its quota
of wounded, and down below the busy surgeons had transformed the parlor
into an operating room. In spite of my closed door I could overhear
occasionally a cry of pain.

Yet I was only conscious of wanting one presence--Billie. I could not
understand where she had gone, why she had left me. She had been there,
over in the far corner, her face hidden in her hands, when the surgeon
probed my wounds. She had been beside me when he went out, her soft
hand brushing back my hair. I remembered looking up at her, and seeing
tears in the gray-blue eyes. Then some one had come to the door, and,
after speaking, she came back to me, kissed me, said something softly,
and went out, leaving me alone. I could not recall what it was she said.
That must have been an hour, maybe two hours, ago, for it was already
growing dusk. I do not know whether I thought or dreamed, but I seemed
to live over again all the events of the past few days. Every incident
came before me in vividness of coloring, causing my nerves to throb. I
was riding with Billie through the early morning, and seeing her face
for the first time with the sunlight reflected in her smiling eyes; I
was facing Grant, receiving orders; I was struggling with Le Gaire, his
olive face vindictive and cruel; I was with Billie again, hearing her
voice, tantalized by her coquetry; then I was searching for Le Gaire's
murderer, and in the fight, slashing madly at the faces fronting me. It
must have been delirium, the wild fantasy of fever, for it was all so
real, leaving me staring about half crazed, every nerve throbbing. Then
I sank back dazed and tired, sobbing from the reaction, all life
apparently departed from the brain. I could not realize where I was, or
how I got there, and a memory of mother came gliding in to take
Billie's place. I was in the old room at home, the old room with the oak
tree before the window, and father's picture upon the wall at the foot
of the bed. I thought it was mother when she came in, and it was the
touch of mother's hand that fell so soft and tender upon my temple,
soothing the hot pain. Gradually the mists seemed to drift away, and I
saw the gray-blue eyes, and Billie.

She was kneeling there beside me clasping one of my hands, and she
looked so happy, the old, girlish smile upon her lips.

"You have been away so long," I began petulantly, but she interrupted,

"No, dear, scarcely fifteen minutes, and I have had such good news. I
hurried