do hope," said her father. "Lenore, when I was
down East, I seen what women were doin'. The bad women are good an' the
good women are great. I think women have more to do with war then men,
even if they do stay home. It must be because women are mothers....
Lenore, you've bucked me up. I'll go at things now. The need for wheat
next year will be beyond calculation. I'll buy ten thousand acres of
that wheatland round old Chris Dorn's farm. An' my shot at the Germans
will be wheat. I'll raise a million bushels!"

* * * * *

Next morning in the mail was a long, thick envelope addressed to Lenore
in handwriting that shook her heart and made her fly to the seclusion of
her room.

New York City, _November_ --.

DEAREST,--when you receive this I will be in France.

Then Lenore sustained a strange shock. The beloved handwriting faded,
the thick sheets of paper fell; and all about her seemed dark and
whirling, as the sudden joy and excitement stirred by the letter changed
to sickening pain.

"_France!_ He's in France?" she whispered. "Oh, Kurt!" A storm of love
and terror burst over her. It had the onset and the advantage of a
bewildering surprise. It laid low, for the moment, her fortifications of
sacrifice, strength, and resolve. She had been forced into womanhood,
and her fear, her agony, were all the keener for the intelligence and
spirit that had repudiated selfish love. Kurt Dorn was in France in the
land of the trenches! Strife possessed her and had a moment of raw,
bitter triumph. She bit her lips and clenched her fists, to restrain the
impulse to rush madly around the room, to scream out her fear and hate.
With forcing her thought, with hard return to old well-learned
arguments, there came back the nobler emotions. But when she took up the
letter again, with trembling hands, her heart fluttered high and sick,
and she saw the words through blurred eyes.

...I'll give the letter to an ensign, who has promised to mail it
the moment he gets back to New York.

Lenore, your letter telling me about Jim was held up in the mail.
But thank goodness, I got it in time. I'd already been transferred,
and expected orders any day to go on board the transport, where I am
writing now. I'd have written you, or at least telegraphed you,
yesterday, after seeing Jim, if I had not expected to see him again
to-day. But this morning we were marched on board and I can