aging, all the soldiers who suffered, and the
parents who gave up their only-begotten sons to save their countries
from extermination--all of them were the victims of circumstance. They
were all heroes answering to the call which demanded of them life's
highest sacrifice. They were victims of militarism, which must be
wiped out of civilization.

Michael became agonized with the hopelessness of answering the
questions which stormed his brain. Over and over again he said to
himself the words, "Why do the heathen so furiously rage together and
the people imagine vain things in their hearts?" And over and over
again the answer came, "I tell you, my son, it is because they have not
the love of God in their hearts."

He repeated the words almost mechanically until they indefinitely
became a sort of refrain which kept time to the thud, thud of the
engine, and the rushing noise of the train.

At last, tired out both mentally and physically, he fell asleep. In
his dreams Margaret was very near to him. It was the old Margaret,
radiant with the new wonder of love, fragrant with the night-air of the
Sahara which surrounded them.

The war and its demands were wiped out; the world was back again to the
fair free days which knew neither hate nor fear.

CHAPTER II

Nearly four months had passed and Margaret was still a pantry-maid in
the same private hospital. The V.A.D. who was to have gone to France
had suffered as great a disappointment as Margaret, for at the very
last moment word had been sent to her--it had been unavoidably
delayed--that her services in France would not yet be required.
Margaret, with her bigness of nature, had insisted upon the girl
retaining the post in the wards and letting things go on as they were.
Her "bit" was very, very dull, but it was her "bit," and nothing she
did, she knew, could in any way compare in dullness to the lives of the
boys in the trenches. So she worked and endured, and found the
necessary change of scene in the mixed company of her garden-square
society.

The days fled past. It was a dull life for a young girl, but since the
war began all girls worthy of their country had said good-bye to the
pleasures of youth. Youth had no time to be young; old age had
forgotten that it was old. The renaissance of patriotism had
transformed England. The war recognized neither old age nor youth; it
opened its hungry jaws and took everyone in.

Margaret had neither seen nor he