tell them I haven't until this is over," said Clay. "Now,
ride hard, gentlemen, and bring your men here as quickly as possible."

The lieutenants thanked him effusively and galloped away, radiant at
the success of their mission, and Clay entered the office where
MacWilliams was telegraphing his orders to Kirkland. He seated himself
beside the instrument, and from time to time answered the questions
Kirkland sent back to him over the wire, and in the intervals of
silence thought of Hope. It was the first time he had gone into action
feeling the touch of a woman's hand upon his sleeve, and he was fearful
lest she might think he had considered her too lightly.

He took a piece of paper from the table and wrote a few lines upon it,
and then rewrote them several times. The message he finally sent to
her was this: "I am sure you understand, and that you would not have
me give up beaten now, when what we do to-day may set us right again.
I know better than any one else in the world can know, what I run the
risk of losing, but you would not have that fear stop me from going on
with what we have been struggling for so long. I cannot come back to
see you before we start, but I know your heart is with me. With great
love, Robert Clay."

He gave the note to his servant, and the answer was brought to him
almost immediately. Hope had not rewritten her message: "I love you
because you are the sort of man you are, and had you given up as father
wished you to do, or on my account, you would have been some one else,
and I would have had to begin over again to learn to love you for some
different reasons. I know that you will come back to me bringing your
sheaves with you. Nothing can happen to you now. Hope."

He had never received a line from her before, and he read and reread
this with a sense of such pride and happiness in his face that
MacWilliams smiled covertly and bent his eyes upon his instrument.
Clay went back into his room and kissed the page of paper gently,
flushing like a boy as he did so, and then folding it carefully, he put
it away beneath his jacket. He glanced about him guiltily, although he
was quite alone, and taking out his watch, pried it open and looked
down into the face of the photograph that had smiled up at him from it
for so many years. He thought how unlike it was to Alice Langham as he
knew her. He judged that it must have been taken when she was very
young, at the age Hope was then, before