There he was! She heard his footstep at the other side of the door. He entered, was radiant, enfolded her in that wonderful embrace where she was a surrendered thing. He had a little parcel, handed it to her. Tremblingly she opened it, certain of delight. It was a framed enlargement of a photograph they had taken that morning in the high Alps. With a little happy cry she gazed once more on the long smooth slopes of snow, stretching up to the dark-patched peaks. Once more his arm encircled her, his deep voice spoke. "So shall we live, darling, always--ever upon the heights." * * * * * She lay awake in her bed, ere it was day, and understood in a great tremulous awe. In her dreams she and Ronald were living precisely the life they would have lived had there been no war. The honeymoon--their home--all would have been accomplished ere this. Had there been no war! Exactly as she had dreamed they would have travelled together--his arm would have enfolded her--in long, long happiness they would have lived. She burst into a passion of tears, stifled in the pillow. Then she turned her head, wondering, feeling as if her heart had stopped. Would this dream continue? Was it--in some mysterious way--_real_? Her lips moved in a prayer, but she scarcely knew what she prayed. She was glad to escape into the busy actual life of the ward, into the light of day. From now onwards her life definitely assumed this double phase. In the hospital she was the Sister Braithwaite that all had known, diligent, bravely smiling, conscientious in her duty. Those about her remarked only that there was sometimes a curious stillness in her mien, spoke pityingly among themselves of the sad loss of her soldier lover. But death in a hospital is no rare catastrophe and none lingered on the topic. There was much to do, a continual stream of new arrivals from the distant conflict, the doubtful fate of many of those already long suffering. There were deaths, recoveries, operations of professional interest. Number Ten went slowly but steadily towards health. Sister Braithwaite deliberately avoided all contact with him save the professional. When she chatted with a patient in the ward it was not with him. His gaze was reproachful, and she would not see it. Sometimes when she approached him he would, half-jokingly, reiterate that she had saved him. She would not hear. A strange sense of insecurity disturbed her in his presence. She half divined that he nursed a project----. She fled the glance of the steady, resolute eyes in the strong face. When at last he had made such progress that he could be removed to a convalescent ward she was glad at his departure.