on gradually something of the
supernatural--her tall, straight slenderness, her steady eyes, her halo
of red hair grew to have a sort of sacred significance, like that of
some militant young saint.

Then came a day when Derry's regiment marched through the town to the
trenches, spent an interval, and came back, awed by what it had seen,
but undaunted.

Drusilla, sitting on the doorstep of the stone house, saw a tall figure
striding down the street. He stopped to speak to an old woman and
doffed his hat, showing a clipped silver-blond head.

Drusilla went flying through the dusk. "Derry, Derry!"

He stared and stared again. "Is it you?" he asked. Nothing was vivid
now about Drusilla except her hair.

"Yes."

He took her hands in his. "My dear girl." It was hard for either of
them to speak.

"Did Bruce McKenzie tell you that my Captain has--gone West?"

"I had a letter. I haven't seen him. His hospital isn't far from
here, I understand."

"Just outside. He--he has been a great help--to me, Derry."

She took him back to her doorstep and they sat down.

"Tell me about Jean."

He tried to tell her, wavered a little and spoke the truth. "The
hardest thing was leaving her. I don't mind the fighting. I don't
mind anything but the fact that she's over there and I'm over here.
But it had to be--of course."

"Yes, everything had to be, Derry. I am believing that more and more.
When my Captain went--I found how much I cared. I hadn't always been
sure. But I am sure now, and I am sure, too, that he knows--"

"Love--in these times, Derry--isn't building a nest--and singing songs
in the tree tops on a May morning; it goes beyond just the man and the
woman; it even goes beyond the child. It goes as far as the future of
mankind. What the future of the world will be depends not so much on
how much you love Jean or she loves you, or on how much I loved and was
loved, but on how much that love will mean to the world. If we can't
give up our own for the sake of the world's ideal then love hasn't
meant what it should to you and to me, Derry--"

She rose as a group of men approached. "They want me to sing for them.
You won't mind?"

"My dear girl, I have heard of you everywhere. I believe that some of
the fellows say their prayers to you at night--"

She stood up and sang. Her hair caught the light from the room back of
her. She gave them a popular air or two, a hymn, "The Marseillaise--"

He miss