"It means life or death to me--this telegram. And if it doesn't mean life, I don't care for the other. I shall come out with a commission or--not at all. If dead, I shall be a hero--if alive," he smiled, "I don't know what I'll be, but think of me as a hero, dead or alive, with my past and my present. I can feel a change already, a sort of growing pain, at the very thought." "When do you go to Cuba?" "Within four days." "Four days! And you can talk as you do, when you are going to war to live the life of a common soldier--to die of fever, to be killed, maybe," her lip shook and she stopped, but she went on thickly, "and be thrown into an unknown grave or lie unburied in a jungle." She spoke with such sudden passion that Crittenden was startled. "Listen!" Judge Page appeared in the doorway, welcoming Crittenden with old-time grace and courtesy. Through supper, Judith was silent and thoughtful and, when she did talk, it was with a perceptible effort. There was a light in her eyes that he would have understood once--that would have put his heart on fire. And once he met a look that he was wholly at loss to understand. After supper, she disappeared while the two men smoked on the porch. The moon was rising when she came out again. The breath of honeysuckles was heavy on the air, and from garden and fields floated innumerable odours of flower and clover blossom and moist grasses. Crittenden lived often through that scene afterward--Judith on the highest step of the porch, the light from the hallway on her dress and her tightly folded hands; her face back in shadow, from which her eyes glowed with a fire in them that he had never seen before. Judge Page rose soon to go indoors. He did not believe there was going to be much of a war, and his manner was almost cheery when he bade the young man good-by. "Good luck to you," he said. "If the chance comes, you will give a good account of yourself. I never knew a man of your name who didn't." "Thank you, sir." There was a long silence. "Basil will hardly have time to get his commission, and get to Tampa." "No. But he can come after us." She turned suddenly upon him. "Yes--something has happened to you. I didn't know what you meant that day we drove home, but I do now. I feel it, but I don't understand." Crittenden flushed, but made no answer.