"By Heaven! He shall see you, then," said Anderson, breathing hard. "I'm justified even--even if it..." He did not finish his significant speech, but left her abruptly. Presently Lenore was summoned. When she left her room she was in the throes of uncontrolled agitation, and all down the long hallway she fought herself. At the half-open door she paused to lean against the wall. There she had the will to still her nerves, to acquire serenity; and she prayed for wisdom to make her presence and her words of infinite good to Dorn in this crisis. * * * * * She was not aware of when she moved--how she ever got to Dorn's bedside. But seemingly detached from her real self, serene, with emotions locked, she was there looking down upon him. "Lenore!" he said, with far-off voice that just reached her. Gladness shone from his shadowy eyes. "Welcome home--my soldier boy!" she replied. Then she bent to kiss his cheek and to lay hers beside it. "I never--hoped--to see you--again," he went on. "Oh, but I knew!" murmured Lenore, lifting her head. His right hand, brown, bare, and rough, lay outside the coverlet upon his breast. It was weakly reaching for her. Lenore took it in both hers, while she gazed steadily down into his eyes. She seemed to see then how he was comparing the image he had limned upon his memory with her face. "Changed--you're older--more beautiful--yet the same," he said. "It seems--long ago." "Yes, long ago. Indeed I am older. But--all's well that ends well. You are back." "Lenore, haven't you--been told--I can't live?" "Yes, but it's untrue," she replied, and felt that she might have been life itself speaking. "Dear, something's gone--from me. Something vital gone--with the shell that--took my arm." _"No!"_ she smiled down upon him. All the conviction of her soul and faith she projected into that single word and serene smile--all that was love and woman in her opposing death. A subtle, indefinable change came over Dorn. "Lenore--I paid--for my father," he whispered. "I killed Huns!... I spilled the--blood in me--I hated!... But all was wrong--wrong!" "Yes, but you could not help that," she said, piercingly. "Blame can never rest upon you. You were only an--American soldier.... Oh, I know! You were magnificent.... But your duty that way is done. A higher duty awaits you." His eyes questioned sadly and wonderingly. "You must be the great sower of wheat." "Sower of wheat?" he whispered, and a light quickened in that questioning gaze. "There will be starving millions after this war. Wheat is the staff of life. You _must_ get well.... Listen!" She hesitated, and sank to her knees beside the bed. "Kurt, the day you're able to sit up I'll marry you. Then I'll take you home--to your wheat-hills."