prove it for my country, for Lanny, and for you who have
been so kind to me!" he concluded, another dry sob shaking him.

His chin dropped to his breast. Even the spark in his eyes flickered
out. In the feeble lantern light that deepened the shadows of his face
he was indescribably pitiful. She could not look away from him. There
was something infectious about his misery that compelled her to feel
with his nerves.

"Please," he pleaded faintly--"please leave me to myself. I will tear
out the telephone--trust me--only I wish to be alone. I am uncertain--I
see only dark!"

He sank lower against the wall, his head fell forward, though not so far
but he could see her from under his eyebrows. She started as she had at
the telephone, her breath came in the same sweep between her lips, and
he looked for a passionate refusal; but it did not come. She seemed in
some spell of recollection or projection of thought. A lustrous veil was
over her eyes. She was not looking at him or at anything in the range of
her vision. She shuddered and abruptly seized her left wrist with her
right hand, as Lanstron had in the arbor, which had brought her cry of
"I'm hurting you!" In this inscrutable attitude she was silent for a
time.

"Let it remain--it means so much to you!" she said wildly, and hurried
past him still clasping her wrist.

He stared into the darkness that closed around her. With the last sound
of her footsteps he became another Gustave Feller, who, all mercurial
vivacity, clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth with a "La,
la, la!" as his hand shot out for the receiver. There it paused, and
still another idea animated still another Gustave Feller.

"Why not tear out the telephone--why not?" he mused. "Why didn't I agree
to her plan? Why can't I ever carry more than one thing in mind at once?
I forgot that we were at war. I forget that I am already at the front. I
have skill! God knows, I ought to have courage! Volunteers who have both
are always welcome in war. Any number of gunners will be killed! When an
artillery colonel saw what I could do he would take me on without
further questioning. Then I should not be a spy, shuffling and whining,
but bang-bang-bang on the target!"

In imagination he now had a gun. His hand made a movement of
manipulation, head bent, eye sighting.

"How do you like that? You will like this one less! And here's
another--but, no, no!" He dropped against the wall again; he drove his
nai