_ you're in shape to compete with
the best women in the world for the best man in the world. That's
love! That's marriage! That's right! Nothing else is."

He paused horrified. Her voice was icy. "I asked you what was wrong
here. I begin to see now. You spoke the truth--everything is wrong."

"You'll hate me all your life and I hate myself now as I never have
before in my life--despise myself. What a mockery we've made of it
all. God help those who see!"

She sat silent for a very long time. "You say I shall be able to see
him--my husband?"

[Illustration: "You say I shall be able to see him--my husband?"]

"Yes, I think so," he said.

"And you also?"

"No! Him, but not me. You never will. I'll be an imagination
forever. You'll never see me at all."

"Under what star of sadness was I born?" said Mary Gage, simply. "What
a problem!"

"Good-by," he replied. "I don't need to wait."

She held out her hands to him, gropingly. "Going?"

"Yes. I'm coming back, week after next, to get you. I'll not talk
this way ever again. Don't forgive me--you can't.

"You'll have to go down to our hospital, perhaps for a couple of
weeks," he concluded.

He stepped from the room so silently, passed so quickly on the turf,
that she was not sure he had gone. He never saw her hands reach out,
did not hear her voice: "No, no! I'll not go! Let me be as I am!"

CHAPTER XXVI

THE WAYS OF MR. GARDNER

Two figures stood regarding Doctor Barnes as his car turned into the
willow lane out-bound for the highway.

"Why didn't he say good-by, anyways, when he left?" commented Wid,
turning to Annie Squires. "Went off like he'd forgot something."

"That's his way," replied Annie, rolling down her sleeves. They had
met as she was passing from the barracks cabin. "He's a live wire,
anyways. God knows this country needs them."

"Why, what's the matter with this country?" demanded Wid mildly.
"Ain't it all right?"

"No, it ain't. Till I come here it was inhabited exclusively with
corpses."

"Well, then?"

"And since then, if it wouldn't of been for the Doctor yonder, you and
Sim Gage would be setting down here yet and looking at the burned
places and saying, 'Well, I wonder how that happened?'"

"Well, if you didn't like this here country, now what made you come
here?" demanded Wid calmly and without resentment.

"You know why I come. That lamb in there was needing me. A fine sight
you'd be, to