she was the greater military nation of the two.

What was it all for? What of the ever-receding fields of peace, grown
green and fat again? What of the racing past dotted with the broken
headstones of promises of victory by this means or that?

But to attempt to answer historical enigmas while working day and night
over the mangled victims of the Somme was beyond her powers. It was not
until she broke down, and, with Heloise von Erkel and Mimi Brandt,
obtained leave to spend a month at St. Moritz, that she found her
answer.




III


1

The three girls went to a little hotel that had been a favorite resort
of Gisela's in times of peace when she had felt an imperative need of
the high solitudes and eternal snows. They planned a week's rest, and a
fortnight or more of mountain climbing, dismissing the world war from
their minds as far as possible. But their gentle plans were upset on the
eighth day after their arrival, when at the end of an hour's hard
skating, clad in the bright sweaters and caps of old, Gisela suddenly
stopped short and returned the hard stare of two young women who had
drawn apart and were evidently discussing her. That they were Americans
Gisela recognized at a glance, but for a moment she saw them through a