y farewell. She took it,
pressed it a moment to her breast, and ran away, choked on the grief she
could not utter. Morgan stepped out into the sun.

Rhetta Thayer stood at the door, a little aside, as if waiting for him,
as if knowing he would come. She was agitated by the anxious hope that
spoke out of her white face, but restrained by a fear that could not
hide in her wide-straining eyes. She moved almost imperceptibly toward
him, her lips parted as if to speak, but said nothing.

As Morgan lifted his hand to his hat in grave salute, passing on, she
offered him the badge of his office which she had held gripped in her
hand. He took it, inclining his head as in acknowledgment of its safe
keeping through the night, and hastened on to one of the horses that
stood dozing on three legs in the early sun.

As he left her, Rhetta followed a few quick steps, a cry rising in her
heart for him to stay a moment, to spare her one word of forgiveness out
of his grim, sealed lips. But the cry faltered away to a great, stifling
sob, while tears rose hot in her eyes, making him dim in her sight as he
threw the rein over the horse's head, starting the animal out of its
sleep with a little squatting jump. She stood so, stretching out her
hands to him, while he, unbending in his stern answer to the challenge
of duty, unseeing in the hard bitterness of his heart, swung into the
saddle and rode away.

Rhetta groped for her saddle, blind in her tears. Morgan was hidden by
the dust that hung in the quiet morning behind him as she mounted and
followed.

Half a mile or so along the road, Fred passed her, bending low as he
rode, as if his desire left the saddle and carried him ahead of his
horse; a little while, and Stilwell thundered by, leaving her last and
alone on that road leading to what adventures her heart shrunk in her
bosom to contemplate.

Ahead of her the smoke of Ascalon's destruction rose high.

CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE SQUARE AT ASCALON

Morgan had time for a bitter train of reflection as he rode, never
looking behind him to see who came after. Whether Stilwell would yield
to his wife's appeal and remain at home, whether Fred could be bent from
his fiery desire to be avenged on the author of their calamity, he took
no trouble to surmise. He only knew that he, Calvin Morgan, was rushing
again to combat at the call of this girl whose only appeal was in the
face of dreadful peril, whose only service was that of blood.