aim of her existence anymore. Something had happened to her since Charlie Montgomery had told her of his love for her and the great undertaking to which his life was pledged. To a large extent that undertaking must be hers, too, hers for interest and prayers. Hers to place first in the list of daily plans. Hers to cherish as the greatest possible undertaking. Because she and Charlie were one in heart now, they must be one in purpose, too. And if, in the working out of that purpose, it came about that Charlie had to die to accomplish it, well then, it was her part to die, too, to a lot of interests that had up to this point been a part of her life.
But she couldn't tell all this to her mother now. Mother would protest and tell her she was crazy. Mother didn't know what it was to love someone who was going out to die. She would say Blythe was morbid. She would turn heaven and earth to get her interested in the world and get her out among the young people again, make her stop her delightful work among the nursery babies, and maybe make her stop even the Red Cross classes. Mother would tell people that Blythe hadn't seemed well lately and she felt her daughter needed a rest, maybe insist upon her going away somewhere, to the shore or the mountains or down to Florida. There was nothing in life that Blythe wanted to do less than to go away from the home where Charlie would write if he had any opportunity to write at all. Oh, what should she do?
Of course, if worst came to worst, she could tell her mother the whole story, tell of Charlie's coming and how she had always admired him. But could she make Mother understand now, after all this excitement? Evidently her mother was thoroughly on Dan's mother's side and willing to have Dan take her out anywhere, just so that his mother's worries might be appeased. But Mother just did not understand, and how could Blythe make her see it in the right way? Mother had always been so sane and reasonable. She wouldn't for a moment approve of things Dan did and said when he was out among that crowd whose company he seemed to enjoy so much. Was it possible that Dan could be turned back to a more refined crowd? Was it really right that she should try to help him in this way? How the thought of it irked her, in the light of the wonderful love of a real man!
Well, she would have to think this out, try to find out what her duty was, and of course if it was duty, she must do it. But it need have nothing to do with the new joy that had come into her life. That was something secure, that was hers. So far, hers in secret, but hers, and it was something that nothing, nobody could ever take away from her. Not even death, because it was that rendezvous with death that had set his heart free to come to her and tell her of his love. Oh, death could be cruel, cruel, and the fear of death could bring agony—the death of a beloved one! But death with all its stings could not take her beloved's love away from her. Somehow that thought bore her along over the immediate present with its problems and bravely into the dim future that loomed ahead with so many terrible possibilities. She must sit down and think this thing all through and see what was the right thing to do. Oh, if she only had somebody to talk it over with.
Of course her mother, normally, would be the one, the only confidante she had ever had. But how could her mother judge aright in this thing? She would be too horrified by the unknown. Charlie would mean nothing to her now but a menace. She would not at first realize what a difference death made in the conventions of the world. Even if it was only a rendezvous and didn't reach a final end, it did make a difference, and by and by when this matter of pleasing Mrs. Seavers was past, she was sure it would all be perfectly understood by her mother. Anyway, it wasn't really hers to tell—yet. It was their precious secret, hers and Charlie's.
All these things flashed through her mind like a message she was reading to herself, while her mother talked on.
And then her mother, watching her daughter's changing expressions, finally dropped wearily into a chair and said, "Oh Blythe! What is the matter with you? It is not like you to be so regardless of others' needs. Why will you not give the help you can so easily give? If you could have seen his poor mother!"
Suddenly Blythe put on a resolute look.
"Why, of course, Mother, I'll do all I can to influence Dan for the right things, but you don't seem to understand that he practically wants to own me, to order me around, and insist I shall go whenever he commands."
"Oh my dear! I don't think he means it that way. He just likes you very much, and really wants your company."
Blythe's face grew serious.
"Well, perhaps," she said hesitantly. "But to-night I didn't want to go, and I felt I had a right to say no. Bedsides, Mother, people are beginning to talk as if Dan and I were engaged and we're not. I don't want people to get that idea! I don't like to be watched and talked about!"
"Nonsense!" said her mother. "Nobody is talking about you. That's just a sign you're getting self-centered. I don't believe anybody has ever thought of such a thing."
"Yes, they have," said Blythe firmly. "I heard them myself to-day as I was going into the Red Cross room."
"You heard someone talking about you? Who in the world would dare to do that?"
"Oh, it was only Anne Houghton, and she's always been disagreeable and jealous, but she was talking to Mrs. Bruce, and she assented to everything Anne said, and I just felt as if I wanted to get out and get away from them all. I won't desert the work I've promised to do for the war. But I do think I'd rather not go out quite so much with Dan. Oh, I'll go sometimes, of course, but please don't urge me when you see I'd rather not."
"Why, of course not, dear," said her mother anxiously, "but I wish you would tell me what they said that has made you feel so uncomfortable."
"Oh, Anne was just saying that I thought I was so great because I had Dan Seavers tagging around with me everywhere, that I wouldn't let him out of my sight, and things like that. Mother, I don't like to be talked about that way. It takes all the joy out of life."
"Well, of course it isn't pleasant," said her mother thoughtfully. "But, after all, that wasn't such a dreadful thing for her to say. She's probably jealous. Maybe she admires him herself very much. However, I don't want to urge you to do anything that does not seem pleasant to you."
"Thank you, Mother dear," said Blythe, coming over to her mother and kissing her tenderly, and as she stood so with her mother's arms about her, she felt a quick impulse to tell her all about Charlie Montgomery. And perhaps she would have done so, except that her father came in just then with some news about the war that he had just heard, and the time seemed again not to be just right for the story. Perhaps she should wait and think it over a little more, plan out in her mind just how she would make them understand what kind of a boy Charlie had always been, introduce him to them as it were, bit by bit, so that they would see the beauty and tenderness of his nature. So that they would not be shocked by the abruptness of what he had done in telling her, an almost stranger, that he loved her.
Then her father turned on the radio and there came a session of reports of what had been going on in some of the war zones: men sent on secret missions behind the enemy lines to get certain information and to spy out the enemy's plans; others flying straight into death to accomplish some great necessary destruction of the enemy's works. They were almost like a suicide squad.
Blythe caught her breath, and one small hand flew to her throat involuntarily.
"Oh!" she breathed softly under her breath, and looked aghast at her father and her mother. But they were not noticing her then. They were only looking pitiful and sad over the terrible state of the world in these wartimes, never dreaming that one of those young men whom they were distantly pitying might be the lad their cherished daughter loved, and who was even now hastening on to such a death somewhere. "A secret mission" he had called it. Oh, was this what he was going to do? Blythe did not know, could not know, perhaps would never know till the war was all over and the missing ones were counted up.
So,
