weather-tanned features grew serious.

The sunny moments slipped away as the sunlit waters slipped under the bridge; a bird or two, shy and songless in their moulting fever, came to the stream to drink, looking up, bright eyed, at the two who sat there in the mid-day silence.  One, a cardinal, ruffled his crimson crest, startled, as Berkley moved slightly.

“The Red Birds,” he said, half aloud.  “To me they are the sweetest singers of all.  I remember them as a child, Letty.”

After a while Letty rose; her thin hand lingered, on his shoulder as she stood beside him, and he got to his feet and adjusted belt and sabre.

“I love to be with you,” she said wistfully.  “It’s only because I do need a little more sleep that I am going back.”