Ken heard this prophecy early in the morning, and it troubled him. He had no cause for imagining that he would be selected, yet he might be selected. The chances were, perhaps, minute, but, nevertheless, they were present, and it was far from his desire to be returned to America to run down German sympathizers in Hoboken or to take a desk in some crowded bureau in Washington. While he was in France there always was the hope that he might be transferred to active duty with some regiment at the front. Like all men in the American Expeditionary Force, he wanted to serve at the front, and he did not want to return to America—at least until the work was done. Man after man Kendall had heard to speak longingly of America, but to couple with his homesickness the quick statement that he did not want to return until the job was done. It was a sort of religion—the cleaning up of that job. Somehow each man seemed to feel that the success of the army depended on his presence, and that to be sent home before victory arrived would be to deprive him of something precious which he had earned.... It was so with Ken. But he had a stronger motive than most for wishing to stay in France. It was Andree.... Suddenly and very poignantly he realized what it would mean if he were compelled to part from Andree. It seemed to him that she had become a part of him, an essential part without which he could not continue. She had brought an essence into his life which was sweet and desirable and wonderful. He knew that no other woman could bring to him what Andree had brought so unconsciously, yet so generously.... She was Andree!... Andree! The world could show but one. What was to be the outcome? It was a question he had evaded time and again, well knowing that it must some day be faced. He did not face it now, though it urged itself upon his attention. He did not believe the world had seen a more precious thing than their love—and yet, because of his training and the imprint of heredity, that love was questionable, tainted with irregularity. It was good, sweet, pure, but it was irregular as the Middle West and Plymouth Rock perceived irregularity. He had never known Andree to utter an immodest word or to think a thought that was not clean and good. He had wondered at a certain diffident loftiness in her thoughts. She was a woman whose soul was to be regarded with awe, as any virtuous soul is to be regarded with awe. He did not believe he saw her falsely, nor that love blinded him to defects which should be apparent. He knew he saw her truly, and that she was worthy of all his love.... And yet his friends, his neighbors—above all, his mother—would despise her as a woman of light virtue, as a thing of evil.... He could see the seething among the gossips if Andree were to be set down in their midst, and he despised them.... But—