"What is this I hear about that sermon of yours yesterday, Ingraham? They tell me you talked some kind of twaddle about a peaceful entrance into Berlin, that you don't want the Huns punished, that you don't want any disturbance of their lands, that you propose to leave these brigands and murderers untouched, their spoils in their hands, to let them get away with their infamous atrocities. If that's the way you feel, I don't want you in my house." There was a sudden little stir on one side of the room. Dick thought of it afterwards as something exactly like a bird fluttering out of its nest, and flying to his side. And there was Nancy, standing straight and looking into her father's eye--Cowder look for Cowder look. "Stop that, Father," she said. "I know what Dick said. I know exactly what he meant. No revenge could be so great as what he planned." Her hand was laid protectingly on Dick's arm. She stood, his defender, blazing with understanding and sympathy. She had said "Dick"--it was the first time in all their acquaintance. And Reuben Cowder had a great light. For a "hard business man," it was quite extraordinary that he could divine that this was possibly the great hour in the lives of these two young people, that possibly it was not Otto, after all; and, with a gruff, "I beg your pardon, Ingraham," he left the room. The girl did not stir from where she stood. She did not take her hand from his arm. She only turned a very white face straight up to him. "You said 'Dick,'" he said slowly. "You meant it, Nancy?" "I meant it--Dick." Then the Rev. Richard Ingraham did the most sensible thing he ever did in his life, he put his hand over the cold one on his arm, and said, "I love you, Nancy Cowder." And the reply came swiftly, unhesitatingly, "I love you, Dick." An hour later the two came out to the veranda, the look of glory still on their faces. In a very few minutes--so few that he might have been accused of waiting around the corner for their appearance,--Reuben Cowder joined them. Dick went straight to the point: "I have asked Nancy to marry me, Mr. Cowder. She has said, Yes. What do you say?" "Well," said Reuben Cowder, "I say I would rather have you for a son than any man I ever knew." The three sat long on the veranda in the warm, deepening, October twilight, looking out over the great valley in its glorious autumn coloring, down to a segment of that curve of the great river above which Sabinsport lay. It was not of the past that they talked, it was not of Sabinsport's struggles and sorrows, it was not of the war news of the day; it was of the future. To all three of them, Reuben Cowder as well as Dick and Nancy, the last hour had opened the new world for which the war had been fought.