den until it
cleared. She typified the mother of the race. In all periods of the
progress of the race, war had brought out this instinct in women--to
give themselves for the future. It was a provision of nature,
inscrutable and terrible. How immeasurable the distance between Mel
Iden and those women who practised birth control! As the war had
brought out hideous greed and baseness, so had it propelled forward
and upward the noblest attributes of life. Mel Iden was a builder, not
a destroyer. She had been sexless and selfless. Unconsciously during
the fever and emotion of the training of American men for service
abroad, and the poignancy of their departure, to fight, and perhaps
never return, Mel Iden had answered to this mysterious instinct of
nature. Then, with the emotion past, and face to face with staggering
consequences, she had reacted to conscious instincts. She had proved
the purity of her surrender. She was all mother. And Lane began to see
her moving in a crystal, beautiful light.

For what seemed a long time Lane remained motionless there in the
silence of the meadow. Then at length he arose and retraced his slow
steps back to town. Darkness overtook him on the bridge that spanned
Middleville River. He leaned over the railing and peered down into the
shadows. A soft murmur of rushing water came up. How like strange
distant voices calling him to go back or go on, or warning him, or
giving mystic portent of something that would happen to him there! A
cold chill crept over him and he seemed enveloped in a sombre menace
of the future. But he shook it off. He had many battles to fight, not
the least of which was with morbid imagination.

When he reached the center of town he entered the lobby of the
Bradford Inn. He hoped to meet Blair Maynard there. A company of
well-dressed youths and men filled the place, most of whom appeared to
be making a merry uproar.

Lane observed two men who evidently were the focus of attention. One
was a stranger, very likely a traveling man, and at the moment he
presented a picture of mingled consternation and anger. He was
brushing off his clothes while glaring at a little, stout, red-faced
man who appeared about to be stricken by apoplexy. This latter was a
Colonel Pepper, whose acquaintance Lane had recently made. He was fond
of cards and sport, and appeared to be a favorite with the young men
about town. Moreover he had made himself particularly agreeable to
Lane, in fact to t