world-foe. In a way he was
going to fight for her. To make the world a safe place for girls such as
she! All the terrible stories of Belgium flashed across her mind, and she
was lifted on a great wave of gratitude to this boy friend of her babyhood
for going out to defend her!

All the rest of the straggling line of draft men were going out for the
same purpose perhaps, but it did not occur to her that they were anything
to her until she saw John Cameron. All those friends of her own world who
were training for officers, they, too, were going to fight in the same
way to defend the world, but she had not thought of it in that way
before. It took a sight of John Cameron's high bearing and serious face
to bring the knowledge to her mind.

She thought no longer of trying to get away. She seemed held to the spot
by a new insight into life. She could not take her eyes from the face of
the young man. She forgot that she was staying, forgot that she was
staring. She could no more control the swelling thoughts of horror that
surged over her and took possession of her than she could have controlled
a mob if it had suddenly swept down upon her.

The gates presently lifted silently to let the little procession pass
over to her side of the tracks, and within a few short minutes the
special train that was to bear the men away to camp came rattling up,
laden with other victims of the chance that sent some men on ahead to be
pioneers in the camps.

These were a noisy jolly bunch. Perhaps, having had their own sad
partings they were only trying to brace themselves against the scenes of
other partings through which they must pass all the way along the line.
They must be reminded of their own mothers and sisters and sweethearts.
Something of this Ruth Macdonald seemed to define to herself as, startled
and annoyed by the clamor of the strangers in the midst of the sacredness
of the moment, she turned to look at the crowding heads in the car
windows and caught the eye of an irrepressible youth:

"Think of me over there!" he shouted, waving a flippant hand and
twinkling his eyes at the beautiful girl in her car.

Another time Ruth would have resented such familiarity, but now something
touched her spirit with an inexpressible pity, and she let a tiny ripple
of a smile pass over her lovely face as her eyes traveled on down the
platform in search of the tall form of John Cameron. In the moment of the
oncoming train she had somehow lost s