to even touch your little hand--and yet I'm
daring to hold it in mine----"

He paused and bowed his head, overcome with emotion.

Betty gently pressed his trembling fingers. Her voice was low.

"I'm proud of your love, Ned. It's very beautiful----"

"But you don't love me?" he groaned.

"Not as you love me."

He looked searchingly and hungrily into her brown eyes:

"Is it John?"

She shook her head slowly and thoughtfully:

"No."

"And it's no one else?"

"No."

"Then I won't take that answer!" he cried with desperate earnestness.
"I'm going to win you. I'll love you with a love so big and true I'll
make you love me. Everything's against me now. Your father's against me.
I'm going to fight your country and your people. You admire the new
President. I despise him. The passions of war have separated us, that's
all. But I won't give up. The war can't last long. You'll see things in
a different way when it ends."

Betty smiled into his pleading eyes:

"How little you know me, Boy! Nothing on this earth could separate me
from the man I love----" she paused and breathed quickly "----I'd follow
him blindfold to the bottomless pit once I'd given him my heart!"

Ned rose suddenly to his foot and drew Betty with him. His hand now was
hot with the passion that fired his soul.

"Then you're worth fighting for. And I'm going to fight--fight for what
I believe to be right and fight for you----"

He stopped suddenly and his slender figure straightened:

"I'm coming back to you, Betty!" he said with clear ringing emphasis.
"I'm coming back to Washington. I'll be with an army conquering,
triumphant, because they are right. There'll be a new President in the
White House and I'll win!"

He bowed and reverently kissed the tips of her fingers.

"You glorious boy!" she sighed. "It's beautiful to be loved like that!
I'm proud of it--I'll hold my head a little higher with every thought of
you----"

"And you'll think of me sometimes when war has separated us?"

"I'll never forget!"

"And remember that I'm fighting my way back to your side?"

A tender smile played about the corners of her eyes and mouth:

"I'll remember."

With a quick, firm movement he turned, passed through the house, and
strode toward the iron gate.

He suddenly confronted John entering.

The two brothers faced each other for a moment angrily and awkwardly,
and then the anger slowly melted from the younger man's eyes.

"You are taking di