ng as he would never have let his lips plead.

Sheila covered her eyes. She didn't want to see. It was too reminiscent of
the little boy lying awake in a dark attic, afraid of sleep. "We have both
done without happiness so long, don't you think we can do without it a
little longer?"

"I suppose so--if we must." Peter's voice was very dull. "But why? I've
always had an idea that happiness was something like opportunity; it had
to be snatched and held fast when it came your way, or you might never
have another chance at it." Had Sheila brought him to the gates of
Paradise only to bar them against his entering? he wondered.

The woman who loved him understood and laid her hand on his breast as if
she would stay the hurt there if she could. "It may make it easier if you
know that the giving up is going to be hard for me, too. I've thought
about that home of ours so long that I've begun to see it and all that
goes with it. I even stumble upon it in my dreams. It's always at the end
of a long, tired road, going uphill. If I thought I should have to give it
up, I wouldn't have the courage to do what I'm going to now."

She sat down on the bench, laid her arms over the sill of the rustic
window, and looked toward the pond. The night was very still; the blurred
outlines of the swans, huddled against the bank, were the only signs of
life. When she spoke it was almost to herself.

"When they sent me away from the San three years ago I thought I could
never bear it--to go away alone, that way, disgraced, to begin work over
again in a strange place, among strange people. But I had to do it, just
as I have to do this." She straightened and faced Peter. Her voice
changed; it belonged to the curt, determined Sheila.

"I'm going across, to nurse the boys over there. The boy over in the
Surgical pointed the way for me. There's a big thing going on in the
world--something almost as big as the war--it's the business of getting
the boys ready for life after their share in the war is over, and I don't
mean just nursing their bodies back to health. Everything is changed for
them; they've got new standards, new interests, new hearts, new souls, and
we women have got to keep pace with them. And we mustn't fail them--don't
you see that? Oh, I know I have no place of my own in the war: you are
safe, and I have no brothers. But I'm a woman--a nurse, thank God! And I'm
free to go for the mothers and sweethearts who can't. Don't you
understand?