hard. The ship doctor stopped me the other day--studied
my face. Then he said: "You're too intense. You think too hard....
Are you afraid?" And I laughed in his face. "Absolutely no!" I told
him. "Then forget--and mix with the boys. Play--cut up--fight--do
anything but _think!_" That doctor is a good chap, but he doesn't
figure Kurt Dorn if he imagines the Germans can kill me by making me
think.

We're nearing France now, and the very air is charged. An aeroplane
came out to meet us--welcome us, I guess, and it flew low. The
soldiers went wild. I never had such a thrill. That air game would
just suit me, if I were fitted for it. But I'm no mechanic. Besides,
I'm too big and heavy. My place will be in the front line with a
bayonet. Strange how a bayonet fascinates me!

They say we can't write home anything about the war. I'll write you
something, whenever I can. Don't be unhappy if you do not hear
often--or if my letters cease to come. My heart and my mind are full
of you. Whatever comes to me--the training over here--the going to
the trenches--the fighting--I shall be safe if only I can remember
you.

With love,

Kurt.

Lenore carried that letter in her bosom when she went out to walk in the
fields, to go over the old ground she and Kurt had trod hand in hand.
From the stone seat above the brook she watched the sunset. All was
still except the murmur of the running water, and somehow she could not
long bear that. As the light began to shade on the slopes, she faced
them, feeling, as always, a strength come to her from their familiar
lines. Twilight found her high above the ranch, and absolutely alone.
She would have this lonely hour, and then, all her mind and energy must
go to what she knew was imperative duty. She would work to the limit of
her endurance.

It was an autumn twilight, with a cool wind, gray sky, and sad, barren
slopes. The fertile valley seemed half obscured in melancholy haze, and
over toward the dim hills beyond night had already fallen. No stars, no
moon, no afterglow of sunset illumined the grayness that in this hour
seemed prophetic of Lenore's future.

"'Safe!' he said. 'I shall be safe if only I can remember you,'" she
whispered to herself, wonderingly. "What did he mean?"

Pondering the thought, she divined it had to do with Dorn's singular
spiritual mood. He had gone to lend his body as so much physical br