that I must talk. What I have to say
is indeed most difficult, and it is to Jeremy's Janie that I would
say it. May I, then?"

It had seemed to Jeremy's Janie that the voice in which she answered
him came from a great distance, but she never took her eyes from the
grave and vivid face.

"Yes. And quickly, please."

So he had told her--quickly--in his exquisitely careful English, and
she had listened as attentively and politely, huddled up on the
brick steps in the sunlight, as though he were running over the
details of the last drive, instead of tearing her life to pieces
with every word. She remembered now that it hadn't seemed real at
all--if it had been to Jerry that these horrors had happened could
she have sat there so quietly, feeling the colour bright in her
cheeks, and the wind stirring in her hair, and the sunlight warm on
her hands? Why, for less than this people screamed, and fainted, and
went raving mad!

"You say--that his back is broken?"

"But yes, my dear," Liane's Philippe had told her, and she had seen
the tears shining in his gray eyes.

"And he is badly burned?"

"My brave Janie, these questions are not good to ask--not good, not
good to answer. This I will tell you. He lives, our Jerry--and so
dearly does he love you that he will drag back that poor body from
hell itself--because it is yours, not his. This he has sent me to
tell you, most lucky lady ever loved."

"You mean--that he isn't going to die?"

"I tell you that into those small hands of yours he has given his
life. Hold it fast."

"Will he--will he get well?" "He will not walk again; but have you
not swift feet to run for him?"

And there had come to her, sitting on the terrace in the sunshine,
an overwhelming flood of joy, reckless and cruel and triumphant. Now
he was hers forever, the restless wanderer--delivered to her bound
and helpless, never to stray again. Hers to worship and serve and
slave for, his troth to Freedom broken--hers at last!

"I'm coming," she had told the tall young Frenchman breathlessly.
"Take me to him--please let's hurry."

"_Ma pauvre petite_, this is war. One does not come and go at will.
God knows by what miracle enough red tape unwound to let me through
to you, to bring my message and to take one back."

"What message, Philippe?"

"That is for you to say, little Janie. He told me, 'Say to her that
she has my heart--if she needs my body, I will live. Say to her that
it is an ugly, broken,