I could see in a flash what had gone on in her simple, honest, generous mind, and it nearly drove me wild, while all the time I had to stand there grinning and patting her on the shoulder, and saying how wonderful it all was, when in reality I wanted to drag her out of the room and shake her for being such a great silly fool, and force her to stop it before anyone else heard of her folly and she found herself in the complications of public knowledge of her engagement. Instead of which I stood round and admired the wonderful five-carat diamond ring which Markheim produced, and behaved like an idiot generally. "Well, well, when is it to be?" Mr. Pegg wanted to know. Alicia turned her big eyes slowly from her marvelous jewel to her father's puzzled face. "I have promised Sebastian," she said slowly, "to marry him as soon as the war is over!" Her tone had, to my ears, the expectancy of a long reprieve. And it was at that minute that the fire bells began to ring. You can be sure we all rushed out at that, crying, "Where is it? What is the matter?" and many other similar exclamations natural to the situation. But at first nobody seemed to know. The Chinese cook came out, frying pan in hand, and began running round in circles. The hands were soon straggling in from their camp in the gulch by the river. Somebody, Mr. Pegg, I think, tried the telephone, but could get no answer. By this time almost everybody on the ranch had assembled before the house, shivering with the frost and searching the sky for signs of the incendiary glare, but in vain. An automobile dashed by down the Letterbox road with two prospectors in it. One was firing a gun like mad and he yelled something unintelligible at us in passing but ignored our invitation to stop. Then from the direction of the town a flivver emerged out of the swiftly falling dusk, and as it stopped in front of our gate a man in the uniform of an American captain jumped down with the aid of his uninjured arm, the other being supported by a sling, and came running toward us, flinging his cap into the air, the lights from our porch gleaming upon his excited face and upon the decorations on his breast. "Victory!" he shouted. "Victory! Schoolhouse fire? Hell! The armistice was signed at two o'clock to-day!" It was Richard, the chauffeur, and I assure you that it was at that moment that I recognized the strong family resemblance and decided that he might after all be a Talbot--one of our Talbots. You can imagine the wild riot into which the news and the bearer of it threw us. I cannot describe it. Everyone went crazy and I have a blurred recollection of kissing several persons, the Chinaman among them. But only one thing remains clearly in my mind--Alicia standing like a stone in a corner of the veranda, her white face lifted to the rising moon, and Markheim running toward her with burning words which seemed to fall upon deaf ears. "Alicia, Alicia, it's the end of the war!" he was shouting. X