hts when the blithe spirit seemed flitting away
from its fragile tenement, and November was half gone before the crisis
was so far past that recovery could be pronounced only a question of
time. Oh, the strain of those long, long, sleepless days of watching,
waiting, hoping, praying, yet days wherein the watchers could nurse and
help and _act_. Oh, the blackness, the misery of the nights of watching,
waiting in helplessness, well-nigh in despair, for the coming of the
next "cable!" the consciousness of utter impotence to help or to do! the
realization that a priceless life is ebbing away, while they who gave
it--they to whom it is so infinitely precious--are at the very opposite
ends of the earth! Oh, the tremulous opening of those fateful messages,
the breathless reading of the cipher, the awful suspense of the search
through Cable Code pages that dance and swim before the straining eyes!
Oh, the meek acceptance of still further suspense! the almost piteous
thankfulness that all is not yet lost, that hope is not yet abandoned!
Strong men break down and add years to those they have lived. Gentle
women sway and totter at last until relief comes to them through
God-given tears.

In a fever-stricken camp in Southern swamplands a father waked night
after night, walking the hospitals where his brave lads lay moaning,
seeing in their burning misery, hearing in their last sigh, the
sufferings of a beloved child. By the bedside of her youngest, her baby
boy as she would ever call the lad, who lay there in delirium, knelt a
mother who, as she nursed and soothed this one, prayed without ceasing
for that other, that beloved daughter for whom the Death Angel crouched
and waited under the tropic skies of the far Philippines. Ah, there were
suffering and distress attendant on that strange, eventful epoch in the
nation's history that even the press said nothing about, and that those
who knew it speak of only in deep solemnity and awe to-day. It was
mid-November before they dared to hope. It was December when once again
Maid Marion was lifted to her lounging-chair overlooking the Bagumbayan,
and little by little began picking up once more the threads that were so
nearly severed for all time, and as health and strength slowly returned,
hearing the tidings of the busy, bustling world about her.

Others too had known anxiety as sore as that which had so lined the face
of Colonel Ray and trebled the silver in the soft hair of Marion, his