Carley motored out there to find the hospital merely a long one-story frame structure, a barracks hastily thrown up for the care of invalided men of the service.  The chauffeur informed her that it had been used for that purpose during the training period of the army, and later when injured soldiers began to arrive from France.

A nurse admitted Carley into a small bare anteroom.  Carley made known her errand.

“I’m glad it’s Rust you want to see,” replied the nurse.  “Some of these boys are going to die.  And some will be worse off if they live.  But Rust may get well if he’ll only behave.  You are a relative—­or friend?”

“I don’t know him,” answered Carley.  “But I have a friend who was with him in France.”

The nurse led Carley into a long narrow room with a line of single beds down each side, a stove at each end, and a few chairs.  Each bed appeared to have an occupant and those nearest Carley lay singularly quiet.  At the far end of the room were soldiers on crutches, wearing bandages on their beads, carrying their arms in slings.  Their merry voices contrasted discordantly with their sad appearance.

Presently Carley stood beside a bed and looked down upon a gaunt, haggard young man who lay propped up on pillows.

“Rust—­a lady to see you,” announced the nurse.

Carley had difficulty in introducing herself.  Had Glenn ever looked like this?  What a face!  It’s healed scar only emphasized the pallor and furrows of pain that assuredly came from present wounds.  He had unnaturally bright dark eyes, and a flush of fever in his hollow cheeks.

“How do!” he said, with a wan smile.  “Who’re you?”

“I’m Glenn Kilbourne’s fiancee,” she replied, holding out her hand.

“Say, I ought to’ve known you,” he said, eagerly, and a warmth of light changed the gray shade of his face.  “You’re the girl Carley!  You’re almost like my—­my own girl.  By golly!  You’re some looker!  It was good of you to come.  Tell me about Glenn.”

Carley took the chair brought by the nurse, and pulling it close to the bed, she smiled down upon him and said:  “I’ll be glad to tell you all I know—­presently.  But first you tell me about yourself.  Are you in pain?  What is your trouble?  You must let me do everything I can for you, and these other men.”

Carley spent a poignant and depth-stirring hour at the bedside of Glenn’s comrade.  At last she learned from loyal lips the nature of Glenn Kilbourne’s service to his country.  How Carley clasped to her sore heart the praise of the man she loved—­the simple proofs of his noble disregard of self!  Rust said little about his own service to country or to comrade.  But Carley saw enough in his face.  He had been like Glenn.  By these two Carley grasped the compelling truth of the spirit and sacrifice of the legion of boys who had upheld American traditions.  Their children and their children’s children,