prophecy._

CHAPTER I

(_January, 1919_)

VOICES

Penelope moved nervously in her chair, evidently very much troubled
about something as she waited in the doctor's office. Her two years in
France had added a touch of mystery to her strange beauty. Her eyes were
more veiled in their burning, as if she had glimpsed something that had
frightened her; yet they were eyes that, even unintentionally, carried a
message to men, an alluring, appealing message to men. With her red
mouth, her fascinatingly unsymmetrical mouth, and her sinuous body
Penelope Wells at thirty-three was the kind of woman men look at twice
and remember. She was dressed in black.

When Dr. William Owen entered the front room of his Ninth Street office
he greeted her with the rough kindliness that a big man in his
profession, a big-hearted man, shows to a young woman whose case
interests him and whose personality is attractive.

"I got your note, Mrs. Wells," he began, "and I had a letter about you
from my young friend, Captain Herrick. I needn't say that I had already
read about your bravery in the newspapers. The whole country has been
sounding your praises. When did you get back to New York?"

"About a week ago, doctor. I came on a troop ship with several other
nurses. I--I wish I had never come."

There was a note of pathetic, ominous sadness in her voice. Even in his
first study of this lovely face, the doctor's experienced eye told him
that here was a case of complicated nervous breakdown. He wondered if
she could have had a slight touch of shell shock. What a ghastly thing
for a high spirited, sensitive young woman to be out on those battle
fields in France!

"You mustn't say that, Mrs. Wells. We are all very proud of you. Think
of having the _croix de guerre_ pinned on your dress by the commanding
general before a whole regiment! Pretty fine for an American woman!"

Penelope Wells sat quite still, playing with the flexible serpent ring
on her thumb, and looked at the doctor out of her wonderful deep eyes
that seemed to burn with a mysterious fire. Could there be something
Oriental about her--or--or Indian, the physician wondered.

"Doctor," she said, in a low tone, "I have come to tell you the truth
about myself, and the truth is that I deserve no credit for what I did
that day, because I--I did not want to live. I wanted them to kill me, I
took every chance so that they would kill me; but God willed it
differently, the shell