She had that primitive thing in her, and, though she shuddered to realize it, she had no regret.  Life was life.  That Dorn had laid low so many enemies was grand to her, and righteous, since these enemies were as cavemen come for prey.  Even now the terrible thrills chased over her.  Demon Dorn!  What a man!  She had known just what he would do—­and how his spiritual life would go under.  The woman of her gloried in his fight and the soul of her sickened at its significance.  No hope for any man or any woman except in God!

These men, these boys, like her father and Jake, like Dorn and his comrades—­how simple, natural, inevitable, elemental they were!  They loved a fight.  They might hate it, too, but they loved it most.  Life of men was all strife, and the greatness in them came out in war.  War searched out the best and the worst in men.  What were wounds, blood, mangled flesh, agony, and death to men—­to those who went out for liberation of something unproven in themselves?  Life was only a breath.  The secret must lie in the beyond, for men could not act that way for nothing.  Some hidden purpose through the ages!

* * * * *

Anderson had summoned a great physician, a specialist of world renown.  Lenore, of course, had not been present when the learned doctor examined Kurt Dorn, but she was in her father’s study when the report was made.  To Lenore this little man seemed all intellect, all science, all electric current.

He stated that Dorn had upward of twenty-five wounds, some of them serious, most trivial, and all of them combined not necessarily fatal.  Many soldiers with worse wounds had totally recovered.  Dorn’s vitality and strength had been so remarkable that great loss of blood and almost complete lack of nourishment had not brought about the present grave condition.

“He will die, and that is best for him,” said the specialist.  “His case is not extraordinary.  I saw many like it in France during the first year of war when I was there.  But I will say that he must have been both physically and mentally above the average before he went to fight.  My examination extended through periods of his unconsciousness and aberration.  Once, for a little time, he came to, apparently sane.  The nurse said he had noticed several periods of this rationality during the last forty-eight hours.  But these, and the prolonged vitality, do not offer any hope.

“An emotion of exceeding intensity and duration has produced lesions in the kinetic organs.  Some passion has immeasurably activated his brain, destroying brain cells which might not be replaced.  If he happened to live he might be permanently impaired.  He might be neurasthenic, melancholic, insane at times, or even grow permanently so....  It is very sad.  He appears to have been a fine young man.  But he will die, and that really is best for him.”

Thus the man of science summed up the biological case of Kurt Dorn.  When he had gone Anderson wore the distressed look of one who must abandon his last hope.  He did not understand, though he was forced to believe.  He swore characteristically at the luck, and then at the great specialist.