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New York, and she steadfastly declined to serve on any of the relief committees. Never until now had she appreciated how thin-skinned she was. It is not to be inferred that she shut herself up and affected a life of seclusion. As a matter of fact, she went out a great deal, but invariably among friends and to small, intimate affairs. Not once in the months that followed the scene in Lutie's sitting-room did she encounter Braden Thorpe. She heard of him frequently. He was very busy. He went nowhere except where duty called. There was not a moment in her days, however, when her thoughts were not for him. Her eyes were always searching the throngs on Fifth Avenue in quest of his figure; in restaurants she looked eagerly over the crowded tables in the hope that she might see actually the face that was always before her, night and day. Be it said to her credit, she resolutely abstained from carrying her quest into quarters where she might be certain of seeing him, of meeting him, of receiving recognition from him. She avoided the neighbourhood in which his offices were located, she shunned the streets which he would most certainly traverse. While she longed for him, craved him with all the hunger of a starved soul, she was content to wait. He loved her. She thrived on the joy of knowing this to be true. He might never come to her, but she knew that it would never be possible for her to go to him unless he called her to him. Then, one day in early January, she crumpled up under the shock of seeing his name in the headlines of her morning newspaper. He was going to the front! For a moment she was blind. The page resolved itself into a thick mass of black. She was in bed when the paper was brought to her with her coffee. She had been lying there sweetly thinking of him. Up to the instant her eyes fell upon the desolating headline she had been warm and snug and tingling with life just aroused. And then she was as cold as ice, stupefied. It was a long time before she was able to convince herself that the type was really telling her something that she would have to believe. He was going to the war! Thorpe was one of a half-dozen American surgeons who were going over on the steamer sailing that day to give their services to the French. The newspaper spoke of him in glowing terms. His name stood out above all the others, for he was the one most notably in the public eye at the moment. The others, just as brave and self-s
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