n she
had never lost.

"I declare, Gerry, I cannot endure the thought that you and Felipe have
so spoiled your lives at the age when you should have been happiest. If
anything happens, if Felipe is kept in prison for a time, what do you
intend to do?"

Gerry glanced down apparently at her hands which were lightly clasped
together in her lap.

When she looked up at her companion she was smiling, even if somewhat
tremulously.

"I am going to _work_, Mrs. Burton, although it may be difficult for you
to believe after the effort I have made to escape even the thought of
work. But I think at last I have found something which will interest me.
Mr. Morris is very kind; of course he must dislike me under the
circumstances and feel I influenced Felipe, nevertheless he has asked me
to live with him at the ranch indefinitely. But I won't do that, not
after Felipe's trial is over. I shall do some kind of war work and I
don't care now how menial or how humble it is. After a time perhaps I
may learn to be useful. Felipe and I have talked things over and we want
to do whatever is possible to atone for our mistake. If we only had it
all to do over again! But then, of course, I realize what a foolish
thing that is to say!"

"It may be foolish, Gerry, but it is universal."

After this remark Mrs. Burton did not sit down, nor did she speak again
for several moments. Instead she stood, frowning and looking peculiarly
determined and intense.

"Gerry, if Felipe were released from prison, do you think he would be
willing to go into the army and do whatever he could to make himself a
good soldier? I don't believe Felipe is a physical coward, he was merely
a spiritual one. He is rash and impetuous and in a moment of actual
fighting no one would be braver or perhaps more reckless. What he
dreaded was the discipline, the _thought_ of war, the having to
relinquish the ease and beauty and pleasure of his daily life. Well,
there must have been other boys like him, boys who fought with their own
disinclination more gallantly than Felipe! Yet it would be foolish for
the United States to lose a soldier for her army in order to gain a
prisoner. Don't you think Mr. Morris and you also, Gerry, can persuade
Felipe's judges to view the situation in this light? Let him accept
whatever punishment they see fit to bestow, only they must not spoil his
one chance of redeeming his mistake by fighting for his country."

Mrs. Burton might have been pleadin