n the way here, and military training
will be begun at once for all who are physically eligible and of
acceptable age. A special course will be given in preparation for
flying, and those who wish to become aviators may enroll themselves for
the course at once.

"I speak to you in a crisis of the university's life, as well as that of
the nation, and the warning I utter has been made necessary by what took
place yesterday and to-day. Yesterday morning, a student in the junior
class enlisted as a private in the United States Regular Army. Far be it
from me to deplore his course in so doing; he spoke to me about it, and
in such a way that I felt I had no right to dissuade him. I told him
that it would be preferable for college men to wait until they could
go as officers, and, aside from the fact of a greater prestige, I urged
that men of education could perhaps be more useful in that capacity. He
replied that if he were useful enough as a private a commission might in
time come his way, and, as I say, I did not feel at liberty to attempt
dissuasion. He left to join a regiment to which he had been assigned,
and many of you were at the station to bid him farewell.

"But enthusiasm may be too contagious; even a great and inspiring motive
may work for harm, and the university must not become a desert. In the
twenty-four hours since that young man went to join the army last night,
one hundred and eleven of our young men students have left our walls;
eighty-four of them went off together at three o'clock to catch an
east-bound train at the junction and enlist for the Navy at Newport. We
are, I say, in danger of a stampede."

He spoke on, but Dora was not listening; she had become obsessed by the
idea which seemed to be carrying her to the border of tragedy. When the
crowd poured forth from the building she went with it mechanically, and
paused in the dark outside. She spoke to a girl whom she did not know.

"I beg your pardon--"

"Yes?"

"I wanted to ask: Do you know who was the student Doctor Corvis spoke
of? I mean the one that was the first to enlist, and that they were
cheering last night when he went away to be a private in the United
States Army. Did you happen to hear his name?"

"Yes, he was a junior."

"Who was it?"

"Ramsey Milholland."

Chapter XX

Fred Mitchell, crossing the campus one morning, ten days later, saw Dora
standing near the entrance of her dormitory, where he would pass her
unless h