He had entrusted his letter to the Y.M.C.A. man to mail as he was going out of camp that night and would mail it in Baltimore, ensuring it an immediate start. Now he began to speculate whether it would reach its destination by morning and be delivered with the morning mail. He felt as excited and impatient as a child over it.

Suddenly a voice above him in a barracks window rang out with a familiar guffaw, and the words:

"Why, man, I can't! Didn't I tell you I'm going to marry Ruth Macdonald before I go! There wouldn't be time for that and the other, too!"

Something in his heart grew cold with pain and horror, and something in his motive power stopped suddenly and halted his feet on the sidewalk in the grade cut below the officers' barracks.

"Aw! A week more won't make any difference," drawled another familiar voice, "I say, Hal, she's just crazy about you and you could get no end of information out of her if you tried. All she asks is that you tell what you know about a few little things that don't matter anyway."

"But I tell you I can't, man. If Ruth found out about the girl the mischief would be to pay. She wouldn't stand for another girl—not that kind of a girl, you know, and there wouldn't be time for me to explain and smooth things over before I go across the Pond. I tell you I've made up my mind about this."

The barracks door slammed shut on the voices and Corporal Cameron's heart gave a great jump upwards in his breast and went on. Slowly, dizzily he came to his senses and moved on automatically toward his own quarters.



VII

He had passed the quarters of the signal corps before the thought of the letter he had just written came to his mind. Then he stopped short, gave one agonizing glance toward his barracks only a few feet away, realized that it was nearly time for bed call and that he could not possibly make it if he went back, then whirled about and started out on a wild run like a madman over the ground he had just traveled. He was not conscious of carrying on a train of thought as he ran, his only idea was to get to the Y.M.C.A. hut before the man had left with the letter. Never should his childhood's enemy have that letter to sneer over!

All the pleasant phrases which had flowed from his pen so easily but a few moments before seemed to flare now in letters of fire before his blood-shot eyes as he bounded over the ground. To think he should have lowered himself and weakened his position so, as to write to the girl who was soon to be the wife of that contemptible puppy!

The bugles began to sound taps here and there in the barracks as he flew past, but they meant nothing to him. Breathless he arrived at the Y.M.C.A. hut just as the last light was being put out. A dark figure stood on the steps as he halted entirely winded, and tried to gasp out: "Where is Mr. Hathaway?" to the assistant who was locking up.

"Oh, he left five minutes after you did," said the man with a yawn. "The rector came by in his car and took him along. Say, you'll be late getting in, Corporal, taps sounded almost five minutes ago."

With a low exclamation of disgust and dismay Cameron turned and started back again in a long swinging stride, his face flushing hotly in the dark over his double predicament. He had gone back for nothing and got himself subject to a calling down, a thing which he had avoided scrupulously since coming to camp, but he was so miserable over the other matter that it seemed a thing of no moment to him now. He was altogether occupied with metaphorically kicking himself for having answered that letter; for having mailed it so soon without ever stopping to read it over or give himself a chance to reconsider. He might have known, he might have remembered that Ruth Macdonald was no comrade for him; that she was a neighbor of the Wainwright's and would in all probability be a friend of the lieutenant's. Not for all that he owned in the world or hoped to own, would he have thus laid himself open to the possibility of having Wainwright know any of his inner thoughts. He would rather have lived and died unknown, unfriended, than that this should come to pass.

And she? The promised wife of Wainwright! Could it be? She must have written him that letter merely from a fine friendly patronage. All right, of course, from her standpoint, but from his, gall and wormwood to his proud spirit. Oh, that he had not answered it! He might have known! He should have remembered that she had never been in his class. Not that his people were not as good as hers, and maybe better, so far as intellectual attainments were concerned; but his had lost their money, had lived a quiet life, and in her eyes and the eyes of her family were very likely as the mere dust of the earth. And now, just now when war had set its seal of sacrifice upon all young men in uniform, he as a soldier had risen to a kind of deified class set apart for hero worship, nothing more. It was not her fault that she had been brought up that way, and that he seemed so to her, and nothing more. She had shown her beautiful spirit in giving him the tribute that seemed worthiest to her view. He would not blame her, nor despise her, but he would hold himself aloof as he had done in the past, and show her that he wanted no favors, no patronage. He was sufficient to himself. What galled him most was to think that perhaps in the intimacy of their engagement she might show his letter to Wainwright, and they would laugh together over him, a poor soldier, presuming to write as he had done to a girl in her station. They would laugh together, half pitifully—at least the woman would be pitiful, the man was likely to sneer. He could see his hateful mustache curl now with scorn and his little eyes twinkle. And he would tell her all the lies he had tried to put upon him in the past. He would give her a wrong idea of his character. He would rejoice and triumph to do so! Oh, the bitterness of it! It overwhelmed him so that the little matter of getting into his bunk without being seen by the officer in charge was utterly overlooked by him.

Perhaps some good angel arranged the way for him so that he was able to slip past the guards without being challenged. Two of the guards were talking at the corner of the barracks with their backs to him at the particular second when he came in sight. A minute later they turned back to their monotonous march and the shadow of the vanishing corporal had just disappeared from among the other dark shadows of the night landscape. Inside the barracks another guard welcomed him eagerly without questioning his presence there at that hour:

"Say, Cam, how about day after to-morrow? Are you free? Will you take my place on guard? I want to go up to Philadelphia and see my girl, and I'm sure of a pass, but I'm listed for guard duty. I'll do the same for you sometime."

"Sure!" said Cameron heartily, and swung up stairs with a sudden realization that he had been granted a streak of good luck. Yet somehow he did not seem to care much.

He tiptoed over to his bunk among the rows of sleeping forms, removed from it a pair of shoes, three books, some newspapers and a mess kit which some lazy comrades had left there, and threw himself down with scant undressing. It seemed as though a great calamity had befallen him, although when he tried to reason it out he could not understand how things were so much changed from what they had been that morning before he received the letter. Ruth Macdonald had never been anything in his life but a lovely picture. There was no slightest possibility that she would ever be more. She was like a distant star to be admired but never come near. Had he been fool enough to have his head turned by her writing that kind letter to him? Had he even remotely fancied she would ever be anything nearer to him than just a formal friend who occasionally stooped to give a bright smile or do a kindness? Well, if he had, he needed this knockdown blow. It might be a good thing that it came so soon before he had let this thing grow in his imagination; but oh, if it had but come a bit sooner! If it had only been on the way over to the Y.M.C.A. hut instead of on the way back that letter would never have been written! She would have set him down as a boor perhaps, but what matter? What was she to him, or he to her? Well—perhaps he would have written a letter briefly to thank her for her offer of knitting, but it would have been an entirely different letter from the one he did write. He ground his teeth as he thought out the letter he should have written:

MY DEAR MISS MACDONALD: (No "friend" about that.)

It certainly was kind of you to think of me as a possible recipient of a sweater. But I feel that there are other boys who perhaps need things more than I do. I am well supplied with all necessities. I appreciate your interest in an old school friend. The life of a soldier is not so bad, and I imagine we shall have no end of novel experiences before the war is over. I hope we shall be able to put an end to this terrible struggle very soon when we get over and make the world a safe and happy place for you and your friends. Here's hoping the men who are your special friends will all come home safe and sound and soon.

Sincerely,

J. CAMERON.

He wrote that letter over and over mentally as he tossed on his bunk in the dark, changing phrases and whole sentences. Perhaps it would be better to say something about "her officer friends" and make it very clear to her that he understood his own distant position with her. Then suddenly he kicked the big blue blanket off and sat up with a deep sigh. What a fool he was. He could not write another letter. The letter was gone, and as it was written he must abide by it. He could not get it back or unwrite it much as he wished it. There was no excuse, or way to make it possible to write and refuse those sweaters and things, was there?

He sat staring into the darkness while the man in the next bunk roused to toss back his blanket which had fallen superfluously across his face, and to mutter some sleepy imprecations. But Cameron was off on the composition of another letter:

MY DEAR MISS MACDONALD:

I have been thinking it over and have decided that I do not need a sweater or any of those other things you mention. I really am pretty well supplied with necessities, and you know they don't give us much room to put anything around the barracks. There must be a lot of other fellows who need them more, so I will decline that you may give your work to others who have nothing, or to those who are your personal friends.

Very truly,

J. CAMERON.

Having convinced his turbulent brain that it was quite possible for him to write such a letter as this, he flung himself miserably back on his hard cot again and realized that he did not want to write it. That it would be almost an insult to the girl, who even if she had been patronizing him, had done it with a kind intent, and after all it was not her fault that he was a fool. She had a right to marry whom she would. Certainly he never expected her to marry him. Only he had to own to himself that he wanted those things she had offered. He wanted to touch something she had worked upon, and feel that it belonged to him. He wanted to keep this much of human friendship for himself. Even if she was going to marry another man, she had always been his ideal of a beautiful, lovable woman, and as such she should stay his, even if she married a dozen enemy officers!

It was then he began to see that the thing that was really making him miserable was that she was giving her sweet young life to such a rotten little mean-natured man as Wainwright. That was the real pain. If some fine noble man like—well—like Captain La Rue, only younger, of course, should come along he would be glad for her. But this excuse for a man! Oh, it was outrageous! How could she be so deceived? and yet, of course, women knew very little of men. They had no standards by which to judge them. They had no opportunity to see them except in plain sight of those they wished to please. One could not expect them to have discernment in selecting their friends. But what a pity! Things were all wrong! There ought to be some way to educate a woman so that she would realize the dangers all about her and be somewhat protected. It was worse for Ruth Macdonald because she had no men in her family who could protect her. Her old grandfather was the only near living male relative and he was a hopeless invalid, almost entirely confined to the house. What could he know of the young men who came to court his granddaughter? What did he remember of the ways of men, having been so many years shut away from their haunts?

The corporal tossed on his hard cot and sighed like a furnace. There ought to be some one to protect her. Someone ought to make her understand what kind of a fellow Wainwright was! She had called him her knight, and a knight's business was to protect, yet what could he do? He could not go to her and tell her that the man she was going to marry was rotten and utterly without moral principle. He could not even send some one else to warn her. Who could he send? His mother? No, his mother would feel shy and afraid of a girl like that. She had always lived a quiet life. He doubted if she would understand herself how utterly unfit a mate Wainwright was for a good pure girl. And there was no one else in the world that he could send. Besides, if she loved the man, and incomprehensible as it seemed, she must love him or why should she marry him?—if she loved him she would not believe an angel from heaven against him. Women were that way; that is, if they were good women, like Ruth. Oh, to think of her tied up to that—beast! He could think of no other word. In his agony he rolled on his face and groaned aloud.

"Oh God!" his soul cried out, "why do such things have to be? If there really is a God why does He let such awful things happen to a pure good girl? The same old bitter question that had troubled the hard young days of his own life. Could there be a God who cared when bitterness was in so many cups? Why had God let the war come?"

Sometime in the night the tumult in his brain and heart subsided and he fell into a profound sleep. The next thing he knew the kindly roughness of his comrades wakened him with shakes and wet sponges flying through the air, and he opened his consciousness to the world again and heard the bugle blowing for roll call. Another day had dawned grayly and he must get up. They set him on his feet, and bantered him into action, and he responded with his usual wit that put them all in howls of laughter, but as he stumbled into place in the line in the five o'clock dawning he realized that a heavy weight was on his heart which he tried to throw off. What did it matter what Ruth Macdonald did with her life? She was nothing to him, never had been and never could be. If only he had not written that letter all would now be as it always had been. If only she had not written her letter! Or no! He put his hand to his breast pocket with a quick movement of protection. Somehow he was not yet ready to relinquish that one taste of bright girl friendliness, even though it had brought a stab in its wake.

He was glad when the orders came for him and five other fellows to tramp across the camp to the gas school and go through two solid hours of instruction ending with a practical illustration of the gas mask and a good dose of gas. It helped to put his mind on the great business of war which was to be his only business now until it or he were ended. He set his lips grimly and went about his work vigorously. What did it matter, anyway, what she thought of him? He need never answer another letter, even if she wrote. He need not accept the package from the post office. He could let them send it back—refuse it and let them send it back, that was what he could do! Then she might think what she liked. Perhaps she would suppose him already gone to France. Anyhow, he would forget her! It was the only sensible thing to do.

Meanwhile the letter had flown on its way with more than ordinary swiftness, as if it had known that a force was seeking to bring it back again. The Y.M.C.A. man was carried at high speed in an automobile to the nearest station to the camp, and arrived in time to catch the Baltimore train just stopping. In the Baltimore station he went to mail the letter just as the letter gatherer arrived with his keys to open the box. So the letter lost no time but was sorted and started northward before midnight, and by some happy chance arrived at its destination in time to be laid by Ruth Macdonald's plate at lunch time the next day.

Some quick sense must have warned Ruth, for she gathered her mail up and slipped it unobtrusively into the pocket of her skirt before it could be noticed. Dottie Wetherill had come home with her for lunch and the bright red Y.M.C.A. triangle on the envelope was so conspicuous. Dottie was crazy over soldiers and all things military. She would be sure to exclaim and ask questions. She was one of those people who always found out everything about you that you did not keep under absolute lock and key.

Every day since she had written her letter to Cameron Ruth had watched for an answer, her cheeks glowing sometimes with the least bit of mortification that she should have written at all to have received this rebuff. Had he, after all, misunderstood her? Or had the letter gone astray, or the man gone to the front? She had almost given up expecting an answer now after so many weeks, and the nice warm olive-drab sweater and neatly knitted socks with extra long legs and bright lines of color at the top, with the wristlets and muffler lay wrapped in tissue paper at the very bottom of a drawer in the chiffonier where she would seldom see it and where no one else would ever find it and question her. Probably by and by when the colored draftees were sent away she would get them out and carry them down to the headquarters to be given to some needy man. She felt humiliated and was beginning to tell herself that it was all her own fault and a good lesson for her. She had even decided not to go and see John Cameron's mother again lest that, too, might be misunderstood. It seemed that the frank true instincts of her own heart had been wrong, and she was getting what she justly deserved for departing from Aunt Rhoda's strictly conventional code.

Nevertheless, the letter in her pocket which she had not been able to look at carefully enough to be sure if she knew the writing, crackled and rustled and set her heart beating excitedly, and her mind to wondering what it might be. She answered Dottie Wetherill's chatter with distraught monosyllables and absent smiles, hoping that Dottie would feel it necessary to go home soon after lunch.

But it presently became plain that Dottie had no intention of going home soon; that she had come for a purpose and that she was plying all her arts to accomplish it. Ruth presently roused from her reverie to realize this and set herself to give Dottie as little satisfaction as possible out of her task. It was evident that she had been sent to discover the exact standing and relation in which Ruth held Lieutenant Harry Wainwright. Ruth strongly suspected that Dottie's brother Bob had been the instigator of the mission, and she had no intention of giving him the information.

So Ruth's smiles came out and the inscrutable twinkle grew in her lovely eyes. Dottie chattered on sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, theme after theme, always rounding up at the end with some perfectly obvious leading question. Ruth answered in all apparent innocence and sincerity, yet with an utterly different turn of the conversation from what had been expected, and with an indifference that was hopelessly baffling unless the young ambassador asked a point blank question, which she hardly dared to do of Ruth Macdonald without more encouragement. And so at last a long two hours dragged thus away, and finally Dottie Wetherill at the end of her small string, and at a loss for more themes on which to trot around again to the main idea, reluctantly accepted her defeat and took herself away, leaving Ruth to her long delayed letter.



VIII

Ruth sat looking into space with starry eyes and glowing cheeks after she had read the letter. It seemed to her a wonderful letter, quite the most wonderful she had ever received. Perhaps it was because it fitted so perfectly with her ideal of the writer, who from her little girlhood had always been a picture of what a hero must be. She used to dream big things about him when she was a child. He had been the best baseball player in school when he was ten, and the handsomest little rowdy in town, as well as the boldest, bravest champion of the little girls.

As she grew older and met him occasionally she had always been glad that he kept his old hero look though often appearing in rough garb. She had known they were poor. There had been some story about a loss of money and a long expensive sickness of the father's following an accident which made all the circumstances most trying, but she had never heard the details. She only knew that most of the girls in her set looked on him as a nobody and would no more have companied with him than with their father's chauffeur. After he grew older and began to go to college some of the girls began to think he was good looking, and to say it was quite commendable in him to try to get an education. Some even unearthed the fact that his had been a fine old family in former days and that there had been wealth and servants once. But the story died down as John Cameron walked his quiet way apart, keeping to his old friends, and not responding to the feeble advances of the girls. Ruth had been away at school in these days and had seldom seen him. When she had there had always been that lingering admiration for him from the old days. She had told herself that of course he could not be worth much or people would know him. He was probably ignorant and uncultured, and a closer acquaintance would show him far from what her young ideas had pictured her hero. But somehow that day at the station, the look in his face had revealed fine feeling, and she was glad now to have her intuition concerning him verified by his letter.

And what a letter it was! Why, no young man of her acquaintance could have written with such poetic delicacy. That paragraph about the rose was beautiful, and not a bit too presuming, either, in one who had been a perfect stranger all these years. She liked his simple frankness and the easy way he went back twelve years and began just where they left off. There was none of the bold forwardness that might have been expected in one who had not moved in cultured society. There was no unpleasant assumption of familiarity which might have emphasized her fear that she had overstepped the bounds of convention in writing to him in the first place. On the contrary, her humiliation at his long delayed answer was all forgotten now. He had understood her perfectly and accepted her letter in exactly the way she had meant it without the least bit of foolishness or unpleasantness. In short, he had written the sort of a letter that the kind of man she had always thought—hoped—he was would be likely to write, and it gave her a surprisingly pleasant feeling of satisfaction. It was as if she had discovered a friend all of her own not made for her by her family, nor one to whom she fell heir because of her wealth and position; but just one she had found, out in the great world of souls.

If he had been going to remain at home there might have been a number of questions, social and conventional, which would have arisen to bar the way to this free feeling of a friendship, and which she would have had to meet and reason with before her mind would have shaken itself unhampered; but because he was going away and on such an errand, perhaps never to return, the matter of what her friends might think or what the world would say, simply did not enter into the question at all. The war had lifted them both above such ephemeral barriers into the place of vision where a soul was a soul no matter what he possessed or who he was. So, as she sat in her big white room with all its dainty accessories to a luxurious life, fit setting for a girl so lovely, she smiled unhindered at this bit of beautiful friendship that had suddenly drifted down at her feet out of a great outside unknown world. She touched the letter thoughtfully with caressing fingers, and the kind of a high look in her eyes that a lady of old must have worn when she thought of her knight. It came to her to wonder that she had not felt so about any other of her men friends who had gone into the service. Why should this special one soldier boy represent the whole war, as it were, in this way to her. However, it was but a passing thought, and with a smile still upon her lips she went to the drawer and brought out the finely knitted garments she had made, wrapping them up with care and sending them at once upon their way. It somehow gave her pleasure to set aside a small engagement she had for that afternoon until she had posted the package herself.

Even then, when she took her belated way to a little gathering in honor of one of her girl friends who was going to be married the next week to a young aviator, she kept the smile on her lips and the dreamy look in her eyes, and now and then brought herself back from the chatter around her to remember that something pleasant had happened. Not that there was any foolishness in her thoughts. There was too much dignity and simplicity about the girl, young as she was, to allow her to deal even with her own thoughts in any but a maidenly way, and it was not in the ordinary way of a maid with a man that she thought of this young soldier. He was so far removed from her life in every way, and all the well-drilled formalities, that it never occurred to her to think of him in the same way she thought of her other men friends.

A friend who understood her, and whom she could understand. That was what she had always wanted and what she had never quite had with any of her young associates. One or two had approached to that, but always there had been a point at which they had fallen short. That she should make this man her friend whose letter crackled in her pocket, in that intimate sense of the word, did not occur to her even now. He was somehow set apart for service in her mind; and as such she had chosen him to be her special knight, she to be the lady to whom he might look for encouragement—whose honor he was going forth to defend. It was a misty dreamy ideal of a thought. Somehow she would not have picked out any other of her boy friends to be a knight for her. They were too flippant, too careless and light hearted. The very way in which they lighted their multitudinous cigarettes and flipped the match away gave impression that they were going to have the time of their lives in this war. They might have patriotism down at the bottom of all this froth and boasting, doubtless they had; but there was so little seriousness about them that one would never think of them as knights, defenders of some great cause of righteousness. Perhaps she was all wrong. Perhaps it was only her old baby fancy for the little boy who could always "lick" the other boys and save the girls from trouble that prejudiced her in his favor, but at least it was pleasant and a great relief to know that her impulsive letter had not been misunderstood.

The girls prattled of this one and that who were "going over" soon, told of engagements and marriages soon to occur; criticized the brides and grooms to be; declared their undying opinions about what was fitting for a war bride to wear; and whether they would like to marry a man who had to go right into war and might return minus an arm or an eye. They discoursed about the U-boats with a frothy cheerfulness that made Ruth shudder; and in the same breath told what nice eyes a young captain had who had recently visited the town, and what perfectly lovely uniforms he wore. They argued with serious zeal whether a girl should wear an olive-drab suit this year if she wanted to look really smart.

They were the girls among whom she had been brought up, and Ruth was used to their froth, but somehow to-day it bored her beyond expression. She was glad to make an excuse to get away and she drove her little car around by the way of John Cameron's home hoping perhaps to get a glimpse of his mother again. But the house had a shut up look behind the vine that he had trained, as if it were lonely and lying back in a long wait till he should come—or not come! A pang went through her heart. For the first time she thought what it meant for a young life like that to be silenced by cold steel. The home empty! The mother alone! His ambitions and hopes unfulfilled! It came to her, too, that if he were her knight he might have to die for her—for his cause! She shuddered and swept the unpleasant thought away, but it had left its mark and would return again.

On the way back she passed a number of young soldiers home on twenty-four hour leave from the nearby camps. They saluted most eagerly, and she knew that any one of them would have gladly occupied the vacant seat in her car, but she was not in the mood to talk with them. She felt that there was something to be thought out and fixed in her mind, some impression that life had for her that afternoon that she did not want to lose in the mild fritter of gay banter that would be sure to follow if she stopped and took home some of the boys. So she bowed graciously and swept by at a high speed as if in a great hurry. The war! The war! It was beating itself into her brain again in much the same way it had done on that morning when the drafted men went away, only now it had taken on a more personal touch. She kept seeing the lonely vine-clad house where that one soldier had lived, and which he had left so desolate. She kept thinking how many such homes and mothers there must be in the land.

That evening when she was free to go to her room she read John Cameron's letter again, and then, feeling almost as if she were childish in her haste, she sat down and wrote an answer. Somehow that second reading made her feel his wish for an answer. It seemed a mute appeal that she could not resist.

When John Cameron received that letter and the accompanying package he was lifted into the seventh heaven for a little while. He forgot all his misgivings, he even forgot Lieutenant Wainwright who had but that day become a most formidable foe, having been transferred to Cameron's company, where he was liable to be commanding officer in absence of the captain, and where frequent salutes would be inevitable. It had been a terrible blow to Cameron. But now it suddenly seemed a small matter. He put on his new sweater and swelled around the way the other boys did, letting them all admire him. He examined the wonderful socks almost reverently, putting a large curious finger gently on the red and blue stripes and thrilling with the thought that her fingers had plied the needles in those many, many stitches to make them. He almost felt it would be sacrilege to wear them, and he laid them away most carefully and locked them into the box under his bed lest some other fellow should admire and desire them to his loss. But with the letter he walked away into the woods as far as the bounds of the camp would allow and read and reread it, rising at last from it as one refreshed from a comforting meal after long fasting. It was on the way back to his barracks that night, walking slowly under the starlight, not desiring to be back until the last minute before night taps because he did not wish to break the wonderful evening he had spent with her, that he resolved to try to get leave the next Saturday and go home to thank her.

Back in the barracks with the others he fairly scintillated with wit and kept his comrades in roars of laughter until the officer of the night suppressed them summarily. But long after the others were asleep he lay thinking of her, and listening to the singing of his soul as he watched a star that twinkled with a friendly gleam through a crack in the roof above his cot. Once again there came the thought of God, and a feeling of gratitude for this lovely friendship in his life. If he knew where God was he would like to thank Him. Lying so and looking up to the star he breathed from his heart a wordless thanksgiving.

The next night he wrote and told her he was coming, and asked permission to call and thank her face to face. Then he fairly haunted the post office at mail time the rest of the week hoping for an answer. He had not written his mother about his coming, for he meant not to go this week if there came no word from Ruth. Besides, it would be nice to surprise his mother. Then there was some doubt about his getting a pass anyway, and so between the two anxieties he was kept busy up to the last minute. But Friday evening he got his pass, and in the last mail came a special delivery from Ruth, just a brief note saying she had been away from home when his letter arrived, but she would be delighted to see him on Sunday afternoon as he had suggested.

He felt like a boy let loose from school as he brushed up his uniform and polished his big army shoes while his less fortunate companions kidded him about the girl he was going to see. He denied their thrusts joyously, in his heart repudiating any such personalities, yet somehow it was pleasant. He had never realized how pleasant it would be to have a girl and be going to see her—such a girl! Of course, she was not for him—not with that possessiveness. But she was a friend, a real friend, and he would not let anything spoil the pleasure of that!

He had not thought anything in his army experience could be so exciting as that first ride back home again. Somehow the deference paid to his uniform got into his blood and made him feel that people all along the line really did care for what the boys were doing for them. It made camp life and hardships seem less dreary.

It was great to get back to his little mother and put his big arms around her again. She seemed so small. Had she shrunken since he left her or was he grown so much huskier with the out of door life? Both, perhaps, and he looked at her sorrowfully. She was so little and quiet and brave to bear life all alone. If he only could get back and get to succeeding in life so that he might make some brightness for her. She had borne so much, and she ought not to have looked so old and worn at her age! For a brief instant again his heart was almost bitter, and he wondered what God meant by giving his good little mother so much trouble. Was there a God when such things could be? He resolved to do something about finding out this very day.

It was pleasant to help his mother about the kitchen, saving her as she had not been saved since he left, telling her about the camp, and listening to her tearful admiration of him. She could scarcely take her eyes from him, he seemed so tall and big and handsome in his uniform; he appeared so much older and more manly that her heart yearned for her boy who seemed to be slipping away from her. It was so heavenly blessed to sit down beside him and sew on a button and mend a torn spot in his flannel shirt and have him pat her shoulder now and then contentedly.

Then with pride she sent him down to the store for something nice for dinner, and watched him through the window with a smile, the tears running down her cheeks. How tall and straight he walked! How like his father when she first knew him! She hoped the neighbors all were looking out and would see him. Her boy! Her soldier boy! And he must go away from her, perhaps to die!

But—he was here to-day! She would not think of the rest. She would rejoice now in his presence.

He walked briskly down the street past the houses that had been familiar all his life, meeting people who had never been wont to notice him before; and they smiled upon him from afar now; greeted him with enthusiasm, and turned to look after him as he passed on. It gave him a curious feeling to have so much attention from people who had never known him before. It made him feel strangely small, yet filled with a great pride and patriotism for the country that was his, and the government which he now represented to them all. He was something more to them now than just one of the boys about town who had grown up among them. He was a soldier of the United States. He had given his life for the cause of righteousness. The bitterness he might have felt at their former ignoring of him, was all swallowed up in their genuine and hearty friendliness.

He met the white-haired minister, kindly and dignified, who paused to ask him how he liked camp life and to commend him as a soldier; and looking in his strong gentle face John Cameron remembered his resolve.

He flashed a keen look at the gracious countenance and made up his mind to speak:

"I'd like to ask you a question, Doctor Thurlow. It's been bothering me quite a little ever since this matter of going away to fight has been in my mind. Is there any way that a man—that I can find God? That is, if there is a God. I've never thought much about it before, but life down there in camp makes a lot of things seem different, and I've been wondering. I'm not sure what I believe. Is there anyway I can find out?"

A pleasant gleam of surprise and delight thrilled into the deep blue eyes of the minister. It was startling. It almost embarrassed him for a moment, it was so unexpected to have a soldier ask a question about God. It was almost mortifying that he had never thought it worth while to take the initiative on that question with the young man.

"Why, certainly!" he said heartily. "Of course, of course. I'm very glad to know you are interested in those things. Couldn't you come in to my study and talk with me. I think I could help you. I'm sure I could."

"I haven't much time," said Cameron shyly, half ashamed now that he had opened his heart to an almost stranger. He was not even his mother's minister, and he was a comparative newcomer in the town. How had he come to speak to him so impulsively?

"I understand, exactly, of course," said the minister with growing eagerness. "Could you come in now for five or ten minutes? I'll turn back with you and you can stop on your way, or we can talk as we go. Were you thinking of uniting with the church? We have our communion the first Sunday of next month. I should be very glad if you could arrange. We have a number of young people coming in now. I'd like to see you come with them. The church is a good safe place to be. It was established by God. It is a school in which to learn of Him. It is——"

"But I'm not what you would call a Christian!" protested Cameron. "I don't even know that I believe in the Bible. I don't know what your church believes. I don't have a very definite idea what any church believes. I would be a hypocrite to stand up and join a church when I wasn't sure there was a God."

"My dear young fellow!" said the minister affectionately. "Not at all! Not at all! The church is the place for young people to come when they have doubts. It is a shelter, and a growing place. Just trust yourself to God and come in among His people and your doubts will vanish. Don't worry about doubts. Many people have doubts. Just let them alone and put yourself in the right way and you will forget them. I should be glad to talk with you further. I would like to see you come into communion with God's people. If you want to find God you should come where He has promised to be. It is a great thing to have a fine young fellow like you, and a soldier, array himself on the side of God. I would like to see you stand up on the right side before you go out to meet danger and perhaps death."

John Cameron stood watching him as he talked.

"He's a good old guy," he thought gravely, "but he doesn't get my point. He evidently believes what he says, but I don't just see going blindfolded into a church. However, there's something to what he says about going where God is if I want to find him."

Out loud he merely said:

"I'll think about it, Doctor, and perhaps come in to see you the next time I'm home." Then he excused himself and went on to the store.

As he walked away he said to himself:

"I wonder what Ruth Macdonald would say if I asked her the same question? I wonder if she has thought anything about it? I wonder if I'd ever have the nerve to ask her?"

The next morning he suggested to his mother that they go to Doctor Thurlow's church together. She would have very much preferred going to her own church with him, but she knew that he did not care for the minister and had never been very friendly with the people, so she put aside her secret wish and went with him. To tell the truth she was very proud to go anywhere with her handsome soldier son, and one thing that made her the more willing was that she remembered that the Macdonalds always went to the Presbyterian church, and perhaps they would be there to-day and Ruth would see them. But she said not a word of this to her boy.

John spent most of the time with his mother. He went up to college for an hour or so Saturday evening, dropping in on his fraternity for a few minutes and realizing what true friends he had among the fellows who were left, though most of them were gone. He walked about the familiar rooms, looking at the new pictures, photographs of his friends in uniform. This one was a lieutenant in Officers' Training Camp. That one had gone with the Ambulance Corps. Tom was with the Engineers, and Jimmie and Sam had joined the Tank Service. Two of the fellows were in France in the front ranks, another had enlisted in the Marines, it seemed that hardly any were left, and of those three had been turned down for some slight physical defect, and were working in munition factories and the ship-yard. Everything was changed. The old playmates had become men with earnest purposes. He did not stay long. There was a restlessness about it all that pulled the strings of his heart, and made him realize how different everything was.

Sunday morning as he walked to church with his mother he wondered why he had never gone more with her when he was at home. It seemed a pleasant thing to do.

The service was beautifully solemn, and Doctor Thurlow had many gracious words to say of the boys in the army, and spent much time reading letters from those at the front who belonged to the church and Sunday school, and spoke of the "supreme sacrifice" in the light of a saving grace; but the sermon was a gentle ponderous thing that got nowhere, spiced toward its close with thrilling scenes from battle news. John Cameron as he listened did not feel that he had found God. He did not feel a bit enlightened by it. He laid it to his own ignorance and stupidity, though, and determined not to give up the search. The prayer at the close of the sermon somehow clinched this resolve because there was something so genuine and sweet and earnest about it. He could not help thinking that the man might know more of God than he was able to make plain to his hearers. He had really never noticed either a prayer or a sermon before in his life. He had sat in the room with very few. He wondered if all sermons and prayers were like these and wished he had noticed them. He had never been much of a church goer.

But the climax, the real heart of his whole two days, was after Sunday dinner when he went out to call upon Ruth Macdonald. And it was characteristic of his whole reticent nature, and the way he had been brought up, that he did not tell his mother where he was going. It had never occurred to him to tell her his movements when they did not directly concern her, and she had never brought herself up to ask him. It is the habit of some women, and many mothers.

A great embarrassment fell upon him as he entered the grounds of the Macdonald place, and when he stood before the plate-glass doors waiting for an answer to his ring he would have turned and fled if he had not promised to come.

It was perhaps not an accident that Ruth let him in herself and took him to a big quiet library with wide-open windows overlooking the lawn, and heavy curtains shutting them in from the rest of the house, where, to his great amazement, he could feel at once at ease with her and talk to her just as he had done in her letters and his own.

Somehow it was like having a lifetime dream suddenly fulfilled to be sitting this way in pleasant converse with her, watching the lights and shadows of expression flit across her sensitive face, and knowing that the light in her eyes was for him. It seemed incredible, but she evidently enjoyed talking to him. Afterwards he thought about it as if their souls had been calling to one another across infinite space, things that neither of them could quite hear, and now they were within hailing distance.

He had thanked her for the sweater and other things, and they had talked a little about the old school days and how life changed people, when he happened to glance out of the window near him and saw a man in officer's uniform approaching. He stopped short in the midst of a sentence and rose, his face set, his eyes still on the rapidly approaching soldiers:

"I'm sorry," he said, "I shall have to go. It's been wonderful to come, but I must go at once. Perhaps you'll let me go out this way. It is a shorter cut. Thank you for everything, and perhaps if there's ever another time—I'd like to come again——"

"Oh, please don't go yet!" she said putting out her hand in protest. But he grasped the hand with a quick impulsive grip and with a hasty: "I'm sorry, but I must!" he opened the glass door to the side piazza and was gone.

In much bewilderment and distress Ruth watched him stride away toward the hedge and disappear. Then she turned to the front window and caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Wainwright just mounting the front steps. What did it all mean?



IX

Ruth tried to control her perturbation and meet her guest with an unruffled countenance, but there was something about the bland smug countenance of Lieutenant Wainwright that irritated her. To have her first pleasant visit with Cameron suddenly broken up in this mysterious fashion, and Wainwright substituted for Cameron was somehow like taking a bite of some pleasant fruit and having it turn out plain potato in one's mouth. It was so sudden, like that. She could not seem to get her equilibrium. Her mind was in a whirl of question and she could not focus it on her present caller nor think of anything suitable to say to him. She was not even sure but that he was noticing that she was distraught.

To have John Cameron leave in that precipitate manner at the sight of Harry Wainwright! It was all too evident that he had seen him through the window. But they were fellow townsmen, and had gone to school together! Surely he knew him! Of course, Harry was a superior officer, but Cameron would not be the kind of man to mind that. She could not understand it. There had been a look in his face—a set look! There must be something behind it all. Some reason why he did not want to be seen by Wainwright. Surely Cameron had nothing of which to be ashamed! The thought brought a sudden dismay. What did she know about Cameron after all? A look, a smile, a bit of boyish gallantry. He might be anything but fine in his private life, of course, and Harry might be cognizant of the fact. Yet he did not look like that. Even while the thought forced itself into her mind she resented it and resisted it. Then turning to her guest who was giving an elaborate account of how he had saved a woman's life in an automobile accident, she interrupted him:

"Harry, what do you know about John Cameron?" she asked impulsively.

Wainwright's face darkened with an ugly frown.

"More than I want to know," he answered gruffly. "He's rotten! That's all! Why?" He eyed her suspiciously.

There was something in his tone that put her on the defensive at once:

"Oh, I saw him to-day, and I was wondering," she answered evasively.

"It's one of the annoyances of army life that we have to be herded up with all sorts of cattle!" said Wainwright with a disdainful curl of his baby mustache. "But I didn't come here to talk about John Cameron. I came to tell you that I'm going to be married, Ruth. I'm going to be married before I go to France!"

"Delightful!" said Ruth pleasantly. "Do I know the lady?"

"Indeed you do," he said watching her with satisfaction. "You've known, for several years that you were the only one for me, and I've come to tell you that I won't stand any more dallying. I mean business now!"

He crossed his fat leather puttees creakily and swelled out, trying to look firm. He had decided that he must impress her with the seriousness of the occasion.

But Ruth only laughed merrily. He had been proposing to her ever since he got out of short trousers, and she had always laughed him out of it. The first time she told him that she was only a kid and he wasn't much more himself, and she didn't want to hear any more such talk. Of late he had grown less troublesome, and she had been inclined to settle down to the old neighborly playmate relation, so she was not greatly disturbed by the turn of the conversation. In fact, she was too much upset and annoyed by the sudden departure of Cameron to realize the determined note in Wainwright's voice.

"I mean it!" he said in an offended tone, flattening his double chin and rolling out his fat lips importantly. "I'm not to be played with any longer."

Ruth's face sobered:

"I certainly never had an idea of playing with you, Harry. I think I've always been quite frank with you."

Wainwright felt that he wasn't getting on quite as well as he had planned. He frowned and sat up:

"Now see here, Ruth! Let's talk this thing over!" he said, drawing the big leather chair in which he was sitting nearer to hers.

But Ruth's glance had wandered out of the window. "Why, there comes Bobbie Wetherill!" she exclaimed eagerly and slipped out of her chair to the door just as one of Wainwright's smooth fat hands reached out to take hold of the arm of her rocker. "I'll open the door for him. Mary is in the kitchen and may not hear the bell right away."

There was nothing for Wainwright to do but make the best of the situation, although he greeted Wetherill with no very good grace, and his large lips pouted out sulkily as he relaxed into his chair again to await the departure of the intruder.

Lieutenant Wetherill was quite overwhelmed with the warmth of the greeting he received from Ruth and settled down to enjoy it while it lasted. With a wicked glance of triumph at his rival he laid himself out to make his account of camp life as entertaining as possible. He produced a gorgeous box of bonbons and arranged himself comfortably for the afternoon, while Wainwright's brow grew darker and his lips pouted out farther and farther under his petted little moustache. It was all a great bore to Ruth just now with her mind full of the annoyance about Cameron. At least she would have preferred to have had her talk with him and found out what he was with her own judgment. But anything was better than, a tete-a-tete with Wainwright just now; so she ate bonbons and asked questions, and kept the conversation going, ignoring Wainwright's increasing grouch.

It was a great relief, however, when about half-past four the maid appeared at the door:

"A long distance telephone call for you, Miss Ruth."

As Ruth was going up the stairs to her own private 'phone she paused to fasten the tie of her low shoe that had come undone and was threatening to trip her, and she heard Harry Wainwright's voice in an angry snarl:

"What business did you have coming here to-day, you darned chump! You knew what I came for, and you did it on purpose! If you don't get out the minute she gets back I'll put her wise to you and the kind of girls you go with in no time. And you needn't think you can turn the tables on me, either, for I'll fix you so you won't dare open your fool mouth!"

The sentence finished with an oath and Ruth hurried into her room and shut the door with a sick kind of feeling that her whole little world was turning black about her.

It was good to hear the voice of her cousin, Captain La Rue, over the 'phone, even though it was but a message that he could not come as he had promised that evening. It reassured her that there were good men in the world. Of course, he was older, but she was sure he had never been what people called "wild," although he had plenty of courage and spirit. She had often heard that good men were few, but it had never seemed to apply to her world but vaguely. Now here of a sudden a slur had been thrown at three of her young world. John Cameron, it is true, was a comparative stranger, and, of course, she had no means of judging except by the look in his eyes. She understood in a general way that "rotten" as applied to a young man's character implied uncleanness. John Cameron's eyes were steady and clear. They did not look that way. But then, how could she tell? And here, this very minute she had been hearing that Bobbie Wetherill's life was not all that it should be and Wainwright had tacitly accepted the possibility of the same weakness in himself. These were boys with whom she had been brought up. Selfish and conceited she had often thought them on occasion, but it had not occurred to her that there might be anything worse. She pressed her hands to her eyes and tried to force a calm steadiness into her soul. Somehow she had an utter distaste for going back into that library and hearing their boastful chatter. Yet she must go. She had been hoping all the afternoon for her cousin's arrival to send the other two away. Now that was out of the question and she must use her own tact to get pleasantly rid of them. With a sigh she opened her door and started down stairs again.

It was Wainwright's blatant voice again that broke through the Sabbath afternoon stillness of the house as she approached the library door:

"Yes, I've got John Cameron all right now!" he laughed. "He won't hold his head so high after he's spent a few days in the guard-house. And that's what they're all going to get that are late coming back this time. I found out before I left camp that his pass only reads till eleven o'clock and the five o'clock train is the last one he can leave Chester on to get him to camp by eleven. So I hired a fellow that was coming up to buddy-up to Cam and fix it that he is to get a friend of his to take them over to Chester in time for the train. The fellow don't have to get back himself to-night at all, but he isn't going to let on, you know, so Cam will think they're in the same boat. Then they're going to have a little bit of tire trouble, down in that lonely bit of rough road, that short cut between here and Chester, where there aren't any cars passing to help them out, and they'll miss the train at Chester. See? And then the man will offer to take them on to camp in his car and they'll get stuck again down beyond Wilmington, lose the road, and switch off toward Singleton—you know, where we took those girls to that little out-of-the-way tavern that time—and you see Cam getting back to camp in time, don't you?"

Ruth had paused with her hand on the heavy portiere, wide-eyed.

"But Cameron'll find a way out. He's too sharp. He'll start to walk, or he'll get some passing car to take him," said Wetherill with conviction.

"No, he won't. The fellows are all primed. They're going to catch him in spots where cars don't go, where the road is bad, you know, and nobody but a fool would go with a car. He won't be noticing before they break down because this fellow told him his man could drive a car over the moon and never break down. Besides, I know my men. They'll get away with the job. There's too much money in it for them to run any risk of losing out. It's all going to happen so quick he won't be ready for anything."

"Well, you'll have your trouble for your pains. Cam'll explain everything to the officers and he'll get by. He always does."

"Not this time. They've just made a rule that no excuses go. There've been a lot of fellows coming back late drunk. And you see that's how we mean to wind up. They are going to get him drunk, and then we'll see if little Johnnie will go around with his nose in the air any longer! I'm going to run down to the tavern late this evening to see the fun my self!"

"You can't do it! Cam won't drink! It's been tried again and again. He'd rather die!"

But the girl at the door had fled to her room on velvet shod feet and closed her door, her face white with horror, her lips set with purpose, her heart beating wildly. She must put a stop somehow to this diabolical plot against him. Whether he was worthy or not they should not do this thing to him! She rang for the maid and began putting on her hat and coat and flinging a few things into a small bag. She glanced at her watch. It was a quarter to five. Could she make it? If she only knew which way he had gone! Would his mother have a telephone? Her eyes scanned the C column hurriedly. Yes, there it was. She might have known he would not allow her to be alone without a telephone.

The maid appeared at the door.

"Mary," she said, trying to speak calmly, "tell Thomas to have the gray car ready at once. He needn't bring it to the house, I will come out the back way. Please take this bag and two long coats out, and when I am gone go to the library and ask the two gentlemen there to excuse me. Say that I am suddenly called away to a friend in trouble. If Aunt Rhoda returns soon tell her I will call her up later and let her know my plans. That is all. I will be down in two or three minutes and I wish to start without delay!"

Mary departed on her errand and Ruth went to the telephone and called up the Cameron number.

The sadness of the answering voice struck her even in her haste. Her own tone was eager, intimate, as she hastened to convey her message.

"Mrs. Cameron, this is Ruth Macdonald. Has your son left yet? I was wondering if he would care to be taken to the train in our car?"

"Oh! he has just gone!" came a pitiful little gasp that had a sob at the end of it. "He went in somebody's car and they were late coming. I'm afraid he is going to miss his train and he has got to get it or he will be in trouble! That is the last train that connects with Wilmington."

Ruth's heart leaped to her opportunity.

"Suppose we try to catch him then," proposed Ruth gleefully. "My car can go pretty fast, and if he has missed the train perhaps we can carry him on to Wilmington. Would you like to try?"

"Oh, could we?" the voice throbbed with eagerness.

"Hurry up then. My car is all ready. I'll be down there in three minutes. We've no time to waste. Put on something warm!"

She hung up the receiver without waiting for further reply, and hurried softly out of the room and down the back stairs.

Thomas was well trained. The cars were always in order. He was used to Ruth's hurry calls, and when she reached the garage she found the car standing in the back street waiting for her. In a moment more she was rushing on her way toward the village without having aroused the suspicion of the two men who so impatiently awaited her return. Mrs. Cameron was ready, eager as a child, standing on the sidewalk with a great blanket shawl over her arm and looking up the street for her.

It was not until they had swept through the village, over the bridge, and were out on the broad highway toward Chester that Ruth began to realize what a wild goose chase she had undertaken. Just where did she expect to find them, anyway? It was now three minutes to five by the little clock in the car and it was a full fifteen minutes' drive to Chester. The plan had been to delay him on the way to the train, and there had been mention of a short cut. Could that be the rough stony road that turned down sharply just beyond the stone quarry? It seemed hardly possible that anybody would attempt to run a car over that road. Surely John Cameron knew the roads about here well enough to advise against it. Still, Ruth knew the locality like a book and that was the only short cut thereabout. If they had gone down there they might emerge at the other end just in time to miss the train, and then start on toward Wilmington. Or they might turn back and take the longer way if they found the short road utterly impassable. Which should she take? Should she dare that rocky way? If only there might be some tracks to guide her. But the road was hard and dusty and told no tales of recent travelers. They skimmed down the grade past the stone quarry, and the short cut flashed into view, rough and hilly, turning sharply away behind a group of spruce trees. It was thick woods beyond. If she went that way and got into any trouble with her machine the chances were few that anyone would some along to help. She had but a moment to decide, and something told her that the long way was the safe one and shorter in the end. She swept on, her engine throbbing with that pleasant purr of expensive well-groomed machinery, the car leaping forward as if it delighted in the high speed. The little woman by her side sat breathless and eager, with shining eyes, looking ahead for her boy.

They passed car after car, and Ruth scanned the occupants keenly. Some were filled with soldiers, but John Cameron was not among them. She began to be afraid that perhaps she ought after all to have gone down that hilly way and made sure they were not there. She was not quite sure where that short road came out. If she knew she might run up a little way from this further end.

The two women sat almost silent, straining their eyes ahead. They had said hardly a word since the first greeting. Each seemed to understand the thought of the other without words. For the present they had but one common object, to find John Cameron.

Suddenly, as far ahead as they could see, a car darted out of the wooded roadside, swung into their road and plunged ahead at a tremendous rate. They had a glimpse of khaki uniforms, but it was much too far away to distinguish faces or forms. Nevertheless, both women fastened their eyes upon it with but one thought. Ruth put on more speed and forged ahead, thankful that she was not within city lines yet, and that there was no one about to remind her of the speed limit. Something told her that the man she was seeking was in that car ahead.

It was a thrilling race. Ruth said no word, but she knew that her companion was aware that she was chasing that car. Mrs. Cameron sat straight and tense as if it had been a race of life and death, her cheeks glowing and her eyes shining. Ruth was grateful that she did not talk. Some women would have talked incessantly.

The other car did not go in to Chester proper at all, but veered away into a branch road and Ruth followed, leaping over the road as if it had been a gray velvet ribbon. She did not seem to be gaining on the car; but it was encouraging that they could keep it still in sight. Then there came a sharp turn of the road and it was gone. They were pulsing along now at a tremendous rate. The girl had cast caution to the winds. She was hearing the complacent sneer of Harry Wainwright as he boasted how they would get John Cameron into trouble, and all the force of her strong young will was enlisted to frustrate his plans.

It was growing dusk, and lights leaped out on the munition factories all about them. Along the river other lights flashed and flickered in the white mist that rose like a wreath. But Ruth saw nothing of it all. She was straining her eyes for the little black speck of a car which she had been following and which now seemed to be swallowed up by the evening. She had not relaxed her speed, and the miles were whirling by, and she had a growing consciousness that she might be passing the object of her chase at any minute without knowing it. Presently they came to a junction of three roads, and she paused. On ahead the road was broad and empty save for a car coming towards them. Off to the right was a desolate way leading to a little cemetery. Down to the left a smooth wooded road wound into the darkness. There were sign boards up. Ruth leaned out and flashed a pocket torch on the board. "TO PINE TREE INN, 7 Miles" it read. Did she fancy it or was it really true that she could hear the distant sound of a car among the pines?

"I'm going down this way!" she said decidedly to her companion, as if her action needed an explanation, and she turned her car into the new road.

"But it's too late now," said Mrs. Cameron wistfully. "The train will be gone, of course, even from Wilmington. And you ought to be going home. I'm very wrong to have let you come so far; and it's getting dark. Your folks will be worrying about you. That man will likely do his best to get him to camp in time."

"No," said Ruth decidedly, "there's no one at home to worry just now, and I often go about alone rather late. Besides, aren't we having a good time? We're going a little further anyway before we give up."

She began to wonder in her heart if she ought not to have told somebody else and taken Thomas along to help. It was rather a questionable thing for her to do, in the dusk of the evening—to women all alone. But then, she had Mrs. Cameron along and that made it perfectly respectable. But if she failed now, what else could she do? Her blood boiled hotly at the thought of letting Harry Wainwright succeed in his miserable plot. Oh, for cousin La Rue! He would have thought a way out of this. If everything else failed she would tell the whole story to Captain La Rue and beg him to exonerate John Cameron. But that, of course, she knew would be hard to do, there was so much red tape in the army, and there were so many unwritten laws that could not be set aside just for private individuals. Still, there must be a way if she had to go herself to someone and tell what she had overheard. She set her pretty lips firmly and rode on at a brisk pace down the dark road, switching on her head lights to seem the way here in the woods. And then suddenly, just in time she jerked on the brake and came to a jarring stop, for ahead of her a big car was sprawled across the road, and there, rising hurriedly from a kneeling posture before the engine, in the full blaze of her headlights, blinking and frowning with anxiety, stood John Cameron!



X

The end of her chase came so unexpectedly that her wits were completely scattered. Now that she was face to face with the tall soldier she had nothing to say for her presence there. What would he think of her? How could she explain her coming? She had undertaken the whole thing in such haste that she had not planned ahead. Now she knew that from the start she had understood that she must not explain how she came to be possessed of any information concerning him. She felt a kind of responsible shame for her old playmate Harry Wainright, and a certain loyalty toward her own social set that prevented her from that, the only possible explanation that could make her coming justifiable. So, now in the brief interval before he had recognized them she must stage the next act, and she found herself unable to speak, her throat dry, her lips for the instant paralyzed. It was the jubilant little mother that stepped into the crisis and did the most natural thing in the world:

"John! Oh John! It's really you! We've caught you!" she cried, and the troubled young soldier peering into the dusk to discover if here was a vehicle he might presume to commandeer to help him out of his predicament lifted startled eyes to the two faces in the car and strode forward, abandoning with a clang the wrench with which he had been working on the car.

"Mother!" he said, a shade of deep anxiety in his voice. "What is the matter? How came you to be here?"

"Why, I came after you," she said laughing like a girl. "We're going to see that you get to camp in time. We've made pretty good time so far. Jump in quick and we'll tell you the rest on the way. We mustn't waste time."

Cameron's startled gaze turned on Ruth now, and a great wonder and delight sprang up in his eyes. It was like the day when he went away on the train, only more so, and it brought a rich flush into Ruth's cheeks. As she felt the hot waves she was glad that she was sitting behind the light.

"What! You?" he breathed wonderingly. "But this is too much! And after the way I treated you!"

His mother looked wonderingly from one to the other:

"Get in, John, quick. We mustn't lose a minute. Something might delay us later." It was plain she was deeply impressed with the necessity for the soldier not to be found wanting.

"Yes, please get in quickly, and let us start. Then we can talk!" said Ruth, casting an anxious glance toward the other car.

His hand went out to the door to open it, the wonder still shining in his face, when a low murmur like a growl went up behind him.

Ruth looked up, and there in the full glare of the lights stood two burly civilians and a big soldier:

"Oh, I say!" drawled the soldier in no very pleasant tone, "you're not going to desert us that way! Not after Pass came out of his way for us! I didn't think you had a yellow streak!"

Cameron paused and a troubled look came into his face. He glanced at the empty back seat with a repression of his disappointment in the necessity.

"There's another fellow here that has to get back at the same time I do," he said looking at Ruth hesitatingly.

"Certainly. Ask him, of course." Ruth's voice was hearty and put the whole car at his disposal.

"There's room for you, too, Chalmers," he said with relief. "And Passmore will be glad to get rid of us I suspect. He'll be able to get home soon. There isn't much the matter with that engine. If you do what I told you to that carburetor you'll find it will go all right. Come on, Chalmers. We ought to hurry!"

"No thanks! I stick to my friends!" said the soldier shortly.

"As you please!" said Cameron stepping on the running board.

"Not as you please!" said a gruff voice, "I'm running this party and we all go together? See?" A heavy hand came down upon Cameron's shoulder with a mighty grip.

Cameron landed a smashing blow under the man's chin which sent him reeling and sprang inside as Ruth threw in the clutch and sent her car leaping forward. The two men in front were taken by surprise and barely got out of the way in time, but instantly recovered their senses and sprang after the car, the one nearest her reaching for the wheel. Cameron, leaning forward, sent him rolling down the gully, and Ruth turned the car sharply to avoid the other car which was occupying as much of the road as possible, and left the third man scrambling to his knees behind her. It was taking a big chance to dash past that car in the narrow space over rough ground, but Ruth was not conscious of anything but the necessity of getting away. In an instant they were back in the road and flashing along through the dark.

"Mother, you better let me help you back here," said her son leaning forward and almost lifting his mother into the back seat, then stepping over to take her place beside Ruth.

"Better turn out your back lights!" he said in a quiet, steady voice. "They might follow, you know. They're in an ugly mood. They've been drinking."

"Then the car isn't really out of commission?"

"Not seriously."

"We're not on the right road, did you know? This road goes to The Pine Tree Inn and Singleton!"

Cameron gave a low exclamation:

"Then they're headed for more liquor. I thought something was up."

"Is there a cross road back to the Pike?"

"I'm not sure. Probably. I know there is about three miles farther on, almost to the Inn. This is an awful mess to have got you into! I'd rather have been in the guard house than have this happen to you!"

"Please don't!" said Ruth earnestly. "It's an adventure! I'm enjoying it. I'm not a doll to be kept in cotton wool!"

"I should say not!" said Cameron with deep admiration in his tone. "You haven't shown yourself much of a doll to-night. Some doll, to run a car the way you did in the face of all that. I'll tell you better what I think when we get out of this!"

"They are coming, I believe!" said Ruth glancing back. "Don't you see a light? Look!"

Mrs. Cameron was looking, too, through the little back window. Now she spoke quietly:

"Wouldn't it be better to get out and slip up in the woods till they have gone by?"

"No, mother!" said Cameron quickly, "just you sit quiet where you are and trust us."

"Something awful might happen, John!"

"No, mother! Don't you worry!" he said in his gentle, manly tone. Then to Ruth: "There's a big barn ahead there on your left. Keep your eye out for a road around behind it. If we could disappear it's too dark for them to know where we are. Would you care to turn out all the lights and let me run the car? I don't want to boast but there isn't much of anything I can't do with a car when I have to."

Instantly Ruth switched out every light and with a relieved "Please!" gave up the wheel to him. They made the change swiftly and silently, and Ruth took the post of lookout.

"Yes, I can see two lights. It might be someone else, mightn't it?"

"Not likely, on this road. But we're not taking any chances," and with that the car bumped down across a gully and lurched up to a grassy approach to a big stone barn that loomed above them, then slid down another bank and passed close to a great haystack, whose clutching straw fingers reached out to brush their faces, and so swept softly around to the rear of the barn and stopped. Cameron shut off the engine instantly and they sat in utter silence listening to the oncoming car.

"It's they, all right!" whispered Cameron softly. "That's Passmore's voice. He converses almost wholly in choice profanity."

His mother's hand stole out to touch his shoulder and he reached around and held it close.

"Don't tremble, mother, we're all safe!" he whispered in a tone so tender that Ruth felt a shiver of pleasure pass over her for the mother who had such a son. Also there was the instant thought that a man could not be wholly "rotten" when he could speak to his mother in that tone.

There was a breathless space when the car paused on the road not far away and their pursuers stood up and looked around, shouting to one another. There was no mistaking their identity now. Ruth shivered visibly. One of them got out of the car and came toward the barn. They could hear him stepping over the stony roadside. Cameron laid a quiet hand of reassuring protection on her arm that steadied her and made her feel wonderfully safe once more, and strange to say she found herself lifting up another queer little kind of a prayer. It had never been her habit to pray much except in form. Her heart had seldom needed anything that money could not supply.

The man had stumbled across the gully and up toward the barn. They could hear him swearing at the unevenness of the ground, and Ruth held her breath and prayed again. A moment more and he was fumbling about for the barn door and calling for a flash light. Then, like the distant sound of a mighty angel of deliverance came the rumble of a car in the distance. The men heard it and took it for their quarry on ahead. They climbed into their car again and were gone like a flash.

John Cameron did not wait for them to get far away. He set the car in motion as soon as they were out of sight, and its expensive mechanism obeyed his direction almost silently as he guided it around the barn, behind the haystack and back again into the road over which they had just come.

"Now!" he said as he put the car to its best speed and switched on its headlights again. "Now we can beat them to it, I guess, if they come back this way, which I don't think they will."

The car dashed over the ground and the three sat silent while they passed into the woods and over the place where they had first met Cameron. Ruth felt herself trembling again, and her teeth beginning to chatter from the strain. Cameron seemed to realize her feeling and turned toward her:

"You've been wonderful!" he said flashing a warm look at her, "and you, too, mother!" lifting his voice a little and turning his head toward the back seat. "I don't believe any other two women in Bryne Haven could have gone through a scene like that and kept absolutely still. You were great!" There was that in his voice that lifted Ruth's heart more than any praise she had ever received for anything. She wanted to make some acknowledgment, but she found to her surprise that tears were choking her throat so that she could not speak. It was the excitement, of course, she told herself, and struggled to get control of her emotion.

They emerged from the woods and in sight of the Pike at last, and Cameron drew a long breath of relief.

"There, I guess we can hold our own with anyone, now," he said settling back in his seat, but relaxing none of his vigilance toward the car which sped along the highway like a winged thing. "But it's time I heard how you came to be here. I haven't been able to explain it, during the intervals when I've had any chance at all to think about it."

"Oh, I just called up your mother to know if it would help you any to be taken to your train," said Ruth quickly, "and she mentioned that she was worried lest you would miss it; so I suggested that we try to catch you and take you on to Wilmington or Baltimore or wherever you have to go. I do hope this delay hasn't spoiled it all. How long does it take to go from Baltimore to camp. I've taken the Baltimore trip myself in five hours. It's only quarter past six yet, do you think we can make it?"

"But you can't go all the way to Baltimore!" he exclaimed. "What would you and mother do at that time of night alone after I go to camp? You see, it isn't as if I could stay and come back with you."

"Oh, we'll just go to a hotel in Baltimore, won't we, Mrs. Cameron? We'll be all right if we only get you safe to camp. Do you think we can do it?"

"Oh, yes, we can do it all right with this car. But I'm quite sure I ought not to let you do it just for me. What will your people think?"

"I've left word that I've gone to a friend in trouble," twinkled Ruth. "I'll call them up when I get to Baltimore, and make it all right with Auntie. She will trust me."

Cameron turned and looked at her wonderingly, reverently.

"It's wonderful that you should do this for me," he said in a low tone, quite low, so that the watching wistful mother could not even guess what he was saying.

"It's not in the least wonderful," said Ruth brightly. "Remember the hedge and Chuck Woodcock!" She was beginning to get her self possession again.

"You are paying that old score back in compound interest," said Cameron.

That was a wonderful ride rushing along beneath the stars, going back to childhood's days and getting acquainted again where they left off. Ruth forgot all about the cause of her wild chase, and the two young men she had left disconsolate in her library at home; forgot her own world in this new beautiful one, wherein her spirit really communed with another spirit; forgot utterly what Wainwright had said about Cameron as more and more through their talk she came to see the fineness of his character.

They flashed on from one little village to another, leaving one clustering glimmer of lights in the distance only to pass to other clustering groups. It was in their favor that there were not many other travellers to dispute their way, and they were hindered very little. Cameron had made the trip many times and knew the roads well. They did not have to hesitate and enquire the way. They made good time. The clocks were striking ten when they reached the outskirts of Baltimore.

"Now," said Ruth in a sweetly imperious tone, consulting her timepiece to be sure she had counted the clock strokes correctly, "do you know what you are going to do, Mr. Corporal? You are going to land your mother and me at the nearest hotel, and take the car with you back to camp. You said one of the fellows had his car down there, so I'm sure you'll be able to find a place to put it over night. If you find a way to send the car back to us in the morning, well and good. If not your mother and I will go home by train and the chauffeur can come down to-morrow and bring back the car; or, better still, you can drive yourself up the next time you get leave off."

There was much argument about the matter within a brief space of time, but in the end (which came in five minutes) Ruth had her way, and the young soldier departed for his camp in the gray car with ample time to make the short trip, leaving his mother and Ruth at a Baltimore hotel; after having promised to call up in the morning and let them know what he could do about the car.

Ruth selected a large double room and went at once to the telephone to call up her aunt. She found to her relief that that good lady had not yet returned from her day with a friend in the city, so that no explanations would be necessary that night. She left word with the servant that she was in Baltimore with a friend and would probably be at home the next day sometime. Then she turned to find to her dismay that her companion was sitting in a low-armed chair with tears running down her cheeks.

"Oh, my dear!" she exclaimed rushing over to her, "you are all worn out!"

"Not a bit of it!" sobbed the mother with a smile like sunshine through her tears. "I was so happy I couldn't keep from crying. Don't you ever get that way? I've just been watching you and thinking what a dear beautiful child you are and how wonderful God has been to send you to help my boy. Oh, it was so dreadful to me to think of him going down to camp with those men! My dear, I smelt liquor on their breath when they came for him, and I was just crying and praying about it when you called me up. Of course, I knew my boy wouldn't drink, but so many accidents can happen with automobiles when the driver is drunk! My dear, I never can thank you enough!"

They were both too excited to sleep soon, but long after the mother was asleep Ruth lay awake going over the whole day and wondering. There were so many things about the incident of the afternoon and evening, now that they were over, that were utterly out of accord with her whole life heretofore. She felt intuitively that her aunt would never understand if she were to explain the whole proceeding. There were so many laws of her little world of conventionalities that she had transgressed, and so many qualms of a belated conscience about whether she ought to have done it at all. What would Cameron think of her, anyway? Her cheeks burned hot in the dark over that question. Strange she had not thought of it at all either beforehand or while she sat beside him during that wonderful ride! And now the thing that Wainwright had said shouted itself out to her ears: "Rotten! Rotten! Rotten!" like a dirge. Suppose he were? It couldn't be true. It just couldn't, but suppose he were? Well, suppose he were! How was she hurt by doing a kind act? Having taken that stand against all her former ideas Ruth had instant peace and drifted into dreams of what she had been enjoying, the way suddenly lit by a sleepy remembrance of Wetherill's declaration: "He won't drink! You can't make him! It's been tried again and again!" There was evidence in his favor. Why hadn't she remembered that before? And his mother! She had been so sure of him!

The telephone bell wakened her with a message from camp. His voice greeted her pleasantly with the word that it was all right, he had reached camp in plenty of time, found a good place for the car, and it would be at the hotel at nine o'clock. Ruth turned from the phone with a vague disappointment. He had not said a word of thanks or good-bye or anything, only that he must hurry. Not even a word to his mother. But then, of course, men did not think of those little things, perhaps, as women did, and maybe it was just as well for him to take it all as a matter of course. It made it less embarrassing for her.

But when they went down to the car, behold he was in it!

"I got leave off for the morning," he explained smiling. "I told my captain all about how you got me back in time when I'd missed the train and he told me to see you as far as Wilmington and catch the noon train back from there. He's a peach of a captain. If my lieutenant had been there I wouldn't have got a chance to ask him. I was afraid of that last night. But for good luck the lieutenant has a two days' leave this time. He's a mess!"

Ruth looked at him musingly. Was Harry Wainwright the lieutenant?

They had a golden morning together, and talked of many things that welded a friendship already well begun.

"Weren't you at all frightened last night?" asked Cameron once, looking at the delicate beauty of the face beside him and noting the strength and sweetness of it.

Mrs. Cameron was dozing in the back seat and they felt quite alone and free. Ruth looked up at him frankly:

"Why, yes, I think I was for a minute or two while we were behind that barn, but——Did you ever pray when you were in a trying situation?"

He looked down earnestly into her face, half startled at her words:

"Why, I don't know that I ever did. I'm not quite sure if it was praying."

"Well, I don't know that I ever did before," she went on thoughtfully, "but last night when those men got out of their car in front of the barn so near us again, I found myself praying." She dropped her eyes half embarrassed: "Just as if I were a frightened little child I found myself saying: 'God help us! God help us!' And right away we heard that other car coming and the men went away. It somehow seemed—well, strange! I wondered if anybody else ever had an experience like that."

"I've heard of them," said Cameron gravely. "I've wondered sometimes myself. Do you believe in God?"

"Oh, yes!" said Ruth quite firmly. "Of course. What use would there be in anything if there wasn't a God?"

"But do you believe we humans can ever really—well, find Him? On this earth, I mean."

"Why, I don't know that I ever thought about it," she answered bewildered. "Find Him? In what way do you mean?"

"Why, get in touch with Him? Get to know Him, perhaps. Be on such terms with Him that one could call out in a time like last night, you know; or—well, say in a battle! I've been thinking a lot about that lately—naturally."

"Oh!" gasped Ruth softly, "of course. I hadn't thought about that much, either. We've been so thoughtless—and—and sort of happy you know, just like butterflies, we girls! I haven't realized that men were going out to face Death!"

"It isn't that I'm afraid to die," said Cameron proudly lifting his chin as if dying were a small matter, "not just the dying part. I reckon I've been through worse than that a dozen times. That wouldn't last long. It's—the other part. I have a feeling there'll be a little something more expected of me than just to have tried to get the most fun out of life. I've been thinking if there is a God He'd expect us to find it out and make things straight between us somehow. I suppose I don't make myself very plain. I don't believe I know myself just what I mean."

"I think I understand just a little," said Ruth, "I have never thought about it before, but I'm going to now. It's something we ought to think about, I guess. In a sense it's something that each one of us has to think, whether we are going into battle or not, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is, only we never realize it when things are going along all right," said Cameron. "It seems queer that everybody that's ever lived on this earth has had this question to face sooner or later and most of them haven't done much about it. The few people who profess to have found a way to meet it we call cranks, or else pick flaws in the way they live; although it does seem to me that if I really found God so I was sure He was there and cared about me, I'd manage to live a little decenter life than some do."

They drifted into other topics and all too soon they reached Wilmington and had to say good-bye. But the thought stayed with Ruth more or less during the days that followed, and crept into her letters when she wrote to Corporal Cameron, as she did quite often in these days; and still no solution had come to the great question which was so like the one of old, "What shall I do to be saved?" It came and went during the days that followed, and now and again the fact that it had originated in a talk with Cameron clashed badly in her mind with that word "Rotten" that Wainwright had used about him. So that at last she resolved to talk to her cousin, Captain La Rue, the next time he came up.

"Cousin Captain," she said, "do you know a boy at your camp from Bryne Haven named John Cameron?"

"Indeed I do!" said the captain.

"What kind of a man is he?"

"The best young man I know in every way," answered the captain promptly. "If the world were made up of men like him it would be a pretty good place in which to live. Do you know him?"

"A little," said Ruth evasively, with a satisfied smile on her lips. "His mother is in our Red Cross now. She thinks he's about right, of course, but mothers usually do, I guess. I'll have to tell her what you said. It will please her. He used to be in school with me years ago. I haven't seen much of him since."

"Well, all I have to say is, improve your acquaintance if you get the chance. He's worth ten to one of your society youths that loll around here almost every time I come."

"Now, Cousin Captain!" chided Ruth. But she went off smiling and she kept all his words in her heart.



XII

Corporal Cameron did not soon return to his native town. An epidemic of measles broke out in camp just before Thanksgiving and pursued its tantalizing course through his special barracks with strenuous vigor. Quarantine was put on for three weeks, and was but lifted for a few hours when a new batch of cases came down. Seven weeks more of isolation followed, when the men were not allowed away from the barracks except for long lonely walks, or gallops across camp. Even the mild excitements of the Y.M.C.A. huts were not for them in these days. They were much shut up to themselves, and latent tendencies broke loose and ran riot. Shooting crap became a passion. They gambled as long as they had a dollar left or could get credit on the next month's pay day. Then they gambled for their shirts and their bayonets. All day long whenever they were in the barracks, you could hear the rattle of the dice, and the familiar call of "Phoebe," "Big Dick," "Big Nick," and "Little Joe." When they were not on drill the men would infest the barracks for hours at a time, gathered in crouching groups about the dice, the air thick and blue with cigarette smoke; while others had nothing better to do than to sprawl on their cots and talk; and from their talk Cameron often turned away nauseated. The low ideals, the open boasting of shame, the matter-of-course conviction that all men and most women were as bad as themselves, filled him with a deep boiling rage, and he would close his book or throw down the paper with which he was trying to while the hour, and fling forth into the cold air for a solitary ride or walk.