y went inside the little hospital.
Within a few moments Dan came out again with his head bowed and went
away by himself without speaking.

"Will it be many hours, Doctor?" Mrs. Burton inquired.

The doctor shook his head.

"Not many."

Mrs. Burton was standing with her arm about Vera Lagerloff, feeling
Vera's grief almost as deeply as her own. Without a tie of blood,
without the right to be near him which his family had, Vera was yet
closer to Billy in many ways than any other human being in the world.

"You shall see him soon, dear," Mrs. Burton murmured.

Vera nodded.

"Billy will send for me; there will be so many things he will wish to
say," she replied and her tone was one of love and understanding.

"I don't think I can get on without Billy afterwards, Mrs. Burton. No
one else has realized how wonderful he was, what beautiful things he was
planning to do with his life." Vera was shivering so Mrs. Burton could
only hold her more closely.

"I know, dear, and yet how could one do more than Billy has done?
Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his
friend. Billy's friends, remember, were never merely the few people he
knew; his idea of friendship was a bigger thing than ours."

"Billy wishes to speak to you, Tante, and to Vera," Peggy said at this
instant appearing at the open door. "Don't be unhappy at seeing him. He
is not frightened and yet he understands perfectly he has only a little
while."

Billy was lying on a cot with a nurse on one side of him and his mother
on the other, but, except for this, looking much as he usually did.

His face was paler and the blue eyes even wider open, yet for once in
his life they seemed to have lost their questioning look.

"I promised you not to get into mischief, Tante. Well, this is the last
time; at least, I suppose it is my last. But after all one does not
know; there may be other chances over there."

Billy was trying to smile and Mrs. Burton leaned over and kissed him.

"I know there will be, Billy, and you will take them as gallantly as you
have done this one. Don't worry, old chap, I'll look after your mother
and Peggy."

Then she turned away.

Vera had kneeled down and was hiding her face in the bed clothes.

It was to her Billy turned like a little boy.

"Please look at me, Vera, and tell me you are sorry. It was like me to
do the right thing in the wrong way, wasn't it? Yet there are so many
things I want to say, wan