ane panic. He was in
love--for the first time in life foolishly and madly in love. Fighting
and elbowing his way through that throng of desperate terror-stricken
men and horses it had come to him in a flash that life was sweet and
precious because Betty Winter was in it. The more he thought of it the
more desperate became his determination not to be killed until he could
see and tell her. Through every moment of his wild scramble through
woods and fields and crowded road, up that tree and down again, his
heart was beating her name:

"_Betty--Betty--Betty!_"

What a blind fool he had been not to see it before! She, too, had been
blind. It was all clear now--this mysterious power that had called them
from the first, neither of them knowing or understanding.

When Betty took his note from the maid's hand her eyes could see nothing
for a moment. She turned away that Peggy should not catch her white
face. She knew instinctively the message was from John Vaughan. It may
have been written with his last breath and sent by a friend. She broke
the seal with slow, nervous dread, looked quickly, and laughed aloud
when she had read, a joyous, half hysterical little laugh.

"The man's waiting for an answer, Miss," the maid said.

Betty looked at her stupidly, and blushed:

"Why, of course, Peggy, in a moment tell him."

She wrote half a page in feverish haste, telling him how happy she was
to know that he had safely returned, read it over twice, flushed with
anger at her silly confusion and tore it into tiny bits. She tried
again, but afraid to trust herself, spread John's note out and used it
for a model,

"MY DEAR MR. VAUGHAN:

"Certainly, as soon as you can call.

"BETTY WINTER."

And then she sat down by her window and listened to the splash of the
rain against the glass, counting the minutes until he should ring her
door bell.

And when at last he came, she had to stand before her clock and count
the seconds off for five minutes lest she should disgrace herself by
rushing down stairs.

Their hands met in a moment of awkward silence. The play of mind on mind
had set each heart pounding. The man of easy speech found for the first
time that words were difficult.

"You've heard the black news, of course," he stammered.

"Yes----"

Her eyes caught the haggard drawn look of his face with a start.

"You saw it all?" she asked.

"I saw so much that I can never hope to forge