"Old Tom was always talking about being afraid," said one. "In the trenches, while we were waiting for orders, he’d beg us to see that if he were a coward his home folks might not know the truth. He always expected to be the cur, and then, when the order came, up the old duffer would get and scramble to the front as if he was hell-bound for suicide. It got to be a joke and the funny part was, when it was over, he never seemed to know he’d done the decent thing. He’d ask us how he had acted. He’d believe anything we told him. After awhile we got to telling him the truth." Marcel wept beside her little row of graves after hearing about Tom and wished, at last, that a son of her own could be near that poor Tom of Margot’s. Jo’s eyes shone and she looked at Donelle. She felt the girl’s big heart throb with pity, but she knew full well that even in his tragic hour of triumph Tom had not called forth Donelle’s love. Sometimes she was almost angry at Donelle. Why could not the girl see what she had won, and glory in it? What kind of reward was it to be for Tom to have her "keep her promise?" "Women were not worthy of men!" she blurted out to Anderson Law. "Think of those young creatures offering all they have to make a world safe for a lot of useless women!’ "They ought to be spanked, the useless women," Anderson remarked solemnly. "That they should!" agreed Jo. "Ah, well, Mam’selle," Law’s face grew stern, "we are all, men and women, getting our punishment alike. But what has the rebel, Donelle, now done?" "She will not see Tom Gavot, her husband, as he is! She only sees him as a brave soldier. Instead, he is a man!" "Ah! Mam’selle Jo, wait until he comes home and _needs her_. Then she will give him the best she has to give. Is that not enough?" "No!" Jo exploded. "No! it is not. She ought to give him, poor lad, what she has not in her power to give." Then they both laughed. It was full summer when the word came that Tom Gavot had made the supreme sacrifice. Law brought the official announcement, the bald, hurting fact. He had, on his way past Dan’s Place, rescued Pierre before he had begun drinking. "Come to Mam’selle Morey’s," he commanded calmly. "I have news of your boy." "And he is still brave? It is good news?" Gavot shuffled on beside Law. "He’s still brave, yes." "That’s good; that’s good. Tom was always one who began by trembling and ended like iron." Jo was at her loom, Donelle at her knitting, when the two men entered the sunny home-room of the little white house. "This has come," said Law, and reverently held up the envelope. They all knew what it was. In Point of Pines the bolt had fallen too often to be misunderstood. By that time every heart was waiting; waiting. "It’s Tom?" asked Donelle and her face shone like a frozen, white thing in the cheerful room. Law read the few terrible words that could not soften the blow, though they tried hard to do so. "The war office regrets to announce——"