seen for years and promptly fell in love with and married pretty Nancy
Hallinger, his cousin Elinor's chum.

The speedy wooing accomplished as well as the recruiting job which was
dispatched equally expeditiously and thoroughly Geoffrey prepared to
return to France to get in some more good work against the Huns while his
wife planned to enter Red Cross service as a nurse for which she had been
in training for some time. Roderick had entered the Australian air
service and was already in Flanders where he had the reputation of being
one of the youngest and most reckless aviators flying which was saying
considerable.

It was imperative that some arrangement be made for Elinor who obviously
could not be left alone in Sydney. It was decided in family conclave that
she should go to America and accept the often proffered hospitality of
her aunt for a time at least. A cable to this effect had been dispatched
to Mrs. Wright which as later appeared never reached that lady as she was
already on her way to England and died there shortly after.

Geoffrey had been exceedingly reluctant to have his young cousin take the
long journey alone though she had laughed at his fears and his wife had
abetted her in her disregard of possible disastrous consequences, telling
him that women no longer required wrapping in tissue paper. The war had
changed all that.

At his insistence however Ruth had finally consented to wear her mother's
wedding ring as a sort of shadowy protection. He had an idea that the
small gold band, being presumptive evidence of an existing male guardian
somewhere in the offing might serve to keep away the ill intentioned or
over bold from his lovely little heiress cousin about whom he worried to
no small degree.

They had gone their separate ways, he to the fierce fighting of May,
nineteen hundred and sixteen, she to her long journey and subsequent
strange adventures. At first no one had thought it unnatural that they
heard nothing from Elinor. Letters went easily astray those days.
Geoffrey was weeks without news even from his wife and poor Roderick
was by this time beyond communication of any kind, his name labeled
with that saddest of all tags--missing. It was not until Geoffrey was
out of commission with that last worst knock out, lying insensible,
more dead than alive in a hospital "somewhere in France" that the
others began to realize that Elinor had vanished utterly from the ken
of all who knew her. Some one wh