e's garbled face.

"Sure it's dark!" said he.

"Can't see your hand before your face!"

Spike was holding up a hand, thumb and fingers widely spread, moving it
before his sightless eyes.

"You got to go back. You're too fat to be up here."

He rested his hand on Spike's forehead but withdrew it quickly when
Spike winced.

He went on with the war; and the war went on.

* * * * *

"You would never guess," wrote Winona, "who was brought to this base
hospital last week. It was the Mr. Brennon I wrote you of, Mr. Edward
Brennon, the friend of Wilbur's who went with him from Newbern. He is
blind from gas, poor thing! Our head surgeon knew him. It seems he is
one of the prettiest lightweights the head surgeon ever saw in action, a
two-handed fighter with a good right and a good left. These are terms
used in the sport of boxing.

"Of course he knows he is blind, but at first he thought he was
only in the dark. Wilbur had told him of me. The most curious
misunderstanding--he is positive he once saw me at home. Says I am the
prettiest thing he ever looked at, and don't I remember coming into the
post office one day in a white dress and white shoes and a blue parasol
and getting some mail and going out to a motor where some people waited
for me? The foolish thing insists I have blue eyes and light brown hair
and I was smiling when I looked at him in passing; not smiling at him,
of course, but from something the people in the car had said; and I had
one glove off and carried the other with the blue sunshade. And I think
he means a girl from Rochester that visited the Hendricks, those mill
people, summer before last. She was pretty enough, in a girlish way, but
not at all my type. But I can't convince Edward it was not I he saw. I
have given up trying. What harm in letting him think so? He says,
anyway, he would know I am beautiful, because he can feel it even if I
come into the room. Did you ever hear such talk? But I am looking a lot
better, in spite of all I have been through.

"I had a week in Paris last month, and bought some clothes, a real Paris
dress and things." You would not know me in the new outfit. The skirt is
of rather a daring shortness, but such is the mode now, and I am told it
becomes me. Poor Edward, he is so patient, except for spells when he
seems to go mad with realizing his plight. He is still a man. His
expression is forceful. He doesn't smoke, and warns me against