Page:Women Wanted.djvu/147

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WAR JEWELRY
133

hold the candle alone. Her wonderful nerve never failed, but there came a time when her frail physical strength gave out. She still held on, working for two days with a high fever temperature before she finally succumbed, herself the victim of typhus. Her husband was telegraphed for. She was unconscious when he arrived and it was three or four days before he could be permitted to see her. Her life hung in the balance for weeks. But finally recovery began and it was planned for her to return to England for convalescence. She and Sir Ralph were attended to the railroad station by the military governor of Macedonia, the archbishop of the Serbian Church, and a guard of honour of Serbian officers. The Serbian people in their devotion lined the street and threw flowers beneath her feet and kissed the hem of her dress. At the station the Crown Prince presented her with the highest decoration within his gift and the Order No. 1 of St. Sava, a cross of diamonds. Never before had it been bestowed on any other woman save royalty. Seldom has any woman in history been so conspicuously the object of an entire country's gratitude. The street on which the hospital stood was renamed with her name. On the Plain of Kossova there stands a very old and historic church, on the walls of which from time to time through the centuries, have been inscribed the names of queens and saints. Leila Paget's name also has been written there. A nation feels even as does that common Serbian soldier whom she had nursed back from death, who afterwards wrote her: "For me