ill!" Tremendous would be the final
resistance of woman to the brutality of man. Women were to be the
saviors of humanity. It seemed so simple and natural that it could not
be otherwise. Lenore realized, with a singular conception of the
splendor of its truth, that when most women had found themselves, their
mission in life, as she had found hers, then would come an end to
violence, to greed, to hate, to war, to the black and hideous
imperfection of mankind.

With all her intellect and passion Lenore opposed the theory of the
scientist and biologists. If they proved that strife and fight were
necessary to the development of man, that without violence and bloodshed
and endless contention the race would deteriorate, then she would say
that it would be better to deteriorate and to die. Women all would
declare against that, and in fact would never believe. She would never
believe with her heart, but if her intellect was forced to recognize
certain theories, then she must find a way to reconcile life to the
inscrutable designs of nature. The theory that continual strife was the
very life of plants, birds, beasts, and men seemed verified by every
reaction of the present; but if these things were fixed materialistic
rules of the existence of animated forms upon the earth, what then was
God, what was the driving force in Kurt Dorn that made war-duty some
kind of murder which overthrew his mind, what was the love in her heart
of all living things, and the nameless sublime faith in her soul?

"If we poor creatures _must_ fight," said Lenore, and she meant this for
a prayer, "let the women fight eternally against violence, and let the
men forever fight their destructive instincts!"

* * * * *

From that hour the condition of Kurt Dorn changed for the better. Doctor
Lowell admitted that Lenore had been the one medicine which might defeat
the death that all except she had believed inevitable.

Lenore was permitted to see him a few minutes every day, for which
fleeting interval she must endure the endless hours. But she discovered
that only when he was rational and free from pain would they let her go
in. What Dorn's condition was all the rest of the time she could not
guess. But she began to get inklings that it was very bad.

"Dad, I'm going to insist on staying with Kurt as--as long as I want,"
asserted Lenore, when she had made up her mind.

This worried Anderson, and he appeared at a loss fo