a part of my life, and now they have been
completely withdrawn and who knows if I shall ever see any of them
again? They hardly seem real to me."

"Yes, strange, perhaps, but it happens many times in the course of a
life." He paused, then added hurriedly, "I suppose that in a few months
you will be saying the same thing about me--'I used to see him every
day, he was a part of my life, but now he is only in the background of
my memory, and doesn't seem real.'"

There was a note almost of bitterness in Donald's voice; but Rose was
too stunned by his words to notice or attempt to analyze the manner of
their utterance.

"Donald, what ... what do you mean? You're not ..." She gasped, and laid
her hand with an impulsive clutch on his arm.

"Look out! Don't interfere with the motorman," he laughed more
naturally, as the car swerved almost into the curbing. "Yes, I am. I'm
going away ... almost immediately."

"Away? Where?"

"To France."

"Oh, Don, you mustn't; you can't. You're needed here so much."

"They need me over there more, little Smiles. I've realized it, and felt
the pull, for days; but it didn't become insistent until yesterday, when
I received a letter from a chap whom I have known for years. He's always
had a good deal more money than was good for him, and been a sort of
social butterfly. I liked him, although I didn't believe that he had a
serious thought in his head, didn't think that he was capable of one,
but ... here, read what he has written me," he concluded abruptly, as a
temporary block forced their car to a stop beneath an electric light on
Massachusetts Avenue. "The first page doesn't matter; it merely contains
a description of how he happened to be caught in Paris by the outbreak
of the war, and got mixed up in volunteer rescue work through a spirit
of adventure."

Rose turned to the second sheet and, holding the pages close to the
glass in the door, through which came enough snow-filtered light to
illumine them, read.

"I am beginning to understand, now, something of what you meant
when you used to talk so enthusiastically about your confining,
and, as it seemed to me, often thankless work. I never knew what
real satisfaction was until I began to get mixed up with this
volunteer Red Cross work. Coming from the source that it does, you
will probably be surprised and amused at the statement that, when I
look back on the old, superficial, utterly useless li