riting. She'll
understand a little if I say that I thought the way to minimize it was
to make war on the largest possible scale at once--that I felt I must
have been helping on the war somehow if I hadn't helped keep it from
coming, and I knew I hadn't; when it came, I had no right to stay out of
it."

Whether his sophistries satisfied him or not, they satisfied her. She
clung to his breast, and whispered, with closed eyes and quivering lips,
"Yes, yes, yes!"

"But if anything should happen, you might go to her, and see what you
could do for her. You know? It's rather far off; she can't leave her
chair--"

"Oh, I'll go, if it's the ends of the earth! But nothing will happen!
Nothing _can_! I--"

She felt herself lifted with his rising, and Gearson was saying, with
his arm still round her, to her father: "Well, we're off at once, Mr.
Balcom. We're to be formally accepted at the capital, and then bunched
up with the rest somehow; and sent into camp somewhere, and got to the
front as soon as possible. We all want to be in the van, of course;
we're the first company to report to the Governor. I came to tell
Editha, but I hadn't got round to it."

* * * * *

She saw him again for a moment at the capital, in the station, just
before the train started southward with his regiment. He looked well, in
his uniform, and very soldierly, but somehow girlish, too, with his
clean-shaven face and slim figure. The manly eyes and the strong voice
satisfied her, and his preoccupation with some unexpected details of
duty flattered her. Other girls were weeping, but she felt a sort of
noble distinction in the abstraction with which they parted. Only at the
last moment he said, "Don't forget my mother. It mayn't be such a
walk-over as I supposed," and he laughed at the notion.

He waved his hand to her, as the train moved off--she knew it among a
score of hands that were waved to other girls from the platform of the
car, for it held a letter which she knew was hers. Then he went inside
the car to read it, doubtless, and she did not see him again. But she
felt safe for him through the strength of what she called her love. What
she called her God, always speaking the name in a deep voice and with
the implication of a mutual understanding, would watch over him and keep
him and bring him back to her. If with an empty sleeve, then he should
have three arms instead of two, for both of hers should be his for l