beams of search-lights swept hither and thither. This
kept up till shortly after midnight, when it died down and, where hell's
concert had raged, silent darkness shrouded the hills. Marta knew that
Bordir was taken without having to ask Lanstron or wait for confirmation
from Westerling.

She was seated in the recess of the arbor the next morning, when she
heard the approach of those regular, powerful steps whose character had
become as distinct to her as those of a member of her own family. Five
Against three! five against three! they were saying to her; while down
the pass road and the castle road ran the stream of wounded from last
night's slaughter.

Posted in the drawing-room of the Galland house were the congratulations
of the premier to Westerling, who had come from the atmosphere of a
staff that accorded to him a military insight far above the analysis of
ordinary standards. But he was too clever a man to vaunt his triumph. He
knew how to carry his honors. He accepted success as his due, in a
matter-of-course manner that must inspire confidence in further success.

"You were right," he said to Marta easily, pleasantly. "We did it--we
did it--we took Bordir with a loss of only twenty thousand men!"

_Only_ twenty thousand! Her revulsion at the bald statement was relieved
by the memory of Lanny's word over the telephone after breakfast that
the Browns had lost only five thousand. Four to one was a wide ratio,
she was thinking.

"Then the end--then peace is so much the nearer?" she asked.

"Very much nearer!" he answered earnestly, as he dropped on the bench
beside her.

He stretched his arms out on the back of the seat and the relaxed
attitude, unusual with him, brought into relief a new trait of which she
had been hitherto oblivious. The conqueror had become simply a
companionable man. Though he was not sitting close to her, yet, as his
eyes met hers, she had a desire to move away which she knew would be
unwise to gratify. She was conscious of a certain softening charm, a
magnetism that she had sometimes felt in the days when she first knew
him. She realized, too, that then the charm had not been mixed with the
indescribable, intimate quality that it held now.

"In the midst of congratulations after the position was taken last
night," he declared, "I confess that I was thinking less of success
than of its source." He bent on her a look that was warm with gratitude.

She lowered her lashes before it; befo