at power
could have put me in Vandyke's place at the altar, and given Diana to me
instead of to him, I would not have taken her--not even with her love.
It seemed to me that what she would call her love wasn't worth the name
of love, after--what had passed. It was only the memory of all I'd felt
for her which hurt just then, so far as she was concerned. But for
him--God, Peggy! to see him at the height of his hopes and ambitions
made me mad to choke his life out! It does me good to confess this to
you now, for you're the only one on earth to whom I'd speak."

"Yet, when you went out of church, you saved him from danger of death!"
I said thoughtfully.

"That's just one of life's little ironies, isn't it?" Eagle laughed a
low and bitter laugh. "It occurred to me afterward that I'd spoilt a
good melodramatic plot. Hero secretly goes to church to see the woman
who jilted him marry the villain to whom he owes his ruin. Villain is
killed before his eyes on the way to the wedding reception. Big climax!"

"I think it was more dramatic," said I, "for the hero to save the
villain's life."

"Too conventional. Obvious sort of thing!" sneered Eagle. "But I _am_
conventional and obvious, I suppose. I did what I did simply because I
couldn't help it, and I'd probably do it all over again. I'd have
regretted it afterward, perhaps, if Di--if Lady Diana hadn't been in
danger, too. I bear her no grudge."

"You're very noble," I said.

"It's not nobility. It's more like callousness. I freed myself from Lady
Diana on her wedding day, or found that I was free. But if you could see
into my soul when I think of Vandyke, you wouldn't call me 'noble.' I
honestly pray for the day when I can remember him with indifference, and
when I can say of what he did to me that good is born of evil. That's
what I'm working for. But the time hasn't come yet. Maybe it will if I
can manage to make myself of real use in this war. I've done nothing yet
except a little scouting."

"Liege thinks differently, and so will all the world when it knows."

"I'm not working to reinstate myself in the world's eyes, but in my
own--and most of all to help Belgium. There are things one does just for
the thing itself. I have a fellow-feeling with a country suffering
unjustly. After what I've gone through myself, I seem to owe her
allegiance, as to a friend who understands. The moment this war cloud
began to gather, I thought it would burst over Belgium, and I crossed