"But why punish me?" she protested. "Do _I_ want the war? Do _I_ want to
free Cuba? No! I want _you_, and if you go, you are the one who is sure
to be killed. You are so big--and so brave, and you will be rushing in
wherever the fighting is, and then--then you will die." She raised her
eyes and looked at him as though seeing him from a great distance.
"And," she added fatefully, "I will die, too, or maybe I will have to
live, to live without you for years, for many miserable years."

Fearfully, with great caution, as though in his joy in her he might
crush her in his hands, the young man drew her to him and held her
close. After a silence he whispered. "But, you know that nothing can
happen to me. Not now, that God has let me love you. He could not be so
cruel. He would not have given me such happiness to take it from me. A
man who loves you, as I love you, cannot come to any harm. And the man
_you_ love is immortal, immune. He holds a charmed life. So long as you
love him, he must live."

The eyes of the girl smiled up at him through her tears. She lifted her
lips to his. "Then you will never die!" she said.

She held him away from her. "Listen!" she whispered. "What you say is
true. It must be true, because you are always right. I love you so that
nothing can harm you. My love will be a charm. It will hang around your
neck and protect you, and keep you, and bring you back to me. When you
are in danger my love will save you. For, while it lives, I live. When
it dies--"

Chesterton kissed her quickly.

"What happens then," he said, "doesn't matter."

The war game had run its happy-go-lucky course briefly and brilliantly,
with "glory enough for all," even for Chesterton. For, in no previous
campaign had good fortune so persistently stood smiling at his elbow.
At each moment of the war that was critical, picturesque, dramatic, by
some lucky accident he found himself among those present. He could not
lose. Even when his press boat broke down at Cardenas, a Yankee cruiser
and two Spanish gun-boats, apparently for his sole benefit, engaged in
an impromptu duel within range of his megaphone. When his horse went
lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to
the front unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced
to join his fortune, fought its way through the stifling underbrush.

Between his news despatches, when he was not singing the praises of his
fellow-countrymen, or co