"I—I—no matter! I forgot myself, when Lanny had warned me not to go near the guns. My promise to him! My duty! I accept what I have prepared for myself—that is a soldier's code."
"But I shall not let you risk your life in this fashion."
"You—" A searching look—a look of fire—from his eyes into hers, which were bright with appeal.
"I feel that I have no right to let you go to your death by a firing squad," she interrupted hurriedly, "and I shall not! For I decide now not to allow the telephone to remain!"
"But my chance—my one chance to—"
"You have it there—happiness in the work you like, the work for which you seem to have been born—at least, a better work than spying and deceit—the right that you have won this morning there with the gun!"
"I"—he looked around at the automatic ravenously and fearsomely—"I—"
"It is all simply arranged. There is time for me to use the telephone before the Grays arrive. I shall tell Lanny why you took charge of the gun and how you handled it, and I know he will want you to keep it."
"And the uniform—the uniform again! Yes, the uniform—if only a gunner private's uniform!" he exclaimed in short, pulsating breaths of ecstasy.
"Yes, count on that, too! And good-by!"