So still and white and rigid it was that the girls would have been still more frightened could they have seen it. For, propped on her elbows, with grim, set face supported by her clenched fists, Betty was gazing unseeingly out at the darkness beyond the square of window pane. "Somewhere he's out there," she kept saying over and over to herself. "If he's dead, there's the mud and grime--" she shuddered "--and blood too--rivers of it. But if he's captured--Oh, I can't think--I mustn't think--" And then she would begin all over again-- "Allen is lying out there--" over and over again, till her brain whirled and her head ached and she felt faint and sick. Still she could not cry. Her heart was frozen--that was it. And how could one cry when one's heart was frozen? Oh, Allen! Allen! How could she go on living without him? If she could only cry--if she could only cry! What was that? Thunder. The artillery of heaven! Did they have war in heaven, she wondered. With a queer little laugh she got up and walked to the window. A flash of lightning greeted her, illumining the world outside, flashing into bold relief the familiar objects of the little room. She knelt down by the window, regardless of danger, and lifted her face to the rising wind. She welcomed the storm. It seemed, in some mysterious way, to quiet the tumult within her. She stretched out her arms to it and cried aloud her misery. "Allen, my Allen, you will come back to me, won't you, dear? You promised. Oh, Allen, if you're alive are you thinking of me now? Are you thinking of Betty?" A sharper clap of thunder seemed to answer her, and then quite suddenly the ice melted from about her heart. Her head went down upon her arms and great sobs shook her from head to foot. It was so the girls found her a few minutes later, and with cries of pity lifted her to her feet and half-led, half-carried her back to the bed. "We didn't know whether to come up or not," Mollie said hesitatingly. "But we thought maybe you would need us, Dear. If you would rather be alone--" But Betty shook her head and reached out an unsteady little hand which Mollie instantly took in her warm clasp. "No, I want you to stay," she said, trying desperately to choke back her sobs. "If some one will--just please--give me a--h-handkerchief." Amy slipped one into her hand, and Betty dabbed fiercely at the tears which still would come. "Don't try not to cry, Honey," whispered Mollie, putting an understanding arm about the Little Captain's shoulders and holding her close. "Tears are just the very best things in the world to help one through a crisis." "Yes," added Grace, gently smoothing the hair back from Betty's hot forehead, while Amy sprinkled some toilet water on a fresh handkerchief and slipped it unobtrusively into Betty's other hand, "we'll just sit here and wait till you're all through." "Then we're going to take you down and give you some hot tea and toast and love you a little," finished Amy.