* * * * *

She was not aware of when she moved—­how she ever got to Dorn’s bedside.  But seemingly detached from her real self, serene, with emotions locked, she was there looking down upon him.

“Lenore!” he said, with far-off voice that just reached her.  Gladness shone from his shadowy eyes.

“Welcome home—­my soldier boy!” she replied.  Then she bent to kiss his cheek and to lay hers beside it.

“I never—­hoped—­to see you—­again,” he went on.

“Oh, but I knew!” murmured Lenore, lifting her head.  His right hand, brown, bare, and rough, lay outside the coverlet upon his breast.  It was weakly reaching for her.  Lenore took it in both hers, while she gazed steadily down into his eyes.  She seemed to see then how he was comparing the image he had limned upon his memory with her face.

“Changed—­you’re older—­more beautiful—­yet the same,” he said.  “It seems—­long ago.”

“Yes, long ago.  Indeed I am older.  But—­all’s well that ends well.  You are back.”

“Lenore, haven’t you—­been told—­I can’t live?”

“Yes, but it’s untrue,” she replied, and felt that she might have been life itself speaking.

“Dear, something’s gone—­from me.  Something vital gone—­with the shell that—­took my arm.”

"No!" she smiled down upon him.  All the conviction of her soul and faith she projected into that single word and serene smile—­all that was love and woman in her opposing death.  A subtle, indefinable change came over Dorn.

“Lenore—­I paid—­for my father,” he whispered.  “I killed Huns!...  I spilled the—­blood in me—­I hated!...  But all was wrong—­wrong!”

“Yes, but you could not help that,” she said, piercingly.  “Blame can never rest upon you.  You were only an—­American soldier....  Oh, I know!  You were magnificent....  But your duty that way is done.  A higher duty awaits you.”

His eyes questioned sadly and wonderingly.

“You must be the great sower of wheat.”

“Sower of wheat?” he whispered, and a light quickened in that questioning gaze.

“There will be starving millions after this war.  Wheat is the staff of life.  You must get well....  Listen!”

She hesitated, and sank to her knees beside the bed.  “Kurt, the day you’re able to sit up I’ll marry you.  Then I’ll take you home—­to your wheat-hills.”

For a second Lenore saw him transformed with her spirit, her faith, her love, and it was that for which she had prayed.  She had carried him beyond the hopelessness, beyond incredulity.  Some guidance had divinely prompted her.  And when his mute rapture suddenly vanished, when he lost consciousness and a pale gloom and shade fell upon his face, she had no fear.