unusual, you know. Americans
always fall in love at first sight."

He was unanswerable. He was sublime. She marvelled that she could have
ever even attempted to resist him.

With a sudden, tremulous laugh, she caught his hand to her, holding it
fast.

"Not Americans only!" she said. And swiftly, passionately, she bent and
pressed her lips to the red, seared scar upon her hero's wrist.

* * * * *

The Example

"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was
given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great
heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these
plagues; and they repented not to give Him glory."

The droning voice quivered and fell silent. Within the hospital tent,
only the buzz of flies innumerable was audible. Without, there sounded
near at hand the squeak of a sentry's boots, and in the distance the
clatter of the camp.

The man who lay dying was in a remote and quite detached sense aware of
these things, but his fevered imagination had carried him beyond. He
watched, as it were, the glowing pictures that came and went in his
furnace of pain. These little details were to him but the distant
humming of the spinning-wheel of time from which he was drawing ever
farther and farther away. They did not touch that inner consciousness
with which he saw his visions.

Now and then he turned his head sharply on the pillow, as an alien might
turn at the sound of a familiar voice, but always, after listening
intently, it came back to its old position, and the man's restless eyes
returned to the crack high up in the tent canvas through which the sun
shone upon him like a piercing eye.

The occupant of the bed next to him watched him furtively, fascinated
but uneasy. He was a young soldier of the simple country type, and the
wild words that came now and again from the fevered lips startled him
uncomfortably. He wished the dying man would cease his mutterings and
let him sleep. But every time the prolonged silence seemed to indicate a
final cessation of the nuisance, the droning voice took up the tale once
more.

"And men were scorched with great heat--and they repented not--repented
not."

A soft-stepping native orderly moved to the bedside and paused.
Instantly the wandering words were hushed.

"Bring me some water, Sammy," the same voice said huskily. "If you can't