Poor old Pierre went from one to another with his question:
"Tell me about my Tom."
Tom had been transferred here, there, and everywhere. Only an occasional comrade who had left home with him had been near him overseas. But one or two had stories about Tom that soon became public property.
"Old Tom was always talking about being afraid," said one. "In the trenches, while we were waiting for orders, he'd beg us to see that if he were a coward his home folks might not know the truth. He always expected to be the cur, and then, when the order came, up the old duffer would get and scramble to the front as if he was hell-bound for suicide. It got to be a joke and the funny part was, when it was over, he never seemed to know he'd done the decent thing. He'd ask us how he had acted. He'd believe anything we told him. After awhile we got to telling him the truth."
Marcel wept beside her little row of graves after hearing about Tom and wished, at last, that a son of her own could be near that poor Tom of Margot's.
Jo's eyes shone and she looked at Donelle. She felt the girl's big heart throb with pity, but she knew full well that even in his tragic hour of triumph Tom had not called forth Donelle's love.
Sometimes she was almost angry at Donelle. Why could not the girl see what she had won, and glory in it? What kind of reward was it to be for Tom to have her "keep her promise?"
"Women were not worthy of men!" she blurted out to Anderson Law. "Think of those young creatures offering all they have to make a world safe for a lot of useless women!'
"They ought to be spanked, the useless women," Anderson remarked solemnly.
"That they should!" agreed Jo.