"Oh! Was she in France?"
"Several times and most of the time during the war," Ethel said and, watching Barney, she saw color deepening in his face.
"There was a woman," he said after a minute, "who visited our battalion in rest billets two years ago, when I was still with the Canadians, Miss Carew. She was an American; I've forgotten her name; but I'll never forget her. She had a hospital, I heard, which she had built and kept up at her own expense near Boulogne; several hundred beds."
"Yes," Ethel said. "Go on."
"You mean this is she?"
"What about her when you met her?" Ethel demanded. "What did she do?'
"Why, I can't tell you, Miss Carew; she just was with us that night, going about and talking to us—each man a few minutes. It is a thing you don't think particularly about at the time—and never forget."
"Her name," Ethel said quietly, "was Mrs. Oliver Cullen; she was my cousin Agnes, by marriage. I told you about her when I told you about all our family; she owned this house. She was lost last September on the Gallantic."
"She was that woman?"
"Cousin Agnes contributed a field hospital near Boulogne, among many other things she did in the war, Mr. Loutrelle; and if you ever met her, I'm sure you'd never forget her."
"But what made you think I might have met her?"
Ethel left him in the music room while she went upstairs and returned with the photograph of the group of officers which she gave to him with the mere statement that she had found it among her cousin's things.
