^"She's kinder sleepin', marm," said Mrs. Bond in a whisper, "but she was ravin' after you left till she got the new medicine. That quieted 'er like."

Helen was at the door with Harold by her side. As he had promised, the hatchways were open and the air purer.

"I have brought some jelly," said Helen in a low voice.

"This is the first sleep she's had for a long spell," returned the Corporal, gazing intently on the face of his wife. "P'raps we'd better wait a bit."

For some minutes Helen silently watched the sick woman. She was between thirty and forty years of age, with face prematurely old. Her ashen grey features were very thin and her lips swollen and open, while every few moments she grasped faintly at imaginary phantoms.

"Won't you take a seat, marm?" whispered Mrs. Bond. "Mrs. 'Ardman has gone on deck for a breath or two of fresh air."

But Helen declined. The woman moaned as she slept. Then with a start, her eyes opened and she peered toward the spot where Helen stood, grasping feebly with outstretched hand.

"It's Willie," she cried, in a tone muffled by her swollen tongue. Her eyes were wide open now. "Why don't they let 'im come to me? And there's Jimmy and Jenny, too, Oh, my childer! my childer!" And she ended with a low, tearless wail. Her friends tried to soothe her, but it was no use. Waving them back, she went on with a gasp: "They won't let 'em—they won't let 'em—but am deein'—and it don't matter now."

"Willie's the lad that died last year," Mrs. Bond whispered to Helen.

Mrs. Jenkins had the only dry eyes in the cramped little room. Women do not weep when they are dying. Saliva was still drooling from her mouth, and Mrs. Bond wiped it gently away with a soft rag as she gave her a spoonful of the jelly. The cordial in it soothed her and she closed her eyes again.

"It's the reg'lations about childer," continued Mrs. Bond in a low voice. "Soldiers' wives cannot take their childer wee 'em on a march."

"Where are her children?" Helen asked with trembling lips.

"Wee 'er mother," was the reply. "She was wee 'em hersel' for a week after she came back from Spain. And they say she cut up awful when she 'ad to leave 'em again."

"Have you got any children?" was Helen's next question, her mind becoming unpleasantly familiar with actual facts.

"Yes indeed, marm! I've three living—please God—they are pretty big now. I used to leave them when they were little sometimes, an' it was killing work, I tell you. But now they're big, an' placed; an' its different when they can take care of theirselves."

By this time Mrs. Hardman had returned. She was younger than the other two, and although married for several years, perhaps fortunately for a soldier's wife, she had no children.

"She's very low, marm," was her first expression.

"Has the chaplain been to see her?" Helen asked.

"Yes, marm, 'ee was here this afternoon, and said 'ee'd come again in the mornin'."

"She won't be living then," said the Corporal, wringing his hands. "Oh, my Betsy, my bonny wife! What'll I do without ye?"

Her eyes slowly opened and rested upon her husband who was kneeling beside her. Gradually a rational look came into her face. A faint smile lit up her features as he clasped her hand.

"God—bless—you," she whispered.

"Come, Helen," said Harold, gently drawing his wife away. "I will have the chaplain sent at once if you like, but I don't see what he can do now."

"He might comfort them, perhaps," she whispered as again she followed him. "What awfully sad lives army women have anyway!" she continued as she dashed away the tears that would persist in flowing. "Too bad for her to die. I wonder if it had to be? And that calomel, I hate it. The women say that pints of water have been running from her mouth for days. No wonder she could not eat. The poor thing's a mere skeleton."

"Quite true, darling! But this is something that cannot be helped," said Harold, slipping his arm around Helen's waist as they walked along the now quiet deck. "And my sweet wife must not think she knows too much. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, you know."

"I suppose you are right. Captain Osborne is kind-hearted, and it was very good of him to give up his pretty stateroom to us. But still I cannot help wondering if it was best to give her so much calomel? Perhaps she had to die—so many people have. How hard, too, for women to be separated from their children whenever they go with their husbands on a campaign."

"But it is their husband's fault."

"How so, Harold?"

"Because soldiers usually marry without the consent of their superior officers."

Spite of her tears, Helen smiled as she caught the drift of his words.

"Often, too, the common soldier enlists when drunk," he continued, "and then, out of revenge, or because he has to—I knew an officer who had to—he runs all risks and marries upon the first opportunity."

"Does that often happen?" she asked demurely.

"Yes, over and over again," he replied more gravely. "Sometimes a soldier will be married for years before his captain finds it out. He has nothing to keep his wife on, so he leaves her with her people or to potter for herself till he comes home again. Then in the end, if a man has been steady and seldom in the guardhouse, they give him a chance to take his wife and children with him, particularly when there is little marching to be done; but a tramp of a thousand miles is a different thing."

"I'm sorry for the poor children."

"Yes, and I'm sorry for the Corporal; he's a brave soldier and has promise of promotion. But it will be hard for him with his wife dead and his children away. What is more, sweetheart, I'm sorry for Mrs. Manning, who will have one woman less to go with her on her long journey."

"You foolish fellow, I'm all right." But she tightened her clasp upon his arm and cuddled closer.

"Of course you are, and the dearest woman that ever lived. But Mrs. Jenkins would have been a help to you."

"Oh, do send the chaplain, please!" she interrupted in trembling accents.

"Yes, dearest," and kissing her at the door of their stateroom, he hastened away on his errand.