"You dear old thing!" cried Anne impulsively.

"How are Lutie and my god-son?" he inquired, with a fine air of
solicitude.

Half an hour later, Anne read the brief note that Braden had sent to her.
She read it over and over again, and without the exultation she had
anticipated. Her heart was too full for exultation.

"Dear Anne," it began, "I am going to the war. I am going because I am a
coward. The world will call me brave and self-sacrificing, but it will not
be true. I am a coward. The peril I am running away from is far greater
than that which awaits me over there. I thought you would like to know.
The suffering of others may cause me to forget my own at times." He signed
it "Braden"; and below the signature there was a postscript that puzzled
her for a long time. "If you are not also a coward you will return to my
grandfather's house, where you belong."

And when she had solved the meaning of that singular postscript she sent
for Wade.

CHAPTER XXVI

Anne Thorpe had set her heart on an eventuality. She could see nothing
else, think of nothing else. She prayed each night to God,--and
devoutly,--not alone for the safe return of her lover, but that God would
send him home soon! She was conscious of no fear that he might never
return at all.

To the surprise of every one, with the approach of spring, she announced
her determination to re-open the old Thorpe residence and take up her
abode therein. George was the only one who opposed her. He was seriously
upset by the news.

"Good heaven, Anne, you don't _have_ to live in the house, so why do it?
It's like a tomb. I get the shivers every time I think about it. You can
afford to live anywhere you like. It isn't as if you were obliged to think
of expenses--"

"It seems rather silly _not_ to live in it," she countered. "I will admit
that at first I couldn't endure the thought of it, but that was when all
of the horrors were fresh in my mind. Besides, I resented his leaving it
to me. It was not in the bargain, you know. There was something high-
handed, too, in the way I was _ordered_ to live in the house. I had the
uncanny feeling that he was trying to keep me where he could watch--but, of
course, that was nonsense. There is no reason why I shouldn't live in the
house, Georgie. It is--"

"There is a blamed good reason why you should never have lived in it," he
blurted out. "There's no use digging it up, however, so we'll let it stay
buried." He argu