At the beautiful Renaissance hospital at Toulouse on the Boulevard de Strasbourg, I found Georges Cucurou lying in the corner of a huge hall—a splendid hall it was of carvings and arches and coffer-vaulted ceiling, all hung with flags.

How small his cot looked, there in the corner of that hall, amid paintings and gild94ings and magnificent cornices! How strange those nurses looked too—white-swathed matrons in flowing draperies, and nuns with flapping wide white headdresses gliding silently along the parqueted floor! How strange and quiet those weak, pale soldiers in the cots, and the patient soldiers sitting about in blue uniforms, and white, and red! But, most of all, how strange he seemed!

No, it was not Coco, any more—not Coco of the free, airy gestures, Coco of the big, innocent eyes; but some one who was content to let his straight-forward words speak for themselves. Not the boy with mobile, parted lips; but some one whose mouth closed firmly, now, when he paused, reflecting seriously before he answered. And, as he spoke of things beyond my ken, he made me, somehow, feel ashamed. Why, it seemed, now, that, having known Death so............