The bombs with which Cantor had meant to devastate a city had let loose their awful force ... harmlessly to the sleeping city.... There would be no need to look for Cantor, for Cantor's 'plane. They had vanished, been snuffed out by that awful force, wiped clean from existence as if they had never been. It was a homing flight now, back to a city saved from a peril of which it had been unconscious, of which the major part of it might forever remain unconscious. The thing was done; the high gates had not been forced; the winged guardian had blocked the roars of the sky.... They were descending now, nearing their place of alighting.... Potter, thankful for the moonlight, pointed for the field, the earth leaped up to meet them, touched them, they bounded along its frozen surface.... Potter lifted Hildegarde from her place, carried her into the hangar, himself stiff, aching with the cold. She lay quiet in his arms, her eyes closed, but she was not unconscious; she was keenly conscious. "I saw it," she said, her voice a breath. "I was there. I was a part of it." CHAPTER XXIX Potter lighted a fire quickly and carried Hildegarde before it. He chafed her hands, compelled her to remove her boots, and chafed her feet--and she suffered him to attend her in silence.... She was at peace. She had offered herself, had shared the risks, had almost felt the wind of bullets that passed.... The ways of the human mind are not wholly to be understood. The thing she had done might not have satisfied another, yet she was satisfied. She had paid her ransom, bought her redemption.... She was at peace, and to be at peace was good ... good. She sat on a chair; Potter knelt beside her. She smiled down at his head; her fingers reached out to touch his hair. "Potter...." she said, softly. "Garde...." He was looking up into her face now with eyes that glowed, glowed with the pride of success, with the happiness that comes only from the consciousness of a great service performed worthily. "How proud you should be!" she said, gently. "How proud the country will be of you!... To love one's country--and to be able to do a great thing for one's country...." The spirit of the high places was still upon them; they could not think small thoughts, speak puny words. For a time they sat in silence. Then Potter spoke: "I knew--up there--that you should never leave me," he said. She acquiesced; it was a thing that had come to her as well. "Never," she said. "We were created for each other.... Nothing could hold us apart." "Nothing." "Can anything be greater than love?" "I don't know." "I believe there is something--something that selects a man and woman and brings them together.... We have been brought together." "I felt it--to-night." Again silence fell. Her hand rested on his head--it was the only contact of their bodies.