They had entered the town of Dixmude. Hilda had never seen so thorough a piece of ruin. Walls of houses had crumbled out upon the street into heaps of brick and red dust. Stumps of building still stood, blackened down their surface, as if lightning had visited them. Wire that had once been telegraph and telephone crawled over the piles of wreckage, like a thin blue snake. The car grazed a large pig, that had lost its pen and trough and was scampering wildly at each fresh detonation from the never-ceasing guns.

"It's a bit warm," said Smith, as a piece of twisted metal, the size of a man's fist, dropped by the front wheel.

"That is nothing," returned Dr. van der Helde.

They had to slow up three times for heaps of ruin that had spread across the road. They reached the Hospital. It still stood unbroken. It had been a convent, till Dr. van der Helde commandeered it to the reception of his cases. He led them to the hall. There down the long corridor were seated the aged poor of Dixmude. Not one of the patient creatures was younger than seventy. Some looked to be over eighty. White-haired men and women, bent over, shaking from head to foot, muttering. Most of them looked down at the floor. It seemed as if they would continue there rooted, like some ancient lichen growth in a forest. A few of them looked up at the visitors, with eyes in which there was little light. No glimmer of recognition altered the expression of dim horror.

"Come," said Dr. van der Helde, firmly but kindly, "come, old man. We are going to take you to a quiet place."

The one whom he touched and addressed shook his head and settled to the same apathy which held the group.

"Oh, yes," said Dr. van der Helde, "you'll be all right."

He and Smith and Dr. McDonnell caught hold of the inert body and lifted it to the car. Two old women and one more aged man they carried from that hall-way of despair to the motor which had been left throbbing under power.

"Will you come back?" asked Dr. van der Helde.

"As soon as we have found a place for them," replied Dr. McDonnell.

The car pulled out of the hospital yard and ran uninjured through the town. The firing was intermittent, now. Two miles back at the cross-roads, four army ambulances were drawn up waiting for orders.

"Come on in. The water's fine," cried Hilda to the drivers.

"Comment?" asked one of them.

"Why don't you go into Dixmude?" she explained. "There are twenty-six old people in St. Jean there. We've got four of them here."

The drivers received an order of release from their commanding officer, and streamed into the doomed town and on to the yard of the hospital. In two hours they had emptied it of its misery.

At Oudekappele Hilda found a room in the little inn, and made the old people comfortable. At noon, Dr. van der Helde joined her there, and they had luncheon together out of the ample stores under the seat of the ambulance. Up to this day, Doctor van der Helde had always been reserved. But the brisk affair had unlocked something in his hushed preserves.

"It is a sight for tired eyes," said the gallant doctor, "to see such hair in these parts. You bring me a pleasure."

"I am glad you like it," returned Hilda.

"Oh, it is better than that," retorted the Doctor, "I love it. It brings good luck, you know. Beautiful hair brings good luck."

"I never heard that," said Hilda.

That night, for the first time since the hidden guns had marked Dixmude for their own, the Doctor slept in security ten kilometers back of the trenches. That night a shell struck the empty hospital of St. Jean and wrecked it.

"Well, have you worked out a plan to cure this idleness," said Mrs. Bracher, thundering into the room, like a charge of cavalry. "I've done nothing but cut buttons off army coats, all day."

"Such a day," said Hilda, "yes, we've got a plan. We met Dr. van der Helde again to-day. He is a brave man, and he is very pleasant, too. He has been working in Dixmude, but no one is there any more, and he wants to start a new post. He wants to go to Pervyse, and he wishes you and Scotch and me to go with him and run a dressing-station for the soldiers."

"Pervyse!" cried Mrs. Bracher. "Why, my dear girl, Pervyse is nothing but a rubbish heap. They've shot it to pieces. There's no one at Pervyse."

"The soldiers are there," replied Hilda; "they come in from the trenches with a finger off or a flesh wound. They are full of colds from all the wet weather we had last month. They haven't half enough to eat. They need warm soup and coffee after a night out on duty. Oh, there's lots to do. Will you do it?"

"Certainly," said Mrs. Bracher. "How about you, Scotch?"

Scotch was a charming maiden of the same land as Dr. McDonnell. She was the silent member of a noisy group, but there was none of the active work that she missed.

"Wake up, Scotch," said Hilda, "and tell us. Will you go to Pervyse and stay? Mrs. Bracher and I are going."

"Me, too," said Scotch.

The next day, Dr. van der Helde called for them, and they motored the seven miles to Pervyse. What Dixmude was on a large scale, that was Pervyse in small. A once lovely village had been made into a black waste. On the main streets, not one house had been left unwrecked. They found a roomy cellar, under a house that had two walls standing. Here they installed themselves with sleeping bags, a soup kitchen, and a kit of first-aid-to-the-injured apparatus.

Then began for Hilda the most spirited days of her life. They had callers from all the world at seasons when there was quiet in the district. Maxine Elliot, Prince Alexander of Teck, Generals, the Queen of the Belgians, labor leaders—so ran the visiting list. The sorrow that was Belgium had become famous, and this cellar of loyal women in Pervyse was one of the few spots left on Belgium soil where work was being done for the little hunted field army.

The days were filled with care of the hurt, and food for the hungry, and clothing for the dilapidated. And the nights—she knew she would not forget those nights, when the three of them took turns in nursing the wounded men resting on stretchers. The straw would crackle as the sleepers turned. The faint yellow light from the lantern threw shadows on the unconscious faces. And she was glad of the smile of the men in pain, as they received a little comfort. She had never known there was such goodness in human nature. Who was she ever to be impatient again, when these men in extremity could remember to thank her. Here in this worst of the evils, this horror of war, men were manifesting a humanity, a consideration, at a higher level than she felt she had ever shown it in happy surroundings in a peaceful land. Hilda won the sense, which was to be of abiding good to her, that at last she had justified her existence. She, too, was now helping to continue that great tradition of human kindness which had made this world a more decent place to live in. No one could any longer say she was only a poor artist in an age of big things. Had not the poor artist, in her own way, served the general welfare, quite as effectively, as if she had projected a new breakfast food, or made a successful marriage. Her fingers, which had not gathered much gold, had at least been found fit to lessen some human misery. In that strength she grew confident.

As the fair spring days came back and green began to put out from the fields, the soldiers returned to their duty.