alley with a wistful
air.

"Did you ever read 'The Sons of Martha'?" she asked. Do you remember
these lines:

"'Not as a ladder to reach high Heaven,
Not as an altar to any creed,
But simple service simply given
To his own kind in their common need.'"

"It is a noble mark to shoot at," Thompson said.

He fell silent. Sophie went on after a minute.

"Dad said he was going back to first principles when he began this.
There are men here who have found economic salvation and self-respect,
who think he is greater than any general. I'm proud of dad. He wanted to
do something. What he has accomplished makes all my puttering about at
what, after all, was pure charity, a puerile sort of service. I gave
that up after you went away." She snuggled one hand into his. "It didn't
seem worth while--nothing seemed worth while until dad evolved this."

She waved her hand again over the valley. Thompson's eyes gleamed. It
was good to look at, good to think of. It was good to be there. He
remembered, with uncanny, disturbing clearness of vision, things he had
looked down upon from a greater height over bloody stretches in France.
And he shuddered a little.

Sophie felt the small tremor run through him.

"What is it?" she whispered anxiously.

"It is beautiful, and I can appreciate its beauty all the more from
seeing it with you. I'd like to take a hand in this," he said quietly.
"I was just comparing it with other things--and wondering."

"Wondering what?"

"If I'll get back to this--and you," he said, with his arms around her.
"Oh, well, I've got three months' leave. That's a lot."

Sophie looked at him out of troubled eyes. Her voice shook.

"You will be ordered to the front again?"

He nodded. "Very likely."

"I don't want you to go," she broke out passionately. "You mustn't. Oh,
Wes, Wes!"

"Do you think I like the prospect any better?" he said tenderly. "But I
am an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, and the war is not over yet.
Buck up, sweetheart. I had six months' training, a year in fighting
planes, six months in hospital, and barring an occasional spell of
uncertain nerves, I am still as good as ever. Don't worry. I was silly
to say what I thought, I suppose."

"Nevertheless, it is true," she said. "You may go again and never come
back. But I suppose one must face that. Thousands of women have had to
face it. Why should I be exempt?"

She wiped her eyes and smiled uncertainly.

"We shall simply have