“Daren Lane,” began the doctor, suddenly stopping before Lane, “I’d hesitate to ask most men if they wanted the truth.  To many men I’d lie.  But I know a few words from me can’t faze you.”

“No, Doctor, one way or another it is all the same to me.”

“Well, boy, I can fix up that vertebra so it won’t slip out again....  But, if there’s anything in the world to save your life, I don’t know what it is.”

“Thank you, Doctor.  It’s—­something to know—­what to expect,” returned Lane, with a smile.

“You might live a year—­and you might not....  You might improve.  God only knows.  Miracles do happen.  Anyway, come back to see me.”

Lane shook hands with him and went out, passing another patient in the reception room.  Then as Lane opened the door and stepped out upon the porch he almost collided with a girl who evidently had been about to come in.

“I beg your——­” he began, and stopped.  He knew this girl, but the strained tragic shadow of her eyes was strikingly unfamiliar.  The transparent white skin let the blue tracery of veins show.  On the instant her lips trembled and parted.

“Oh, Daren—­don’t you know me?” she asked.

“Mel Iden!” he burst out.  “Know you?  I should smile I do.  But it—­it was so sudden.  And you’re older—­different somehow.  Mel, you’re sweeter—­why you’re beautiful.”

He clasped her hands and held on to them, until he felt her rather nervously trying to withdraw them.

“Oh, Daren, I’m glad to see you home—­alive—­whole,” she said, almost in a whisper.  “Are you—­well?”

“No, Mel.  I’m in pretty bad shape,” he replied.  “Lucky to get home alive—­to see you all.”

“I’m sorry.  You’re so white.  You’re wonderfully changed, Daren.”

“So are you.  But I’ll say I’m happy it’s not painted face and plucked eyebrows....  Mel, what’s happened to you?”

She suddenly espied the decoration on his coat.  The blood rose and stained her clear cheek.  With a gesture of exquisite grace and sensibility that thrilled Lane she touched the medal.  “Oh!  The Croix de Guerre....  Daren, you were a hero.”

“No, Mel, just a soldier.”

She looked up into his face with eyes that fascinated Lane, so beautiful were they—­the blue of corn-flowers—­and lighted then with strange rapt glow.

“Just a soldier!” she murmured.  But Lane heard in that all the sweetness and understanding possible for any woman’s heart.  She amazed him—­held him spellbound.  Here was the sympathy—­and something else—­a nameless need—­for which he yearned.  The moment was fraught with incomprehensible forces.  Lane’s sore heart responded to her rapt look, to the sudden strange passion of her pale face.  Swiftly he divined that Mel Iden gloried in the presence of a maimed and proven soldier.

“Mel, I’ll come to see you,” he said, breaking the spell.  “Do you still live out on the Hill road?  I remember the four big white oaks.”