He had heard, and now realized with a new depression that henceforth he could be no more a part of her life than any one of the millions who were fighting the battle of Humanity in this stricken land. Not that he pretended to love her inordinately, by any means, but a man need only love a girl with a very small portion of his heart to feel a throb of pain when she surrenders to some one else. It was this sense of being left behind that hurt; of being deserted by his old playmate--and of deserving it! He turned slowly and followed after her. She did not hear him as he came up, and when he approached to within a few feet of her he saw the reason. The dawn was streaking the sky with pink and salmon tints, and, although her eyes were gazing into it, her thoughts reached far beyond. Standing upon the hilltop, her hands crossed over the red emblem on her breast, the half-light of soft color touching her immobile face, she typified the Spirit of Mercy poised above the unawakened battlefield, ready at the first gun's crash to fly downward with her warmth, her strength, her sympathy. For the moment forgetting his own mission in the presence of the transfigured Marian, Jeb stood abashed. Yet the minutes were passing, and the ambulance would not wait. "I--I came up to say good-bye," he stammered, awkwardly. "I'm going." She turned, seeming reluctant to be torn from her meditations, and quietly asked: "Where?" He told her in a few words, adding: "Bonsecours won't give his permission unless you agree." "Why?" "I don't know." But she knew. From a multitude of small things, and with an intuition almost divine, she read another chapter of the great surgeon's nobility, and turned her eyes again toward the rainbow east. It was perhaps what she saw there in the changing sunrise that impelled her to whisper softly: "I hope you'll always be as brave as you were last night, Jeb." His cheeks burned, but he faced her without flinching and replied: "I'm never going to run away again, if that's what you mean!" "I had not intended to put it so cruelly, Jeb. You've done a great thing to-night, because you conquered two enemies at the same time--the one within you being infinitely a harder fight than the one without. I appreciate that, and am glad for you." "I want you to forget that--that disgrace at the shell hole," he said, doggedly. "Forget?" Her voice broke hysterically, and her eyes filled with tears of pity. "Ask me to forgive it, Jeb, and I may--but, forget it? Oh, how can I? Don't you understand?--I _saw_ it! I _saw_ it!" "Stop, stop--please!" he cried huskily, passing his hand across his face. "Then don't forget, if--if you can't; but I'd hate to think of the Colonel, and Aunt Sallie, and----" "Your secret is safe, if that's what you fear," she said, now as composedly as she had a moment before been moved. Again, for half a minute, she faced the sunrise, when her voice came wistfully: "Oh, God, if--if I just hadn't _seen_ it!"