"I want to see you Anna. Please bring the morning papers, will you?"
She could not resist the pleading of the voice, and, besides, she had expected to see him again; but how could she read to him.
"I was intending to brush away a little of the dust of morning labor before coming to you," she remarked with a smile as she entered and took a seat beside the bed.
"Do a better thing, Anna, and brush away the dust from my hopes and out of my life! Would not that be a more merciful act?"
"Can I do all that, George?" and she laid her hand soothingly upon his white forehead.
"You ought to be able to do so, since it was your hands scattered it."
There was a long silence.
"Is it your purpose to go home and leave me here with your bloody spectre to haunt and distract me? Do I deserve such punishment? Should loyalty to my native land be crowned with such terrible thorns? You have confessed, Anna, that a few months ago you loved me, is that most holy attribute so easily uprooted? If so, then I have been mistaken in woman's heart?" He was looking in her face, that was thinner and, it may be, paler than he had ever seen it, and his manly nature came to the rescue. "Forgive me, Anna, I will not be so cruel! There is somewhere a God who will make all right in His own good time, as Old Auntie would say; and last night as Toby lay snoring on the lounge yonder, I thought it all over. Yes, there is a God; and it may be He is at work in this great war problem, and when the final result is summed up, we shall be glad that the storm passed this way, because of the happy issues. Who knows? But, dear girl, assure me of my guiltlessness in creating the blast, or the terrible lightning that is desolating so many hearts and homes! Will you?"
She raised her eyes to his face, and a smile broke over her own. "How low are the mighty fallen!" and a low, rippling laugh mingled itself with her words. "Did you ever imagine that I thought you such a great man, so strong and powerful?"
"My own Anna!" he exclaimed, taking her hand passionately in his. "You are not going to leave me comfortless, but will wipe away the mold from hopes, and thus brighten up the future by letting the sunshine in upon them again." He drew the beaming face down to his own and their lips sealed the contract of mutual love and forgiveness.