ome
along."

"You haven't treated her right, Gordon."

"Know that as well as you. Come on out!"

I followed him downstairs. His car was drawn up against the curb and he
jumped in.

"Want a ride?" he asked.

"No, I think I had better go home now."

"All right. Thanks for coming. I didn't want you to think I had behaved
badly to Frances, for I didn't, and I had to talk to some one. Good by!"

He let in his clutch, quickly, and the machine jerked forward. He turned
into the Park entrance and disappeared, going like a crazy man.

So I returned home, feeling ever so badly for the two of them. I
honestly think and hope that I am of a charitable disposition, but I
could not extend all sympathy and forgiveness to my friend. He had
deliberately gone to work and proposed to a woman he did not truly love,
and she had accepted him. The poor girl probably thinks the world of
him, in her own way, which is probably a true and womanly one. And now,
after he is bound hand and foot by her consent, he goes to work and
lays down his heart at the feet of another.

Honor, manliness, even common decency should have held him back! I
wondered sadly whether the best and truest friend I ever had was now
lost to me, and I could have sat down and wept, had not tears been for
many years foreign to my eyes.

And then the picture of Frances seemed to appear before me, in all its
glory of tint, in all its sweetness and loveliness, and I shook my head
as I thought of the awful weakness of man and of how natural it was
that, before such a vision, no strength of will or determination of
purpose could have prevented the culmination of this tragedy. I am sure
that he resisted until the very last moment, to be at last overwhelmed.
Poor old Gordon!

Her door was closed and there was utter silence when I returned. I tried
to write, but the noise of the machine offended me. For a long time I
stared at the pages of an open book, never turning a leaf over, and,
finally, I sought my bed, more than weary.

At two o'clock, on the next afternoon, I got a wire from Gordon.

"Am taking the _Espagne_. Lots of sport driving an ambulance at
the front. May perhaps write.

"GORDON."

I stared at the yellow sheet, stupidly. After this there was a knock at
the door and the colored servant came in, bringing me a parcel. I opened
it and found some advance copies of the "Land o' Love," which I threw
down on the floor. What did all those silly w