r side. It's a horrible pity you must be a cripple, but Rust,
indeed life can be worth living if you make it so."

"How could there be a brighter side when a man's only half a man--" he
queried, bitterly.

"You can be just as much a man as ever," persisted Carley, trying to
smile when she wanted to cry.

"Could you care for a man with only one leg?" he asked, deliberately.

"What a question! Why, of course I could!"

"Well, maybe you are different. Glenn always swore even if he was killed
no slacker or no rich guy left at home could ever get you. Maybe you
haven't any idea how much it means to us fellows to know there are
true and faithful girls. But I'll tell you, Carley, we fellows who went
across got to see things strange when we came home. The good old U. S.
needs a lot of faithful girls just now, believe me."

"Indeed that's true," replied Carley. "It's a hard time for everybody,
and particularly you boys who have lost so--so much."

"I lost all, except my life--and I wish to God I'd lost that," he
replied, gloomily.

"Oh, don't talk so!" implored Carley in distress. "Forgive me, Rust, if
I hurt you. But I must tell you--that--that Glenn wrote me--you'd lost
your girl. Oh, I'm sorry! It is dreadful for you now. But if you got
well--and went to work--and took up life where you left it--why soon
your pain would grow easier. And you'd find some happiness yet."

"Never for me in this world."

"But why, Rust, why? You're no--no--Oh! I mean you have intelligence and
courage. Why isn't there anything left for you?"

"Because something here's been killed," he replied, and put his hand to
his heart.

"Your faith? Your love of--of everything? Did the war kill it?"

"I'd gotten over that, maybe," he said, drearily, with his somber eyes
on space that seemed lettered for him. "But she half murdered it--and
they did the rest."

"They? Whom do you mean, Rust?"

"Why, Carley, I mean the people I lost my leg for!" he replied, with
terrible softness.

"The British? The French?" she queried, in bewilderment.

"No!" he cried, and turned his face to the wall.

Carley dared not ask him more. She was shocked. How helplessly impotent
all her earnest sympathy! No longer could she feel an impersonal,
however kindly, interest in this man. His last ringing word had linked
her also to his misfortune and his suffering. Suddenly he turned away
from the wall. She saw him swallow laboriously. How tragic that thin,
shadowed f