ick's censorious eye would see and condemn the
"dear." "It is going to be hard for both of us. But I am sure you will
feel as I do that I COULDN'T do anything else. I am young and strong and
fit and I am an American. I MUST go. You see it, don't you, Madeline. I
can hardly wait until your letter comes telling me that you feel I did
just the thing you would wish me to do."

He hesitated and then, even more regardless of the censor, added the
quotation which countless young lovers were finding so apt just then:

"I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more."

So when, fresh from the intimacy of this communication with his adored
and with the letter in his hand, he entered the sitting-room at that
early hour he was not overjoyed to find the housekeeper there ahead
of him. And her first sentence showed that she had been awaiting his
coming.

"Good mornin', Albert," she said. "I heard you stirrin' 'round up in
your room and I came down here so's you and I could talk together for a
minute without anybody's disturbin' us. . . . Humph! I guess likely you
didn't sleep any too well last night, did you?"

Albert shook his head. "Not too well, Rachel," he replied.

"I shouldn't wonder. Well, I doubt if there was too much sleep anywheres
in this house last night. So you're really goin' to war, are you,
Albert?"

"Yes. If the war will let me I certainly am."

"Dear, dear! . . . Well, I--I think it's what Robert Penfold would have
done if he was in your place. I've been goin' over it and goin' over it
half the night, myself, and I've come to that conclusion. It's goin' to
be awful hard on your grandma and grandfather and me and Labe, all us
folks here at home, but I guess it's the thing you'd ought to do, the
Penfold kind of thing."

Albert smiled. "I'm glad you think so, Rachel," he said.

"Well, I do, and if I'm goin' to tell the truth I might as well say I
tried terrible hard to find some good reasons for thinkin' 'twan't. I
did SO! But the only good reasons I could scare up for makin' you stay
to home was because home was safe and comf'table and where you was goin'
wan't. And that kind of reasonin' might do fust-rate for a passel
of clams out on the flats, but it wouldn't be much credit to decent,
self-respectin' humans. When General Rolleson came to that island and
found his daughter and Robert Penfold livin' there in that house made
out of pearls he'd built for her--Wan't that him al