His eyes left Sheila and traveled apprehensively to the children. They were wriggling themselves free of one another; frightened and bruised, but not hurt, barring one. The smallest of them all lay on the outskirts of the heap, quite motionless.
"If you will permit," Monsieur Satan stumbled on and gently picked up Madeline. He looked all compassion and bewilderment. "I do not altogether understand, ma'am'selle. But this little girl, I should like to carry her to some hospital and see that all is well with her. I seem to remember that she belongs to me." He smiled apologetically at the two watching him, then stumbled ahead with his burden.
At the base hospital they gave Sheila O'Leary full credit for the curing of Bertrand Fauchet, which, of course, she flatly denied. She laid it entirely to the interference of Fate and a child. But the important thing is that Bertrand Fauchet left the hospital a sound man--and that Madeline went with him, each holding fast to the hand of the other.
"She is mine now," he said, as he took leave of Sheila. "Le bon Dieu saw fit to send me in the place of that other papa. Eh, p'tite?" He stroked the hair back from the little face that looked worshipfully up at him. "It is for us who remember to make these little ones forget. N'est-ce pas, ma'am'selle? And we are going back to the world together, to find somewhere the happiness and the great love for Madeline. Adieu."
In the American Military Hospital No. 10 one could always count on Ward 7-A beginning the day with a genuine fanfare of good spirits--that is to say, ever since that ward had acquired a distinction and personality of its own. On this particular morning the doors of the wards were open, for orderlies were scrubbing floors, and Sheila O'Leary in the operating-room above could catch the words of the third chorus that had rung through the hospital since the ban of silence had been raised.
"Gra-ma-cree ma-cruiskeen, Slainte-geal ma-vour-neen, Gra-ma-cree a-coolin bawn, bawn, bawn, Oh!"
As usual, Larry's crescendo boomed in the lead. How those lads could sing!
In the regular order of things it was time for dressings; but the regular order of things was so often broken at No. 10 that it had nearly become a myth. The operating staff had been steadily at it since eleven the night before. If nothing more came in, they might be through by eleven now and the dressings come only two hours late. That would be rare good luck. Under the spell of the singing the tired backs of surgeons and nurses straightened unconsciously; cramped muscles seemed to lose some of their kinks; everybody smiled without knowing it--down to the last of the boys who were waiting their turn in the corridor outside. The boys had not been in the hospital long enough to know anything about Ward 7-A, but the challenge to courage and good spirits in that chorus of voices was too dominant to be denied, even among the sorest wounded of them. One after another rallied to it like veterans.