"I have been thinking much, dear old friend," he wrote, "of the futility of human desires. Life in the trenches is rather conducive to that form of mediation, as you may imagine. You know, none better, how I loved Margaret, how I wanted to make her my wife--I often wonder whether if I had not delayed so long, 'fearing my fate too much,' I might not have won her. But thoughts, like that are worse than useless. "Instead, there has come to me a clearer understanding of Margaret, a better insight into the golden heart of her. If she had never met the other man, or some one like him, I believe I could have made her happy, kept her contented. But I realize fully that having met him there could never be any other man for her but him. Her love for him is like a flame, transforming her. I could never have called forth such passion from her. I see clearly now how foolish it was in me to have hoped it. There was nothing in the humdrum, commonplace brotherly affection which she thought I gave her to arouse the romance which I know slumbers under that calm, cold exterior of hers. "Sometimes I query, too, whether my love for Margaret had that flame-like quality which characterizes her love for her husband. Margaret has always been so much a part of my life that my love for her began I could not tell when, and grew and strengthened with the years. There never has been any other woman but Margaret in my life. Even if I should ever come out of this living hell, which I doubt, I do not believe there ever will be another. "And yet--" "I have just been summoned for duty. Good-by, dear friend, until the next time. Lovingly yours, Jack Bickett." I laid the letter aside with a queer little startled feeling at my heart. Those two little words, "and yet," at the end of Jack's letter gave me much food for thought. Was it possible that before his death Jack had realized that his love for me was not the consuming passion he had thought it, but partook more of the fraternal affection that I had had for him? I hoped for Jack's sake that this was so. "And yet--" I ran through the rest of the letters rapidly. One, the third from the last, arrested my attention sharply. "Such a pleasant thing happened to me today," Jack wrote, "one of the unexpected gleams of sunlight that are so much brighter because of the general gloom against which they are reflected. "I was given a week's furlough last Saturday and went up to Paris with my friend, Paul Caillard. He had a friend in a hospital on the way there, headed by Dr. Braithwaite, the celebrated surgeon of Detroit." I caught my breath. As well as if I had already read the words, I knew what was coming.