"An accident?" said the Reverend Mother. "How was the poor child hurt?"
She bent over the girl, Marthe,—Pierre Nesle's sister, as I remembered with an added pity—pulled my Burberry from her face and shoulders and glanced at the bedraggled figure there.
"Her hair has been cut off," said the old nun. "That is strange! There are the marks of finger-nails on her shoulder. What violence was it, then?"
Brand described the rescue of the girl from the mob, who would have torn her to pieces, and as he spoke I saw a terrible look come into the Reverend Mother's face.
"I remember—1870," she said harshly. "They cut the hair of women who had disgraced themselves—and France—by their behaviour with German soldiers. We thought then that it was a light punishment . . . we think so now, monsieur!"
One of the nuns, a young woman who had been touching the girl's head, smoothing back her tousled close-cropped hair, sprang up as though she had touched an evil thing, and shrank back.
Another nun spoke to the Reverend Mother.
"This house would be defiled if we took in a creature like that. God forbid, Reverend Mother"
The old Superior turned to Brand, and I saw how her breast was heaving with emotion.
"It would have been better, sir, if you had left this wretched woman to the people. The voice of the people is sometimes the voice of God. If they knew her guilt their punishment was just. Reflect what it means to us—to all our womanhood. Husbands, fathers, brothers were being killed by these Germans. Our dear France was bleeding to death. Was there any greater crime than that a Frenchwoman should show any weakness, any favour, to one of those men who were helping to
