“Oh, no, Blair—­not all of them,” remonstrated Lane, unsteadily.

“Well, old man, I’m sore, and you’re about the only guy I can let out on,” explained Maynard, heavily.  “One thing I’m glad of—­we’ll face it together.  Daren, we were kids together—­do you remember?—­playing on the commons—­straddling the old water-gates over the brooks—­stealing cider from the country presses—­barefoot boys going to school together.  We played Post-Office with the girls and Indians with the boys.  We made puppy love to Dal and Mel and Helen and Margie—­all of them....  Then, somehow the happy thoughtless years of youth passed....  It seems strange and sudden now—­but the war came.  We enlisted.  We had the same ideal—­you and I.—­We went to France—­and you know what we did there together....  Now we’re on this ship—­getting into port of the good old U.S.—­good as bad as she is!—­going home together.  Thank God for that.  I want to be buried in Woodlawn....  Home!  Home?...  We feel its meaning.  But, Dare, we’ll have no home—­no place....  We are old—­we are through—­we have served—­we are done....  What we dreamed of as glory will be cold ashes to our lips, bitter as gall....  You always were a dreamer, an idealist, a believer in God, truth, hope and womanhood.  In spite of the war these somehow survive in you....  But Dare, old friend, steel yourself now against disappointment and disillusion.”

Used as Lane was to his comrade’s outbursts, this one struck singularly home to Lane’s heart and made him mute.  The chill of his earlier misgiving returned, augmented by a strange uneasiness, a premonition of the unknown and dreadful future.  But he threw it off.  Faith would not die in Lane.  It could not die utterly because of what he felt in himself.  Yet—­what was in store for him?  Why was his hope so unquenchable?  There could be no resurgam for Daren Lane.  Resignation should have brought him peace—­peace—­when every nerve in his shell-shocked body racked him—­when he could not subdue a mounting hope that all would be well at home—­when he quivered at thought of mother, sister, sweetheart!

The ship glided on under the shadow of America’s emblem—­a bronze woman of noble proportions, holding out a light to ships that came in the night—­a welcome to all the world.  Daren Lane held to his maimed comrade while they stood bare-headed and erect for that moment when the, ship passed the statue.  Lane knew what Blair felt.  But nothing of what that feeling was could ever be spoken.  The deck of the ship was now crowded with passengers, yet they were seemingly dead to anything more than a safe arrival at their destination.  They were not crippled American soldiers.  Except these two there were none in service uniforms.  There across the windy space of water loomed the many-eyed buildings, suggestive of the great city.  A low roar of traffic came on the breeze.  Passengers and crew of the liner were glad to dock before dark.  They took no notice