heart of the girl who waited, dreading, yet hoping for word from
the man she loved. Yet knowing, deep down in her heart, she would hear
no word.

He would come to her--would answer the call of her great love--would
beat down the barriers and in the flush of victory would claim her as
his own; or, in the everlasting silence of the weird realm of missing
men, be lost to her forever.

Daily she scanned the newspapers. Not front pages whose glaring
headlines flaunted world-rumblings, politics, and the illness of rich
men's dogs, but tiny cable-whispers from places far from the beaten
track, places forgotten or unknown, whose very names breathed mystery;
whispers that hinted briefly of life-tragedies, of action and the
unsung deeds of men.

And as she read, she mused.

A tramp steamer dashed upon the saw-tooth rocks off Sarawak. Thirty
perish--seven saved--no names. "Where is Sarawak? Is it possible that
_he_----?"

Four sailors killed in the rescue of a girl from a dive in Singapore.
Investigation ordered--no names. "_He_ would have done that."

The rum-sodden body of a man, presumably a derelict American, picked up
on the bund at Papiete; no marks of identification save the tightly
clutched photograph of a well-dressed young woman. "Had _he_ given up
the fight? And was this the end?"

Eight revolutionist prisoners taken by General Orotho in yesterday's
battle were shot at sunrise this morning before the prison wall of
Managua.

One, an American, faced the firing squad with a laugh, and the next
instant pitched forward, his body riddled with bullets. "_He_ would
have laughed! Would have played gladly the game with death and,
losing--laughed!"

Each day she read the little lines of the doings of men; unnamed
adventurers whose deeds were virile deeds; rough men, from whose
contaminating touch society gathers up her silken skirts and passes by
upon the other side; unlovely men, rolled-sleeved and open-throated,
deep-seamed of face, and richly weather-tanned of arm, who tread
roughshod the laws of little right and wrong; who drink red liquor and
swear lurid oaths and loud; but who, shoulder to shoulder, redden the
gutters of Singapore with their hearts' blood in the snatching of a
young girl from danger.

And in the reading there grew up in her heart a mighty respect for
these men, for, in the analysis of their deeds, the beam swayed
strongly against the measure of the world in its balance of good and
harm.

Ma