"Good-bye, dear. You'll promise to be here when I come back?"
"I shall be here."
"And you won't let anybody run away with you until I've had another chance?"
"Don't worry."
She watched the light of his car diminish until it vanished over the crest of the hill. A gathering sense of loneliness began to assail her, but with it was a feeling of freedom and purpose—the feeling that she was being left alone, clear of distraction, to fight her own fight and achieve her own destiny.
Archey Forbes was the next to go. His going marked a curious incident.
He had applied for a commission in the engineers, and his record and training being good, it wasn't long before he received the beckoning summons of Mars.
Upon the morning of the day when he was to leave New Bethel, he went to the factory to say good-bye. The one he wished to see the most, however, was the first one he missed.
"Miss Mary's around the factory somewhere," said a stenographer.
Another spoke up, a dark girl with a touch of passion in her smile. "I think Mr. Burdon is looking for her, too."