Suddenly he gripped her hands so that it hurt.  “Mary, God help me, I’ll try to fight the devils over there so that kiddies like that, and—­you, and all the blessed people, the whole dear shooting-match will be safe over here.  I’m glad—­I’m so glad I’m going to have a hand in it.  Mary, it’s queer, but I’m happier than I’ve been in months.  Only”—­his brows drew anxiously.  “Only I’m scared stiff for fear you think me—­a coward.”

He had the word out now.  Thee taste wasn’t so bad after all; it seemed oddly to have nothing to do with himself.  “Mary, dear, couldn’t you—­forget that in time?  When I’ve been over there and behaved decently—­and I think I will.  Somehow I’m not afraid of being afraid now.  It feels like a thing that couldn’t be done—­by a soldier of Uncle Sam’s.  I’ll just look at the other chaps—­all heroes, you know—­and be so proud I’m with them and so keen to finish our job that I know—­somehow I know I’ll never think about my blooming self at all.  It’s queer to say it, Mary, but the way it looks now I’m in it, it’s not just country even.  It’s religion.  See, Mary?”

There was no sound, no glance from Mary.  But he went on, unaware, so rapt was he in his new illumination.

“And when I come back, Mary, with a decent record—­just possibly with a war-cross—­oh, my word!  Think of me!  Then, couldn’t you forget this business I’ve been telling you?  Do you think you could marry me then?”

What was the matter?  Why did she stand so still with her head bending lower and lower, the color deepening on the bit of cheek that his anxious eyes could see.

“Mary!”

Suddenly she was clutching his collar as if in deadly fear.

“Mary, what’s the matter?  I’m such a fool, but—­oh, Mary, dear!”

With that Mary-dear straightened and, slipping her clutch to the lapel of his old coat, spoke.  She looked into his eyes with a smile that was sweeter—­oh, much sweeter!—­for tears that dimmed it, and she choked most awfully between words.  “Jim”—­and a choke.  “Jim, I’m terrified to think I nearly let you get away.  You.  And me not worthy to lace your shoes—­” ("Oh, gracious, Mary—­don’t!”) “me—­the idiot, backing and filling when I had the chance of my life at—­at a hero.  Oh, Jim!”

“Here!  Mary, don’t you understand?  I’ve been telling you I was scared blue.  I hated to tell you Mary, and it’s the devil to tell you twice—­”

What was this?  Did Heaven then sometimes come down unawares on the head of an every-day citizen with great lapses of character?  Jim Barlow, entranced, doubted his senses yet could not doubt the touch of soft hands clasped in his neck.  He held his head back a little to be sure that they were real.  Yes, they were there, the hands—­Barlow’s next remark was long, but untranslatable.  Minutes later.  “Mary, tell me what you mean.  Not that I care much if—­if this.”  Language grows elliptical under stress.  “But—­did you get me?  I’m—­a coward.”  A hand flashed across his mouth.