n Drusilla's voice. A note of tears as well as
of triumph--and at the last word she broke down and covered her face
with her hands.

In the sudden stillness, the Captain strode across the room and took
her hands away from her face.

"Drusilla," he said before them all, "do you care as much as that?"

She told him the truth in her fine, frank fashion.

"Yes," she said, "I do care, Captain, but I want you to go."

"And oh, Derry, I am so glad she cried," Jean said, when they were
driving home through the snow-storm. "It made her seem so--human."

Derry drew her close. "Such a thing couldn't have happened," he said,
"at any other time. Do you suppose that a few years ago any of us
would have been keyed up to a point where a self-contained Englishman
could have asked a girl, in the face of three other people, if she
loved him, and have had her answer like that? It was beautiful,
beautiful, Jean-Joan--"

She held her breath. "Why do you call me that?"

"She lived for France. You shall live for France--and me."

The snow shut them in. There was the warmth of the car, of the fur
rugs and Derry's fur coat, Jean's own velvet wrap of heavenly blue, the
fragrance of her violets. Somewhere far away men were fighting--there
was the mud and cold of the trenches--somewhere men were suffering.

She tried not to think of them. Her cheek was against Derry's. She
was safe--safe.

* * * * * *

Captain Hewes went away that night Drusilla's accepted lover. He put a
ring on her finger and kissed her "good-bye," and with his head high
faced the months that he must be separated from her.

"I will come back, dear woman."

"I shall see you before that," she told him. "I am coming over."

"I shall hate to have you in it all. But it will be Heaven to see you."

When he had gone, Drusilla went into Marion Gray's study.

Marion looked up from her work. She was correcting manuscript, pages
and pages of it. "Well, do you want me to congratulate you, Drusilla?"

Drusilla sat down. "I don't know, Marion. He is the biggest and
finest man I have ever met, but--"

"But what?"

"I wanted love to come to me differently, as it has come to Jean and
Derry--without any doubts. I wanted to be sure. And I am not sure. I
only know that I couldn't let him go without making him happy."

"Then is it--pity?"

"No. He means more to me than that. But I gave way to an impulse--the
music, and h