She watched the light of his car diminish until it vanished over the
crest of the hill. A gathering sense of loneliness began to assail her,
but with it was a feeling of freedom and purpose--the feeling that she
was being left alone, clear of distraction, to fight her own fight and
achieve her own destiny.

Archey Forbes was the next to go. His going marked a curious incident.

He had applied for a commission in the engineers, and his record and
training being good, it wasn't long before he received the beckoning
summons of Mars.

Upon the morning of the day when he was to leave New Bethel, he went to
the factory to say good-bye. The one he wished to see the most, however,
was the first one he missed.

"Miss Mary's around the factory somewhere," said a stenographer.

Another spoke up, a dark girl with a touch of passion in her smile. "I
think Mr. Burdon is looking for her, too."

Archey missed neither the smile nor the tone--and liked neither of them.

"He'll get in trouble yet," he thought, "going out with those girls," and
his frown grew as he thought of Burdon's daily contact with Mary.

"I'll see if I can find her," he told himself after he had waited a few
minutes; and stepping out into the full beauty of the June morning, he
crossed the lawn toward the factory buildings.

On one of the trees a robin sang and watched him with its head atilt. A
bee hummed past him and settled on a trellis of roses. In the distance
murmured the falls, with their soothing, drowsy note.

"These are the days, when I was a boy, that I used to dream of running
away and seeing the world and having great adventures," thought Archey,
his frown forgotten. He didn't consciously put it into words, but deep
from his mind arose a feeling of the coming true of great dreams--of
running away from the humdrum of life, of seeing the world, of taking a
part in the greatest adventure ever staged by man.

"What a day!" he breathed, lifting his face to the sun. "Oh, Lord, what a
day!"

It was indeed a day--one of those days which seem to have wine in the
air--one of those days when old ambitions revive and new ones flower into
splendour. Mary, for instance, on her way to the machine shop, was busy
with thoughts of a nursery where mothers could bring their children who
were too young to go to school.

"Plenty of sun," she thought, "and rompers for them all, and sand piles,
and toys, and certified milk, and trained nurses--" And while she dr