But, if there's anything in the world to save your life, I don't know
what it is."

"Thank you, Doctor. It's--something to know--what to expect," returned
Lane, with a smile.

"You might live a year--and you might not.... You might improve. God
only knows. Miracles _do_ happen. Anyway, come back to see me."

Lane shook hands with him and went out, passing another patient in the
reception room. Then as Lane opened the door and stepped out upon the
porch he almost collided with a girl who evidently had been about to
come in.

"I beg your----" he began, and stopped. He knew this girl, but the
strained tragic shadow of her eyes was strikingly unfamiliar. The
transparent white skin let the blue tracery of veins show. On the
instant her lips trembled and parted.

"Oh, Daren--don't you know me?" she asked.

"Mel Iden!" he burst out. "Know you? I should smile I do. But it--it
was so sudden. And you're older--different somehow. Mel, you're
sweeter--why you're beautiful."

He clasped her hands and held on to them, until he felt her rather
nervously trying to withdraw them.

"Oh, Daren, I'm glad to see you home--alive--whole," she said, almost
in a whisper. "Are you--well?"

"No, Mel. I'm in pretty bad shape," he replied. "Lucky to get home
alive--to see you all."

"I'm sorry. You're so white. You're wonderfully changed, Daren."

"So are you. But I'll say I'm happy it's not painted face and plucked
eyebrows.... Mel, what's happened to you?"

She suddenly espied the decoration on his coat. The blood rose and
stained her clear cheek. With a gesture of exquisite grace and
sensibility that thrilled Lane she touched the medal. "Oh! The _Croix
de Guerre_.... Daren, you were a hero."

"No, Mel, just a soldier."

She looked up into his face with eyes that fascinated Lane, so
beautiful were they--the blue of corn-flowers--and lighted then with
strange rapt glow.

"Just a soldier!" she murmured. But Lane heard in that all the
sweetness and understanding possible for any woman's heart. She amazed
him--held him spellbound. Here was the sympathy--and something
else--a nameless need--for which he yearned. The moment was fraught
with incomprehensible forces. Lane's sore heart responded to her rapt
look, to the sudden strange passion of her pale face. Swiftly he
divined that Mel Iden gloried in the presence of a maimed and proven
soldier.

"Mel, I'll come to see you," he said, breaking the spell. "Do you
still live out on