"You're more than welcome at this moment, Miss Winter. The surgeons won't let you in some of their field hospitals. But there's work to be done preparing our corps for the battle we're going to fight. You'll have plenty to do." "Thank you, General," she gravely answered. Burnside read for the second time the gracious letter from the President which Betty presented. "You're evidently pretty strong with this administration, Miss Betty," he remarked. "Yes. The patience and wisdom of the President is a hobby of mine." "Then I'll ask you to review the army with me. You can report to him." Within an hour they were passing in serried lines before the Commander. Betty watched them march with a thrill of patriotic pride, a hundred and thirteen thousand men, their dark blue uniforms pouring past like the waters of a mighty river, the December sun gleaming on their polished bayonets as on so many icicles flashing on its surface. Her heart suddenly stood still. There before her marched John Vaughan in the outer line of a regiment, his eyes straight in front, looking neither to the right nor the left. He was a private in the ranks, clean and sober, his face rugged, strong and sun-tanned. For a moment there was a battle inside that tested her strength. He had not seen her and was oblivious of her existence apparently. But she had noted the regiment under whose flag he marched. It would be easy to find him if she wished. When the first moment of love-sickness and utter longing passed, she had no desire to see him. The dead could bury its dead. Her love was a thing of the past. The cruel thing in this man's nature she had seen the first day was there still. She saw it with a shudder in his red, half-drunken eyes the day they met in Washington, saw it so plainly, so glaringly, the memory of it could never fade. He was sober and in his right mind now, his cheeks bronzed with the new life of sunshine and open air the army had given. The thing was still there. It spoke in the brute strength of his powerful body as his marching feet struck the ground, in the iron look about his broad shoulders, the careless strength with which he carried his musket as if it were a feather, and above all in the hard cold glint from his shining eyes set straight in front. She lay awake for hours on the little white cot at the headquarters of the ambulance corps reviewing her life and dropped to sleep at last with a deep sense of gratitude to God that she was free, and could give herself in unselfish devotion to her country. Her last waking thoughts were of Ned Vaughan and the sweet, foolish worship he had laid at her feet. She wondered vaguely if he were in those grey lines beyond the river. Ned Vaughan was there this time--back with his regiment.