uman nature! Daren Lane is so far above your comprehension that it
seems useless to defend him. I have never done it before. He would not
thank me. But this once I will speak.... In our group of service
men--so few of whom came home--he was a hero. We all loved him. And
for soldiers at war that tribute is the greatest. If there was a dirty
job to be done, Daren Lane volunteered for it. If there was a comrade
to be helped, Daren Lane was the first to see it. He never thought of
himself. The dregs of war did not engulf him as they did so many of
us. He was true to his ideal. He would have been advanced for honors
many a time but for the enmity of our captain. He won the _Croix de
Guerre_ by as splendid a feat as I saw during the war.... Thank God,
we had some officers who treated us like men--who were men themselves.
But for the majority we common soldiers were merely beasts of burden,
dogs to drive. This captain of whom I speak was a padded
shape--shirker from the front line--a parader of his uniform before
women. And he is that to-day--a chaser of women--girls--_girls_ of
fifteen.... Yet he has the adulation of Middleville while Daren Lane
is an outcast.... My God, is there no justice? At home here Daren Lane
has not done one thing that was not right. Some of the gossip about
him is as false as hell. He has tried to do noble things. If he
married Mel Iden, as you say, it was in some exalted mood to help her,
or to give his name to her poor little nameless boy."

Blair paused a moment in a deliberate speech that toward the end had
grown breathless. The faces before him seemed swaying in a mist.

"As for myself," he continued in passionate hurry, "I did not _lose_
my leg!... I _sacrificed_ it. I _gave_ my career, my youth, my
health, my body--and I will soon have given my life--for my country
and my people. I was proud to do it. Never for a moment have I
regretted it.... What I lost--Ah! what I _lost_ was respect
for"--Blair choked--"for the institution that had deluded me. What I
_lost_ was not my leg but my faith in God, in my country, in the
gratitude of men left at home, in the honor of women."

Friday, the tenth of January, dawned cold, dark, dreary, and all day a
dull clouded sky promised rain or snow. From a bride's point of view
it was not a propitious day for a wedding. A half hour before five
o'clock a stream of carriages began to flow toward St. Marks and
promptly at five the door of the church shut upon a la