to think that, please! It was never even in my thoughts. I have only thought of them as being fine, upstanding, conservative people, with a high regard for the formalities of life. It would not be natural for them to pick out a ‘poor boy' as a friend for their cherished daughter. But I thought, since this is probably the last time that I may be seeing you on this earth, it would do no harm for me to tell you what you have always been to me. You have been an inspiration to me from even my little boyhood when I first saw you in school, and I have loved to watch you. And in my thoughts I have always honored you. I felt as if I would like to tell you that, before I go. I hope it will not annoy you to be told, and that you will remember me as a friend who deeply admired—and—yes, loved you from afar, and who for a long time has prayed for you every night. Will you forgive me for saying these things?"
Impulsively he put out his hands, laid them upon hers again, and looked at her with pleading eyes. But her own eyes were so filled with sudden tears that she could not see the look in his.
"Forgive!" she said in a small, choking voice. "Why, there is nothing to forgive. It seems very wonderful to me that you should say these things, that you should have felt this way. And of all the beautiful thoughts, that you should pray for me! Why, I never knew you even noticed me. And I'm glad, glad, now, that you have told me! It seems the loveliest thing that ever came into my life. But oh, why do you have to go away? When do you have to go?"
He gave a quick glance down at his wristwatch and said with distress in his voice, "I ought to be on my way now. I have things to do before I take the noon train. I waited on purpose until the last minute, that I might not be tempted to stay too long and annoy you."
He sprang to his feet, but her hands clung to his and she rose with him.
"Oh, but I can't let you go like this," she pleaded, her eyes looking deep into his, her face lifted with the bright tears on her cheeks. "I can't let you go. You have just told me that you love me, and we must have a little time to get acquainted before you go. I—oh—I think I must have been loving you, too, all this time." Her own glance dropped shyly. "There was no one else ever who seemed to me as wonderful as you were, even when I was a little girl. Please don't go yet. We must have more time to get our hearts acquainted."
He looked down at her, his very soul in his eyes, his face deeply stirred, and then suddenly his arms were about her and he drew her close, his face against her tear-wet cheek, his lips upon hers.
"Darling!" he breathed softly.
She was clinging to him now, trembling in his arms.
"Darling, if I had dreamed it could be like this!"
Again he held her close.
"God forgive me! I've got to leave you. I'm a soldier under orders, you know."
"Yes, I know," she said softly. "I must not keep you. But oh, I wish you had come sooner, so that we might have had a little time together."
"I'm afraid my coming has only made you unhappy!"
"No, don't say that! It is a beautiful happiness just to know what you have told me. And you know—I shall be praying, too. May God take care of you and keep you and bring you back!"
He took her in his arms again, and their farewell kiss was a precious one to remember. And then suddenly a clock above the stairs with a silvery chime told the hour, and he sprang away.
"I must go at once!" he said.
"Yes, of course," gasped the girl sorrowfully.
It was incredible how hard it was to separate when they had only just come together. It was breathtaking.
Hand in hand they went out to the hall, to the front door, trying to say many last things for which there wasn't time, things that had just begun to crowd to their attention.
"But you will write to me?" said Blythe, lifting pleading eyes. "You will write at once?"
He looked at her with a sudden light in his eyes.
"Oh, may I do that?" he asked, as if it was more than he had dared to hope. "I hadn't planned to hang on to your life. I don't want to hinder you in any way. I want you to have a happy time, and—to—well, forget me. Think of me just as somebody who has gone out of your life. I mean it. I don't want the thought of me and of what I have said to hinder you from having friends and going places. I want you to be your dear happy self, just as you have been all through the years before you knew I cared. That will be the best way to keep me happy and give me courage to go through with what I have undertaken. I mean it."
Her hands quivered in his and clung more closely.
"How could you think I could forget you and go on being happy? You have told me that you love me, and it has—well, just crowned my life!" She looked up at him with a kind of radiance in her face that beamed on his heart like a ray of sunshine and warmed him through and through. He had been so humble about telling her, that he hadn't dreamed it would bring this response. It thrilled him indescribably.
"Darling!" he breathed softly and caught her to him again, holding her close.
Then upstairs another clock with a silvery voice chimed a belated warning, and they sprang apart.
"You must go!" It was the girl who said the word. "You mustn't let me make you late. And—how can I write to you? We have so much to say to one another."
"Oh, yes, I forgot!"
He plunged his hand into his pocket and brought out a card.
"A letter sent to this address will be forwarded to me wherever I am. Good-bye, my precious one! You have given me great joy by the way you have received me, and you haven't any idea how hard it is for me to leave you now."
He touched his lips reverently to her brow and then dashed out the door.
She watched him flashing down the street, her heart on fire with joy and sorrow. Joy that he loved her, sorrow that he must go away into terrible danger, or what he was supposed to be going to do, but he had spoken as if it were plenty. "Probable death!" he had said, and yet even that terrible prospect had not been able to still the joy that was in her heart. Whatever came, he was hers to love, she was his! Whatever came there was this, and for the present she could only be glad. By and by she knew that anxiety would come, and fear, and anguish perhaps, but still, he would be hers.
How strange that she should feel this way about that boy with whom she had scarcely had a speaking acquaintance. A word, a look, a hovering smile, all the most formal, had been their intercourse thus far. And yet he had loved her so that he could not go away into possible death without telling her how he felt. And she had loved him well enough to recognize it at once, though she had never used that word even in her thoughts with regard to him. It seemed as if it were something that God had handed to her as a surprise. Something He had been planning for her all through her life, and she hugged the thought to her heart that she had always admired him, even when he was a little boy. He had beautiful, intelligent eyes that always seemed to understand, a tumble of dark curly hair, and a way of disappearing into thin air as soon as the business of school was over for the day. He never seemed to take part in social affairs of the school—he just vanished. But his location in the room had always seemed to Blythe like a light for the whole class. Something clear and dependable to give their grade tone. It had been that way right along through the grades.
Just once in those years they had stood side by side at the blackboard working out a problem,
